![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This article compares the image of the Arab in Israeli literature to the image of the enemy in Soviet literature. Focusing mainly on texts that describe the 1948 War of Independence written by Israeli authors of the so-called Palmah generation, it evaluates literary canons and their structures, namely the characters and plots. It finds a rare case of contact without influence whereby the massive presence of translated Russian works in Israeli cultural and literary life left little impact on original Hebrew literature of the time as far as the enemy’s image is concerned.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. In 1943, parts of the novel were published in Hebrew in Palmah publications, translated from the version published in the Soviet Znamia magazine. The Hebrew translations appeared almost simultaneously with the first Russian publications.
2. Shapira, Yehudim Hadashim, 114
3. Even-Zohar, ‘Polysystem Theory’, 287–310.
4. Bek, Anshei Panfilov.
5. Shapira, Land and Power, 305.
6. Gur, Pluga Dalet, 35–8.
7. Stites, ‘Soviet Wartime Culture’, 180–2.
8. Ibid., 411–3.
9. Werth, Russia at War, 595
10. Ehrenburg, The Tempering of Russia, 352–3.
11. Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall, 1945; and Herzog, Sex after Fascism; Reinisch, The Perils of Peace.
12. Granin: Nash kombat, 16.
13. Mosenzon, Michtavim min Hamidbar, 52.
14. Edar, Aharon Meshorerei haElokim, 78.
15. The Shaw Commission, led by Sir Walter Shaw, was established to investigate the violent rioting in mandatory Palestine in late August 1929. The inquiry’s conclusion stated that ‘the purchase of lands by Jewish Companies had been legal and fair to the tenants, but, at the same time, concluded that there was substance to the Arab claim that that Jewish land purchase did constitute a present danger to the Arabs’ national survival. The disturbances took the form, in the most part, of a vicious attack by Arabs on Jews accompanied by wanton destruction of Jewish property … A general massacre of the Jewish community at Hebron [and Safed] was narrowly averted. In a few instances, Jews attacked Arabs and destroyed Arab property. These attacks, though inexcusable, were in most cases in retaliation for wrongs already committed by Arabs in the neighborhood in which the Jewish attacks occurred’ (Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession, 125–27). In 1930, the next version of the White Paper was released with tightening restrictions on the entry of Jews into Palestine, which was a concession to the Arab leadership.
16. Frenkel, Prida.
17. Gluzman, Haguf Hatzioni.
18. Rancour-Laferriere, The Slave Soul. See also: Smirnov, Psychodiacronologika i psychoistoria Russkojeratury.
19. Zhirmunsky, “Comparative Literature,” 1.
20. A number of scholars wrote about the perception of the War of Independence and the emergence of the Jewish State as a trauma in Israeli literature. For example, Todd Hasak-Lowy sees in Yizhar’s stories about the War of Independence a reflection of the contradictions in the Israeli national consciousness. ‘Khirbet Khizeh was written at the moment at which the Jews’ return to history is realized, the moment at which the Jewish national collective joins the world community as sovereign nation-state. But it is also the story of national history as trauma for the national subject’ (Hasak-Lowy, Here and Now, 135). On the experience of trauma in the stories of Yizhar see also: Brenner, Inextricably Bonded, 153–154; Gertz and Hermoni, ‘Trail of War’, 205.
21. Hever, ‘Mapping Literary Spaces’, 210.
22. Almog, The Sabra.
23. Arbel, ‘Gavriut Venostalgia’, 16; and Schwartz, The Zionist Paradox, 146.
24. Gluzman, Haguf Hatzioni-leumit, 187–8.
25. Benbaji, Mendeleh Vehasipur Haleumi, 111.
26. Orpaz, Al Hodo shel Kadur.
27. Ehrenburg, We Will Not Forget, 32.
28. Shamir, Koho shel Geshem, 81.
29. Brenner, Ktavim, 1230–1.
30. Shapira, Yehudim Hadashim, 113.
31. Yizhar, ‘The Prisoner’, 171–2.
32. Ibid., 158.
33. Ibid., 156.
34. Ibid., 86.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid., 88.
37. Yizhar, Khirbet Khizeh, 109–10.
38. Yizhar, ‘The Prisoner’, 43.
39. Shapira, ‘Hirbet Khizah’, 96.
40. Ibid.
41. One of the peaks of this perverse martyrology was expressed in a poem by Yitzhak Laor, where he repeats the medieval blood libel that Jews (in this case ‘settlers’) kneaded matzah with the blood of Palestinian children.
42. Shapira, “Khirbet Hizah,” 104.
43. Megged, Yomo Ha’aharon shel Dani.
44. Tolstoy, “Hadji Murad,” 47–8.
45. Ibid., 345.
46. See Tsirkin-Sadan, “Tolstoy.”
47. Etkind, Chlyst, 166.
48. For details, see Rimon, “In the Desert,” 222–46.
49. Etkind, Internal Colonization.
50. Shteinberg, Kol Kitvei Yakov Shteinberg, 130.
51. Ibid., 131.
52. Ibid.
53. Tammuz, “The Swimming Contest,” 131.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid., 84.
56. Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew, 107.
57. Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, 181.
58. Hever, Modern Hebrew Canon.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Helena Rimon
Dr. Helena Rimon is a Senior Lecturer in the Israel Heritage Department, Ariel University of Samaria. Sphere of her scientific interests: Hebrew Literature, Comparative Poetics. her book “The Time and the Place of Mikhail Bakhtin” (2007) she examined the genre theory of M.M.Bakhtin and applied it to the history of Hebrew Literature. Her articles published in Russian English and Hebrew she deals with the questions of the comparative historical poetics of Hebrew and Russian Literature.
Ron Schleifer
Dr. Ron Schleifer specializes in the connected disciplines of communications, information warfare, history of propaganda, and the Middle East. He is a senior lecturer at Ariel University of Samaria. He founded the Ariel Research Center for Defense and Communications. His recent book on Psychological Warfare in the Arab-Israeli Conflict was published at Palgrave Macmillan.