New Article: Walfish & Brody, How Religious Teachers View Problems in Bible Teaching

Walfish, Ruth A., and David L. Brody. “‘Students get bogged down’: How Religious Israeli Elementary Teachers View Problems and Solutions in Bible Teaching.” British Journal of Religious Education (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2015.1134442

 
Abstract

Bible teachers in contemporary society confront serious problems related to the nature of the biblical text and the socio-cultural context of their teaching. This study, based on semi-structured interviews, examines the problems that five expert religious Israeli elementary school teachers encounter in their teaching and the solutions they employ. Our findings show two major domains of pedagogic issues: unfamiliar biblical linguistics and problematic content. Teachers reported student difficulties in understanding biblical Hebrew. Problematic content includes irrelevant topics, emotionally laden material, and age inappropriate issues. Linguistic solutions relied on reading comprehension techniques and use of features specific to Bible reading such as diacritical marks. Regarding content issues, teachers were motivated by faith in the sanctity of the text to find effective solutions. These include selectivity, reinterpretation using homiletic tools, a holistic understanding and contextualising the narrative. Though teachers felt ill-prepared by their pre-service training in dealing with these challenges, they demonstrated resilience in their solution-oriented pedagogy. These findings suggest attention to mentoring and professional development, and to the creation of a community of practice to support teachers’ dealing with the ongoing challenges in their teaching.

 

 

New Article: Sherrard, American Biblical Archeologists’ Responses to the Six-Day War

Sherrard, Brooke. “Mystical Unification or Ethnic Domination? American Biblical Archeologists’ Responses to the Six-Day War.” Journal of the Bible and its Reception 3.1 (2016): 109-33.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jbr-2016-1002

 

Abstract

After the Six-Day War, members of the American Schools of Oriental Research experienced conflict over how and whether to maintain the organization’s policy on political neutrality. This article argues that ASOR members who supported Israel framed their views as theological, lauding the war for achieving a mystical unification of Jerusalem, while members who opposed the war’s outcome responded that appeals to theology and neutrality were being deployed to justify one ethnic group’s domination over another. I present two main examples, George Ernest Wright and Paul Lapp, and connect their scholarly views on objectivity versus relativism to their political views on the conflict. Wright, a biblical theologian, argued the Old Testament was an objective record of a religion revealed by God to the Israelites and defended the slaughter of Canaanites in terms that echoed justifications for Palestinian displacement. Conversely Lapp, who read the Old Testament as a polemical text, overtly connected his perspectivalism to his pro-Palestinian politics. In 1968 Wright clashed with ASOR residents, including Lapp, who protested Israeli plans to reroute a parade through recently captured areas of East Jerusalem. A reading of the correspondence record created after the protest analyzes the political implications of these differing scholarly positions.

 

 

 

New Article: Brueggemann, Reading the Bible amid the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict

Brueggemann, Walter. “Reading the Bible amid the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict.” Theology Today 73.1 (2016): 36-45.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0040573616630025

 

Abstract

The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is a difficult, complex interface in which new postures, new possibilities, and new dangers are constantly emerging, so that reiterations of old formulae are at best unhelpful. A biblical interpreter can make only a very modest contribution to that ongoing urgent conversation. In what follows I will seek to sort out some of the extrapolations that are made from the Bible. It is clear that the Bible, as the rabbis have always understood, is filled with playful ambiguity and supple plural possibilities. Where that ambiguity and suppleness of the Bible is flattened into an ideological certitude that yields specific benefit, we likely have a misreading of the Bible.

 

 

 

New Article: Nicholson, The Role of Historical Representations in Israeli-Palestinian Relations

Nicholson, Cathy. “The Role of Historical Representations in Israeli-Palestinian Relations: Narratives from Abroad.” Peace and Conflict 22.1 (2016): 5-11.

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pac0000143
 
Abstract

This study focuses on narratives of historical events that were discussed during open ended interviews about conflict and coexistence within Israeli–Palestinian relations. Jewish Israelis and Palestinians living in London often used historical events as a way of justifying a positioning of a perspective that was felt to be central to the conflict and its possible resolution. These historical themes included the Holocaust, Biblical interpretations, and the effects of Israel gaining statehood in 1948. Narrative research is useful to portray stories that reflect a description of a perceived social reality in order to gain understanding of the meanings people give to their lived experiences. The theory of social representations provides an opportunity to explore further a narrative approach that includes the significance of intersubjectvity across group boundaries. It was found that each group defined themselves through the perspectives of ‘the other,’ demonstrating how studying both groups together can highlight an understanding of the contextual processes that might lie between them. By exploring how these particular narratives have been anchored and objectified, we can plot how representations of past events are continually developing to reflect present day positioning and ideas for future action. Although representations of intractability between the 2 groups were present, the results did not suggest that this was the only perspective taken, as other futures were imagined where conflict plays a lesser role.

 

 

 

New Article: Cox, Israeli Technicians and the Post-Colonial Racial Triangle in Papua New Guinea

Cox, John. “Israeli Technicians and the Post-Colonial Racial Triangle in Papua New Guinea.” Oceania (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ocea.5100

 

Abstract

Papua New Guinean imaginings of Israel as a potential development partner draw on Christian renderings of the Bible, but they also reflect an understanding of Israel as a modern, technologically advanced nation. As middle-class Papua New Guineans reflect on the failures of national development since gaining independence from Australia, they express ambivalence about the appropriateness of Western models of development for the Papua New Guinean context. However, the influx of Asian investment is also seen as lacking, or even threatening; therefore, Asian models of development also fail to offer an appealing hope for the future. In this paper, I argue that these racialised understandings of modernity represent a ‘post-colonial racial triangle’, a discursive field within which the moral implications of development are understood and debated. Within this triangle, Melanesians are thought to have ‘culture’ and (Christian) ‘morality’ but lack ‘development’. Australians or ‘whitemen’ are thought to have ‘development’ and ‘morality’ but to lack ‘culture’. ‘Asians’ are thought to have ‘development’ and ‘culture’ but to lack (Christian) morality. Taking this moral framing of race into account, Israel emerges as a possible aid donor with the credentials to reconcile these three positions as it is seen to be the possessor of ‘development’, ‘culture’, and ‘morality’.

 

 

New Book: Levy, Israeli Theatre (in Hebrew)

Levy, Shimon. Israeli Theatre. Time, Space, Plot. Tel Aviv: Resling, 2016 (in Hebrew).

 

 

In the absence of a well-established tradition of drama, the new Hebrew theatre in Palestine at the beginning of the 20th century, is caught in a fruitful and fascinating bind. Processes of secularization and liberalization among world Jewry and pre-State Israel fostered openness towards the theatre. This relatively new art in Jewish tradition was also seen as entertainment, but in its early years it was primarily employed as an educational and ideological tool in the service of Zionist national needs in the struggle for the creation of a Hebrew culture. The dramatic nature of this change in the status of Jews and Israel not only summoned a revived reading of Jewish history, but also its staging, pun intended, on the Hebrew stage, in the Land of Israel, and of course – the Hebrew language.

This book addresses issues and topics of Israeli drama and theatre from a social-artistic perspective. The prologue treats the development of a Jewish-Hebrew-Israeli theatre against the backdrop of secularization of the Jewish community from the early 19th century to its flourish in contemporary Israel. The basic conditions for theatre in general and Israeli theatre in particular are discussed in a chapter on space in Israeli drama. Theatrical props are discussed in a chapter which examines the idiosyncrasy of local drama through one of the elements of its space design. The Hebrew Bible and Judaism are addressed in a chapter on secular sanctity, characteristic to our stage. Another component of Israeli identity, its attitude toward Arabs, wars and the protracted conflict, is discussed in a chapter entitled “captive in fiction.” A discussion of three giants in Israeli drama – Nissim Aloni, Joshua Sobol and Hanoch Levin – is structured by the meta-theatrical intentionalism of each of them. the Acco Festival, an annual event since 1980, is discussed as a key component in the Israeli theatrical scene. The book concludes with a eulogy for the Hebrew radio drama, a celebrated genre in its heyday until it was marginalized by television, but its significant contribution to Israeli drama nevertheless remains.

 

SHIMON LEVY is a Professor Emeritus of Theatre at Tel Aviv University, where he taught for many years, and was chair of the Department of Theatre Arts. His main areas of research are Hebrew-Israeli theatre and drama, the works of Samuel Beckett, and theories of chaos in relation to theatre. He has published dozens of articles, and hundreds of essays on theatre in Hebrew, English, and German, as well as about ten books. He has translated over 100 plays for the stage, and continues to be active as a director in Israel and abroad.

 

 

 

New Book: Bekerman, The Promise of Integrated Multicultural and Bilingual Education

Bekerman, Zvi. The Promise of Integrated Multicultural and Bilingual Education. Inclusive Palestinian-Arab and Jewish Schools in Israel. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

 

 

The Promise of Integrated and Multicultural Bilingual Education presents the results of a long-term ethnographic study of the integrated bilingual Palestinian-Jewish schools in Israel that offer a new educational option to two groups of Israelis–Palestinians and Jews–who have been in conflict for the last one hundred years. Their goal is to create egalitarian bilingual multicultural environments to facilitate the growth of youth who can acknowledge and respect “others” while maintaining loyalty to their respective cultural traditions. In this book, Bekerman reveals the complex school practices implemented while negotiating identity and culture in contexts of enduring conflict. Data gathered from interviews with teachers, students, parents, and state officials are presented and analyzed to explore the potential and limitations of peace education given the cultural resources, ethnic-religious affiliations, political beliefs, and historical narratives of the various interactants. The book concludes with critique of Western positivist paradigmatic perspectives that currently guide peace education, maintaining that one of the primary weaknesses of current bilingual and multicultural approaches to peace education is their failure to account for the primacy of the political framework of the nation state and the psychologized educational perspectives that guide their educational work. Change, it is argued, will only occur after these perspectives are abandoned, which entails critically reviewing present understandings of the individual, of identity and culture, and of the learning process.

 
Table of contents

• Introduction
• Part 1
• 1. Positioning the Author
• 2. Theoretical Perspectives
• 3. Methodology: From Theory to Implementation
• 4. Schools in Their Contexts
• Part 2
• 5. The Parents
• 6. Teachers at Their Work
• 7. The Children
• Part 3
• 8. School Routines: Culture, Religion, and Politics in the Classroom
• 9. Ceremonial Events
• 10. Conflicting National Narratives
• Part 4
• 11. The Graduates
• 12. Conclusions
• Author Index
• Subject Index

 

ZVI BEKERMAN teaches anthropology of education at the School of Education and The Melton Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His main interests are in the study of cultural, ethnic, and national identity, including identity processes and negotiation during intercultural encounters and in formal/informal learning contexts. He is particularly interested in how concepts such as culture and identity intersect with issues of social justice, intercultural and peace education, and citizenship education.

 

 

 

New Book: Kronfeld, The Full Severity of Compassion. The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai

Kronfeld, Chana. The Full Severity of Compassion. The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015.

 

Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000) was the foremost Israeli poet of the twentieth century and an internationally influential literary figure whose poetry has been translated into some 40 languages. Hitherto, no comprehensive literary study of Amichai’s poetry has appeared in English. This long-awaited book seeks to fill the gap.

Widely considered one of the greatest poets of our time and the most important Jewish poet since Paul Celan, Amichai is beloved by readers the world over. Beneath the carefully crafted and accessible surface of Amichai’s poetry lies a profound, complex, and often revolutionary poetic vision that deliberately disrupts traditional literary boundaries and distinctions. Chana Kronfeld focuses on the stylistic implications of Amichai’s poetic philosophy and on what she describes as his “acerbic critique of ideology.” She rescues Amichai’s poetry from complacent appropriations, showing in the process how his work obliges us to rethink major issues in literary studies, including metaphor, intertextuality, translation, and the politics of poetic form. In spotlighting his deeply egalitarian outlook, this book makes the experimental, iconoclastic Amichai newly compelling.

 

Table of Contents

• Introduction: “Be an Other’s, Be an Other”: A Personal Perspective
• 1 Beyond Appropriation: Reclaiming the Revolutionary Amichai
• 2 “In the Narrow Between”: Amichai’s Poetic System
• 3 “I Want to Mix Up the Bible”: Intertextuality, Agency, and the Poetics of Radical Allusion
• 4 Celebrating Mediation: The Poet as Translator
• 5 Living on the Hyphen: The Necessary Metaphor
• 6 Double Agency: Amichai and the Problematics of Generational Literary Historiography

 

CHANA KRONFELD is Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of On the Margins of Modernism: Decentering Literary Dynamics (winner of the MLA Scaglione Prize for Best Book in Comparative Literary Studies) and the co-translator (with Chana Bloch) of Yehuda Amichai’s Open Closed Open: Poems (winner of the PEN Translation Prize). Kronfeld is the recipient of the Akavyahu Lifetime Achievement Award for her studies of Hebrew and Yiddish poetry.

 

 

 

New Article: Masalha, Appropriation of Palestinian Place Names by the Israeli State

Masalha, Nur. “Settler-Colonialism, Memoricide and Indigenous Toponymic Memory: The Appropriation of Palestinian Place Names by the Israeli State.” Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies 14.1 (2015): 3-57.
 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/hlps.2015.0103

 

Abstract
Cartography, place-naming and state-sponsored explorations were central to the modern European conquest of the earth, empire building and settler-colonisation projects. Scholars often assume that place names provide clues to the historical and cultural heritage of places and regions. This article uses social memory theory to analyse the cultural politics of place-naming in Israel. Drawing on Maurice Halbwachs’ study of the construction of social memory by the Latin Crusaders and Christian medieval pilgrims, the article shows Zionists’ toponymic strategies in Palestine, their superimposition of Biblical and Talmudic toponyms was designed to erase the indigenous Palestinian and Arabo-Islamic heritage of the land. In the pre-Nakba period Zionist toponymic schemes utilised nineteenth century Western explorations of Biblical ‘names’ and ‘places’ and appropriated Palestinian toponyms. Following the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, the Israeli state, now in control of 78 percent of the land, accelerated its toponymic project and pursued methods whose main features were memoricide and erasure. Continuing into the post-1967 occupation, these colonial methods threaten the destruction of the diverse historical cultural heritage of the land.

 

 

 

Conference Program: NAPH 2015 (June 22 – 24, University of Memphis)

The preliminary program for the upcoming NAPH 2015 Conference at the University of Memphis is now complete and has been posted on its website. Click here for full program (PDF).

• Registration is now open for non-presenters. To register, please go to the above link and click on the “Conference Registration” feature. Banquet tickets can also be pre-purchased there.
• For information regarding the conference venue as well as conference accommodations, please visit: https://naphhebrew.org/conference/naph-conference-2015. Navigate to “Travel and Accommodations Info” feature for Travel and Accommodations information.
• Non-presenting members who are interested in chairing one of the conference sessions should complete the short webform at https://naphhebrew.org/conference-chairs.
• For those who wish to purchase additional kosher meals (other than the Banquet), they may be pre-purchased and delivered to the Holiday Inn every day during the conference. The meals will be double wrapped in a to-go box and delivered to the Holiday Inn. (They cannot be delivered to the Fogelman Convention Center as they will charge a costly delivery fee per order.) Double wrapped plastic cutlery will be also be provided.

 

Panels on Israeli Literature and Culture

 

Day 1 (June 22, Monday)

Session 1: 9:00-10:45

1.1 Literature: Literature and Politics

Batya Shimony, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

כבר לא קזבלן – ייצוגי החייל המזרחי בספרות העברית

Rima Shikhmanter, Tel Aviv University

הפנייה ימינה: הימין הפוליטי ברומן ההיסטורי הישראלי לילדים ולנוער

Tzipora Kedar, Zefat Academic College

“מרובעים” של דה-האן: פוליטיקאי מול משורר?

 

1.3 Pedagogy: Teaching the Hebrew Textual Tradition across Cultures

Organizer: Or Rogovin, Bucknell University

Or Rogovin, Bucknell University

The Hebrew Bible in Israeli and American Culture

Naomi Sokoloff, University of Washington

“Modern Poetry, Traditional Prayers: Teaching Jewish and Islamic

Traditions”

Edna Lauden, Tel Aviv University

“Take your son, your only son, whom you love…”: One story, Two

narratives.

 

Session 2 11:15-1:00

2.1 Literature: Female Master Poets: Yocheved Bat Miriam and Dalia Hertz

Organizer: Ruth Kartun-Blum, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Ruth Kartun-Blum, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

בת-מרים: משוררת למשוררים

Uzi Shavit, Tel Aviv University

עמי והם: התגובה השירית של שלונסקי ובת-מרים למלחמת העולם השנייה

והשואה בזמן אמת

Anat Weisman, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

דליה הרץ – משוררת לעצמה?

 

2.2 Literature: Studies in Modern Jewish Thought and Classical Hebrew

Fiction

Yoav Ronel, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

מלאך ההיסטוריה של ברדיצ’בסקי: תשוקה וכתיבה ברומן “מרים”

Laura Wiseman, York University

התרוצצות בין הקדרות: המתח בין הצמחונות לבין התשוקה לבשר ברומן

שירה מאת ש”י עגנון

Mark Kaplowitz, University of Memphis

Hermann Cohen, The Last Maskil

 

2.4 Pedagogy: On Teaching Hebrew in Israel and Around the World

Nataliia Bakulina, National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine,

Institute of Pedagogy, Kiev, Ukraine

הערכת הישגים לימודיים בעברית כשפה נוספת בבתי ספר יסודיים באוקרינה

Paul Overland & Jennifer Noonan, Ashland Theological Seminary; Liberty University Baptist Theological Seminary

Assets of Communicative Language Teaching for an Oral-Based Culture: a Field Report

Rachel Rosner, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; The David Yellin Academic College of Education

בחינת מונחים ועניינים בתכניות להוראת כתיבה במוסדות החינוך בישראל בראי תאוריות פילוסופיות

 

Session 3 2:30-4:15

3.1 Literature: The Displaced, the Detached, and the Hebrew Canon

Aviv Ben-Or, Brandeis University

The Arab-Jew as Displaced Intellectual in Shimon Ballas’ Fiction

Nancy Berg, Washington University in St. Louis

The Canon, the Academy, and shelilat hagolah

Ronit Gez, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

הגרסה הנשית לנארטיב התלוש בטרילוגיה – ‘בחינות’, ‘שוקולד’, ‘קיצו של זיו סנדר’ מאת דבורה בארון

 

Session 4 4:30-6:15

4.1 Literature: New Views of Time in Hebrew Literature

Organizer: Roy Greenwald, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Roy Greenwald, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

קול בלי בעלים: על משחק המבוכים בשירתה של יונה וולך

Hanna Soker-Schwager, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

“הכול כאן מולחם וחותך”– הצזורה בשירת חדווה הרכבי

Vered Shemtov & Elena Gomel, Stanford University; Tel Aviv University

Limbotopia: Being Stuck in the Continuous Present in Hebrew Literature

 

4.2 Literature: Hebrew Drama: Theory and Practice

Olga Levitan, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

זיכרון כמופע: שולחן על פי אידה פינק – יצירתה של נעמי יואלי

Israel Hameiri, University of Haifa; Oranim College

העיבוד הדרמתי, תיאוריה ופרקטיקה: ‘אכזר מכל המלך’ ו’בגדי המלך’ מאת נסים אלוני

 

Day 2 (June 23, Tuesday)

Session 5: 8:30-10:15

5.1 Literature: Studies in Works by Leah Goldberg, Avot Yeshuron, Erez Biton, and Haviva Pedaya

Sara Meyer, Haifa University

יסודות ארספואטיים בספרי הילדים של לאה גולדברג

Chaya Shacham, Haifa University

“זְמַנִי חָרוּט בְשִירַי”: גלגולם של חומרי מציאות מן היומן אל השיר ביצירת לאה גולדברג

Lilach Lachman, Haifa University

‘Revealment’ and Blindness in Hebrew Poetry: Avot Yeshurun, Erez Biton and Haviva Pedaya

 

5.2 Language: Language, Stylistics, Translation, and Rhetoric

Aharon Gaimani, Bar-Ilan University

לשון וסגנון באיגרות בשורת הפטירה כמנהג תימן

Mohammed Alghbban, King Saud University

Literary Translation Activity between Hebrew and Arabic

Adel Shakour, Al-Qasemi Academy

מאפיינים רטוריים בשיח הפוליטי של מנהיגים ערבים במדינת ישראל

 

Session 6 10:45-12:30

6.1 Literature: Archeology of a Future: Treasures from Hebrew Literary

Archives

Chair and respondent: Giddon Ticotsky, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Raquel Stepak, Tel Aviv University

שירי יהודה עמיחי מתקופת הצבא הבריטי בהקשר לכלל יצירתו הספרותית

Maayan Gelbard-Aziza, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

הדרך שלא נבחרה: מה מספרים המחזות הגנוזים של תרצה אתר?

 

6.2 Literature: Politics and Ethics

Amit Assis, McGill University

ס. יזהר: פואטיקה, פוליטיקה ושמירת הטבע

Renana Keydar, Stanford University

מיתוס הרב קוליות – על המתח שבין סיפור סיפורים ועשיית צדק במשפט אייכמן

Ari Ofengenden, Brandeis University

Globalization and Biodisaster in Contemporary Literature 2000-2015

 

6.3 Pedagogy: Language and Thought, Language and Culture

Esther Raizen, University of Texas at Austin

מקומן של מיומנויות חשיבה מסדר גבוה בכיתות הלשון

Arielle Friedman, Oranim Academic College of Education

כלי לניתוח סמיוטי של השפה הקולנועית: ניתוח הסרט הישראלי “שש פעמים” במסגרת חינוכית

Miri Talmon, Tel Aviv University

“Films from Here”: Discourses of Locality in Modern Israeli Culture

 

Session 7: 2:00-4:00

7.1 Literature: Home and Homelessness in Modern Hebrew Literature

Iris Milner, Tel Aviv University

קריאת התיגר על הבית ב”והיה העקוב למישור” לעגנון

Hannah Naveh, Tel Aviv University

ביתה של עקרת הבית: נשים בבית בסיפורי “משפחה” של דבורה בארון

Michael Gluzman, Tel Aviv University

חוסר-בית, נדודים, בריחה: גנסין בארץ ישראל

Uri Cohen, Tel Aviv University

ביותו של הכוח הזר: שכול וכישלון ומגילת אסתר כמודל מגדרי פוליטי

 

7.2 Literature: Hebrew Press and Hebrew Culture

Orly Tsarfaty, Academic College of Emek Yezreel

המאבק על הזיכרון: השיח על השואה בעיתון החרדי “משפחה” – כמרחב לכינון זהות תרבותית נבדלת

Michal Meishar, Bar-Ilan University

כתב העת ‘גזית’ כמעצב תרבות

Moshe Pelli, University of Central Florida

דרכי עריכה וסגנון של יהושע השל שור – החלוץ

Gideon Kouts, University of Paris – 8

מלחמה ושלום בעיתון “הלבנון”

 

8.1 Literature: Studies in Modern Hebrew Fiction: Nathan Shaham, Tsruya

Shalev, and A.B. Yehoshua

Ayala Amir, Bar-Ilan University, The Open University of Israel

הפרטים כפי שנצטלמו אז: מרחב, מראות וזיכרון ב”שבעה מהם” וב”הם יגיעו מחר” מאת נתן שחם

Yigal Schwartz, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

סיפור ההתקבלות ואמנות הסיפור של צרויה שלו

Gilead Morahg, University of Wisconsin-Madison

הגרושה המשחררת: ישן וחדש ב’’ניצבת’’ של א’’ב יהושע

 

8.2 Language: Early Modern Hebrew

Eran Buchaltzev, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

נברא במילים – ועד הלשון העברית ככוהני השפה הלאומית

Doly Levi, Levinsky College of Education

עיון לשוני סגנוני בפיליטון “בטלנות” של אלחנן לייב לוינסקי

Keren Mock, Ecole Normale Supérieure/ Sorbonne Paris Cité

הערך המילוני “מצפון”: מקורותיו בספרייתו של אליעזר בן-יהודה

8.3 Pedagogy: Israel in Short Films: Integrating Film into the Hebrew

Language Classroom

Isaac Zablocki, Director of the Israel Film Center at JCC Manhattan

This session will feature three Award Winning Short films and conversations coming out of Israel’s blossoming film industry followed by a demonstration of how films can be best integrated into the classroom.

 

Day 3 (June 24, Wednesday)

Session 9: 8:30-10:30

9.1 Literature: Studies in Current Hebrew Fiction; Part I: Leah Aini’s Works

Irit Ronen, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

הפואטיקה של לאה איני: שבירת הז’אנר

Ofra Matzov-Cohen, Ariel University

מעשה הנתינה ל’אחר’ ומשמעויותיו על פי הרומן ורד הלבנון מאת לאה איני

Talila Kosh-Zohar, Kibbuzim College of Education, Technology and Arts

חריגות והתנגדות: ייצוגי גוף בנובלה “בת המקום” של לאה איני

 

Session 10: 10:45-12:30

10.1 Literature: Studies in Current Hebrew Fiction; Part II Shimon Adaf and Merav Nakar-Sadi’s Works

Rina Baroukh, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

“החיתוך של האור מבעד רצף הזמן”: על האור ביצירתו בפרוזה של שמעון אדף

Hadas Shabat Nadir, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

חידת האחים המתים וגילויה של תורת סוד גנוזה ממרוקו בטרילוגיה “ורד יהודה” לשמעון אדף

Nurit Buchweitz, Beit-Berl University

NIMBY, or Multicultural Inclusion in Merav Nakar-Sadi’s Oxana

 

10.2 Language: Proper Names, Language in Advertising

Shlomit Landman, Achva Academic College

שמות פרטיים דו-מיניים עבור יילודים במגזר היהודי במדינת ישראל

Bat-Zion Yemini, Levinsky College and Talpiot College

השמות הפרטיים המקראיים והמודרניים– בבואה של מערכות שונות של זמן-אספקט-מודוס

Irit Zeevi, Oranim Academic College of Education and Emek Yezreel Academic College & Lee Cahaner, Oranim Academic College

שפת הפרסומת החרדית לנדל”ן כמייצגת את תפיסת המקום

 

Session 11: 2:00-3:45

11.1 Literature: Jewish Traditions and Modern Hebrew Literature

Zafrira Lidovsky Cohen, Stern College of Yeshiva University

“צדיק ורע לו”: מוטיב הצדיק בשירת אביגדור המאירי ואברהם שלונסקי

Moshe Yitzhaki, Oranim Academic College of Education

התקדשות ורליגיוזיות בחיי היום-יום: הצעה לקרוא ביצירות י.ח. ברנר כממשיך ומחדש מסורת מדרשי חז”ל

Moria Dayan-Codish, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

האסתטיקה החז”לית ביצירתו של שלום יעקב אברמוביץ

11.2 Language: Sociolinguistics, Linguistic Creativity, Morphology (Word Formation)

Esther Bahat, Tel Aviv University

“כשהתותחים רועמים – המוזות שותקות”. האומנם? יצירתיות בעיתונות הישראלית בתקופת מבצע “צוק איתן”

Marc Bernstein, Michigan State University

“Give Me Your Identity!”: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Arab Labor

Nimrod Shatil, Zefat Academic College

מקומו של המשקל במוח של דובר העברית בן-ימינו

 

ToC: Israel Affairs 21.1 (2015)

Israel Affairs, Volume 21, Issue 1, January 2015

 

This new issue contains the following articles:

Articles
Ethnic Income Disparities in Israel
Pnina O. Plaut & Steven E. Plaut
Pages: 1-26
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.984418

‘Mayhew’s outcasts’: anti-Zionism and the Arab lobby in Harold Wilson’s Labour Party
James R. Vaughan
Pages: 27-47
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.984420

Israel Negev Bedouin during the 1948 War: Departure and Return
Havatzelet Yahel & Ruth Kark
Pages: 48-97
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.984421

Good news: the Carmel Newsreels and their place in the emerging Israeli language media
Oren Soffer & Tamar Liebes
Pages: 98-111
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.984422

From ‘Rambo’ to ‘sitting ducks’ and back again: the Israeli soldier in the media
Elisheva Rosman & Zipi Israeli
Pages: 112-130
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.984423

Israel and the Arab Gulf states: from tacit cooperation to reconciliation?
Yoel Guzansky
Pages: 131-147
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.984424

Building partnerships between Israeli and Palestinian youth: an integrative approach
Debbie Nathan, David Trimble & Shai Fuxman
Pages: 148-164
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.984436

Book Reviews
Flexigidity: the secret of Jewish adaptability
David Rodman
Pages: 165-166
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.937913

Russia and Israel in the changing Middle East
David Rodman
Pages: 166-167
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.937914

Social mobilization in the Arab–Israeli war of 1948: on the Israeli home front
David Rodman
Pages: 167-169
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.937915

These are my brothers: a dramatic story of heroism during the Yom Kippur War
David Rodman
Pages: 169-171
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.937916

Jews and the military: a history
David Rodman
Pages: 171-173
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.937917

The Jewish revolt: ad 66–74
David Rodman
Pages: 173-173
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.937918

The city besieged: siege and its manifestations in the ancient Near East
David Rodman
Pages: 173-175
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.937919

The forgotten kingdom: the archaeology and history of northern Israel
David Rodman
Pages: 175-176
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.937920

Event: Ilana Pardes discusses her new book at Stanford, Sep 30, 2014

Agnon’s Moonstruck Lovers: The Song of Songs in Israeli Culture

Lecture and conversation with Ilana Pardes,

Professor of Comparative Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Tuesday, September 30, 4:00pm  

Building 260, Room 252 

Stanford University

In adopting the Song of Songs, Zionist interpreters sought to return to the erotic, pastoral landscapes of biblical times. Their quest for a new, uplifting, secular literalism, however, could not efface the haunting impact of allegorical configurations of love. 

 

“This new study confirms Ilana Pardes as one of the most deeply interesting scholars in the field of comparative literature.”
-Robert Alter, University of California, Berkeley

Presented by the Taube Center for Jewish Studies in collaboration with Hebrew@Stanford and the Department of Comparative Literature.

 

New Book: Pardes, Agnon’s Moonstruck Lovers

Pardes, Ilana. Agnon’s Moonstruck Lovers. The Song of Songs in Israeli Culture, Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2014.

 

 

Agnon’s Moonstruck Lovers explores the response of Israel’s Nobel laureate S. Y. Agnon to the privileged position of the Song of Songs in Israeli culture. Standing at a unique crossroads between religion and secularism, Agnon probes the paradoxes and ambiguities of the Zionist hermeneutic project. In adopting the Song, Zionist interpreters sought to return to the erotic, pastoral landscapes of biblical times. Their quest for a new, uplifting, secular literalism, however, could not efface the haunting impact of allegorical configurations of love. With superb irony, Agnon’s tales recast Israeli biblicism as a peculiar chapter within the ever-surprising history of biblical exegesis.

Ilana Pardes is professor of comparative literature at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction: Upon the Handles of the Lock

2. The Song of Songs as Cultural Text: From the European Enlightenment to Israeli Biblicism

3. Rechnitz’s Botany of Love: The Song of Seaweed

4. The Biblical Ethnographies of “Edo and Enam” and the Quest for the Ultimate Song

Epilogue
Forevermore

Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index

 

ToC: Journal of Israeli History, 32.2 (2013)

Ben-Gurion’s view of the place of Judaism in Israel

Nir Kedar
pages 157-174

DOI:10.1080/13531042.2013.822728

 

Yom Kippur and Jewish public culture in Israel

Hizky Shoham
pages 175-196

DOI:10.1080/13531042.2013.822732

 

Returning to religious observance on Israel’s non-religious kibbutzim

Lee Cahaner & Nissim Leon
pages 197-218

DOI:10.1080/13531042.2013.822727

 

Holocaust memory in ultra-Orthodox Society in Israel: Is it a “counter-memory”?

Michal Shaul
pages 219-239

DOI:10.1080/13531042.2013.822731

 

In search of Ahad Ha’am’s Bible

Alan T. Levenson
pages 241-256

DOI:10.1080/13531042.2013.822729

 

Israeli Intelligence and the leakage of Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech”

Matitiahu Mayzel
pages 257-283

DOI:10.1080/13531042.2013.822730

 

Book Reviews

 

The Political Philosophy of Zionism: Trading Jewish Words for a Hebraic Land

Noam Pianko
pages 285-286

DOI:10.1080/13531042.2013.829663

 

Law and the Culture of Israel

Nir Kedar
pages 286-290

DOI:10.1080/13531042.2013.824730

 

The Fervent Embrace: Liberal Protestants, Evangelicals, and Israel

Jonathan Rynhold
pages 290-293

DOI:10.1080/13531042.2013.824731

 

Israel and the European Left: Between Solidarity and Delegitimization

Eli Tzur
pages 293-297

DOI:10.1080/13531042.2013.824732

 

Editorial Board

Editorial Board

DOI:10.1080/13531042.2013.849091

 

Cite: Durbin, Christian Zionism as American Redemption

Durbin, Sean. “‘I am an Israeli’: Christian Zionism as American Redemption.” Culture and Religion 14.3 (2013): 324-47.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14755610.2012.758161\

 

Abstract

This article argues that discourse used to define and understand Israel
by prominent American Christian Zionists is a discourse of national
idealisation. Drawing on Durkheim’s (2008)
notion of symbols as sources of social solidarity, I argue that this
imagined Israel reflects conservative social and military values that
are shared among Christian Zionists and their supporters – values which
many in this broad category see the United States failing to uphold.
Following this, I show how one of America’s most prominent pastors –
John Hagee – and his organisation – Christians United for Israel – have
taken on the role of a contemporary Jeremiah, criticising the American
government for not adequately supporting Israel. This article concludes
by considering how Christian Zionists are calling America to renew and
align itself with God by ‘blessing’ Israel, and acting like Israel.

ToC: Israel Studies 17,3 (2012)

URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.17.issue-3

• SPECIAL SECTION: Israel’s Foreign Relations — Asian Perspectives

  1. 

     China’s Relationship with Israel, Opportunities and Challenges, Perspectives from ChinaChina’s Relationship with Israel, Opportunities and Challenges, Perspectives from China(pp. 1-21)

     Yiyi Chen

     DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.1

     Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.1

  2. 

     Indians and Israelis: Beyond Strategic PartnershipsIndians and Israelis: Beyond Strategic Partnerships(pp. 22-44)

     Maina Chawla Singh

     DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.22

     Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.22

  3. 

     Turkey and Israel in the 2000s—From Cooperation to ConflictTurkey and Israel in the 2000s—From Cooperation to Conflict(pp. 45-66)

     Özlem Tür

     DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.45

     Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.45

• Literature and Music

  1. 

     Samson’s Suicide: Death and the Hebrew Literary CanonSamson’s Suicide: Death and the Hebrew Literary Canon(pp. 67-91)

     Rachel S. Harris

     DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.67

     Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.67

  2. 

     Contested Zionist Masculinity and the Redemption of the Schlemiel in Levi Aryeh Arieli’s “Allah Karim!”Contested Zionist Masculinity and the Redemption of the Schlemiel in Levi Aryeh Arieli’s “Allah Karim!”(pp. 92-118)

     Philip Hollander

     DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.92

     Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.92

  3. 

     Israeli Art Music: A ReintroductionIsraeli Art Music: A Reintroduction(pp. 119-149)

     Assaf Shelleg

     DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.119

     Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.119

• Article

  1. 

     The Construction of Ethnic Identity in the Military—From the Bottom UpThe Construction of Ethnic Identity in the Military—From the Bottom Up(pp. 150-175)

     Dana Kachtan

     DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.150

     Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.150

• Zionist Dialectics

  1. 

     Zionism’s Conflicting Founding Designs and Their Ideological ImpactZionism’s Conflicting Founding Designs and Their Ideological Impact(pp. 176-190)

     Meir Seidler

     DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.176

     Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.176

• 

  Notes on ContributorsNotes on Contributors(pp. 191-192)

  DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.191

  Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.191

• 

  Guidelines for ContributorsGuidelines for Contributors(pp. 193-195)

  DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.193

  Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.17.3.193

Cite: Schwartzmann, The Book of Esther— A Case Study of Ideological Interpretation

Schwartzmann, Julia. “The Book of Esther— A Case Study of Ideological Interpretation.” Shofar 29.4 (2011): 124-147.

–

URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/shofar/v029/29.4.schwartzmann.html

–

–

Abstract

Each generation of commentators has imprinted the Book of Esther with its own values and world views. The present article deals with the commentary of Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, one of the leading figures of religious Zionism, on Esther as a case study of the religious Zionist interpretation of this book. Committed both to Zionist ideology and to the Biblical canon, Aviner is determined to find a way to reject the exilic ambiance of the Book of Esther without tarnishing its two principal protagonists. He invests this story of courtly intrigue with modern insights and validates its religious and moral value for his vibrant, well informed readers. In Aviner’s interpretation the story of Esther and Mordecai is no longer that of two successful Diaspora Jews who find themselves involuntarily caught up in the antisemitic plot of a lone evildoer; rather, it becomes the story of the daring struggle of two indefatigable warriors standing shoulder to shoulder in total combat against the forces of evil.

Cite: Weiss, Landscape at the Ben Gurion Airport

Weiss, Elliott. “Establishing Roots at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport Garden: Landscapes of National Identity.” National Identities 12.2 (2010): 199-210.

 

URL: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a922322109

Abstract

With the understanding that the planning of public space is a discursive practice, this article examines the cultural meanings encoded in the design of the grounds around Israel’s main airport, Ben Gurion International. Using the example of Terminal 3, the article discusses how the State of Israel leverages landscaped space as an ideological tool in the struggle for control over symbolic expressions of national identity. The design decisions here are framed in the context of the all important Zionist trope of ‘redemption’, or land reclamation in the image of Zion. The airport’s ‘Seven Species Garden’ is explained as part of a widespread mythology of an autochthonous people/land bond, deeply rooted in Jewish-Israeli consciousness, which draws upon the Bible for territorial legitimacy and national identity. Finally, the Orientalist bias betrayed in the airport grounds effectively bars entry of the county’s largest minority to the ‘gateway’ of Israeli national space because such references are based on ethnicity.