HEBREW 61
Topics in Modern Hebrew Literature
Intro to Israeli Culture: Literature, Music, Film
Lewis Glinert
Office: 305 Bartlett Hall
Description
This course is a wide-ranging survey of Israeli literature, cinema and popular music against their social and historical backdrop of state-building, war, secular-religious strife, and the Holocaust. In seeking to build a society on a radically self-reliant, secular Jewish self-image, Israelis have created a culture that is a complex interplay of traditional Jewish cultures, Mid Eastern, Western and East European motifs, and features that are uniquely Israeli. You will study the meaning made of Masada, the Sabra, the Kibbutz, the celebration of landscape, labor, and Biblical memory. The arts of the last 30 years reflect a rapid Westernization -- and now the trauma of the Gulf War, the death of Yitzhak Rabin and expectations of peace have injected turmoil into old certainties. No Hebrew required.
Course requirement
There will be a midterm and a final examination, and one or two thematic projects, for which you will do library research, write up your findings and describe them briefly in class.
Textbooks
You will be given various papers to photocopy.
The following books are required and can be purchased at the bookstore:
- Carmi, T (ed) The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse
- Elon, Amos The Israelis: Founders And Sons, Penguin, 1981.
- Katriel, Tamar. Communal webs: Communication and culture in contemporary Israel. SUNY Press, 1991
- Oz, Amos. My Michael, Knopf, 1971
- Zerubavel, Yael. Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition. University of Chicago Press, 1994,
The following have been placed on 24-hour reserve in Baker Library:
- Bar-Adon, Aaron The rise and decline of a dialect.
- Chomsky, William. Hebrew: The Eternal Language.
- Elon, Amos The Israelis: Founders and Sons, Penguin, 1981
- Fellman, Jack. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and the Revival of a Classical Tongue
- Fishman, Joshua A. Language and Nationalism.
- Schechtman, Joseph Jabotinsky: Rebel and statesman
- Seidman, Naomi. A marriage made in heaven: The sexual politics of Hebrew and Yiddish
- Sivan, Reuven. The revival of the Hebrew language.
- Spiegel, Shalom. Hebrew Reborn.
Schedule
Week1:
Topic: The historical background
Reading :
Seltzer, 634-642, 655-8
Lossin, selections
Bialik, C.N. On the Slaughter, [poem] in Carmi p. 512
Listening: Land of our Fathers: Songs of Israel's Pioneers
Tongue of Tongues, BBC Radio documentary
Week 2:
Topic: 1880-1948 -- the construction of a Hebrew culture
Reading:
Lossin, selections
Harshav. Language in time of revolution, selections
Zerubavel. Recovered Roots, ch. 2 (13-36), ch. 3 (39-47), ch. 6 (79-95)
Elon The Israelis: Founders And Sons, ch 6 (106-147)
Even-Zohar, Itamar. 'The emergence of a native Hebrew culture in Palestine: 1882-1948', Studies in Zionism 4, 1981, 167-84.
Shlonsky, A. Toil [poem] , in Carmi p.534
Week 3:
Topic: Reinterpreting Judaism
Reading:
Liebman and Don-Yehiya, 25-80
Zerubavel, Recovered Roots ch.4 (48-59), ch 7 (96-113)
Ratosh [poem] The Soul Of, in Carmi p. 544-6
Gilboa [poems] Isaac; Moses in Carmi p. 560-1
Tal, Miriam 'The beginnings of Modern Israeli art', Ariel 38, 1975, 54-67.
Listening: Songs of the Bible and the Festivals
Viewing: The Wooden Gun
Week 4 :
Topic: Early statehood: New rituals and communal forms
Reading:
Dolev-Gandelman, Tsili, 'Why the native Israeli is called Tsabar', in Goldberg, 257-284
Oring, Israeli Humor 23-86, 122-130.
Shamir, M He Walked in the Fields [drama]
Megged, Aharon. Geshem Nedavot
Guri [poem] Heritage in Carmi p. 565
Spiro, Kibbutz: Venture in Utopia. (selections)
Handelman and Katz, 'State ceremonies of Israel: Remembrance Day and Independence Day' in Handelman, Models and Mirrors 191-233.
Listening: Songs of the Palmah
Weeks 5:
Topic: In the wake of the holocaust : bonding a society of immigrants
Reading:
Katriel, Communal webs 51-70, 11-34, 151-166
Amihai [poem] Out of Three or Four in a Room in Carmi p. 569
Liebman, C. 'Myth, Tradition and Values in Isr Society', Midstream 24 (Jan 1978), 44-53.
Amihai, The Times my Father Died. [short story]
Amihai, The Battle on the Hill. [short story], in Alter 195-231
Pagis [poem] Written in Pencil in Carmi p.575
Greenberg [poem] The Severing of a Wing, in Carmi p. 531-2
Appelfeld, A. Kitty [short story]
Viewing: The Summer of Aviya
Week 6:
Topic: Tel Aviv vs Jerusalem and the loss of innocence
Reading:
Zerubavel, Recovered Roots, ch.9 (147-177)
Amihai [poem] On the Day of Atonement in Carmi p. 571
Zach [poem] A Moment in Carmi p. 576
Ravikovitch [poem[ Mechanical Doll in Carmi p. 578
Ofrat, Gideon 'Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem art', Ariel 50, 1979, 45-62.
Goldberg [poem] Tel-Aviv 1935, in Carmi . p. 553-4
Greenberg [poem] On a Night of Rain in Jerusalem in Carmi p.530-1
Har-Even, City of Many Days [novel]
Oz, My Michael
Shaked, Gershon 'Waves and currents in Hebrew fiction in the past 40 years', Modern Hebrew Literature 1, 1988, 4-12.
Listening: Jerusalem the Golden and other songs by Naomi Shemer
Week 7:
Topic: Facing the Other
Reading:
Hazaz, Rahamim [short story] in Alter, Modern Hebrew Literature 257-264.
Shohat, Israeli Cinema 115-55.
Oz, Where the Jackals Howl [short story] in Oz Where the Jackals Howl and Other Stories
Yehoshua, A.B. Facing the Forests. [short story]
Morag, Gileadh, 'New images of the Arab in Israeli fiction', Prooftext 6, 1986, 147-62.
Viewing: Sallah Shabati
Week 8:
Topic: Sephardi tradition transformed
Reading:
Halper, F, E Seroussi & P Squires-Kidron, 'Musika Mizrahit: Ethnicity and class culture in Israel', Popular Music 8, 1989, 131-41.
Regev, M. 'Musical landscape as a contested area: Oriental music and Israeli popular music', Media, Culture and Society 8, 1986, 343-55.
Shiloah, A & E Cohen, 'The dynamics of change in Jewish Oriental music in Israel', in Weingrod, 117-45.
Goren, A 'The ethnic dance in Israel', Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Newsletter 8, 1986, 1-6.
Staub, S 'Yemenite Jewish culture and dance: Popular myths and indigenous activities in Israeli context', Israeli Dance, 1987, 11-18.
Goldberg, Harvey, 'The Mimouna and the minority status of Moroccan Jews', Ethnology 17, 1978, 75-87.
Listening: Zohar Argov: Greatest Hits
Week 9:
Topic: Ultraorthodox and Secular:The culture war of the 90s
Reading:
Friedman, M 'Haredim confront the Modern City', in Medding, 74-96
Heilman, S. The People of the Book, 61-110.
Zelda [poem] Then my Soul Cried Out, in Carmi p. 557
Shaked, Gershon 'Hebrew prose in the 1990s: Darkness under the sun', Modern Hebrew Literature 11, 1993, 4-8
Sobol, Soul of a Jew. [drama]
Avigal, S 'Hebrew theatre in the 1990s: Everyone wants to live', Modern Hebrew Literature 11, 1993, 23-25
Glinert, L. 'What's Gone Wrong with Israel's Right?', Shofar 13, 1995, 83-85.
Glinert, L. ‘And in his death they were divided’, Midstream, Jan 1998
Listening: Keshet Be-Anan
* If you have any questions about this course, you can reach Prof. Glinert at Lewis.H.Glinert@Dartmouth.EDU.
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