Abstract
The purpose of this course is to familiarize Greek students with the wide spectrum of Modern Hebrew Literature as a healing procedure of many traumas: i.e. the Shoah, the war, the transition from the Diaspora to the new state, the abandonment of the first language(s) of the Diasporic Jews and their replacement by Modern Hebrew.
Beginning with Second Aliyah writer Shmuel Yosef Agnon, we will survey the struggle between the old traditional Jewish life in the shtetl and the modern world. We will read excerpts of the listed novels of Aharon Appelfeld and Gila Almagor’s The Summer of Aviya and discuss the healing effects of literature for first and second generation Shoah survivors. Then, through the novels of the “three tenors” of Israeli literature (Amos Oz, A. B. Yehoshua and David Grossman), we will examine their efforts to “narrate the nation” and to overcome their collective and personal traumas through their literary works. We will end the prose readings with Etgar Keret’s short stories, including “Razor Blade”, a short story from his exhibition at the Jewish Museum of Berlin entitled “Inside Out”, about his late mother who was a Shoah survivor.
Readings will include poetry works from the Jewish Revival (Chaim Nachman Bialik, Shaul Tchernichovsky) as well as poems from the Palestinian generation authors (Avraham Shlonsky, Lea Goldberg), the State generation (Zelda, Chaim Guri, Amir Gilboa, Yehuda Amichai, Natan Zach), and also the works of late twentieth and twenty- first century poets (Dahlia Ravikovitch, Rami Saari, Amir Or, Adi Keissar).
We will also discuss the literary works of Palestinian/Arab and Druze Citizens of Israel (Anton Shammas, Sayed Kashua and Naim Araidi) who write literature in Hebrew and their struggle to redefine their own identity through literature.
The course will consist of 7-8 weeks of lectures followed by discussion after each lecture, 6 screenings of feature and documentary films and 1-2 weeks of oral presentations as final assessment.
Readings will include novels, short stories and poems in Greek translation.