"MHL Modern Hebrew Literature, No. III, Fall 2006, Culture and Conflict," Toby Press

Regarding myself as a relatively cultured person, one of my major regrets is that I have only a passing familiarity with modern Israeli literature. Here I am living in Israel for almost forty years and yet my knowledge of the literary scene amounts to no more than a claim that I have read, in translation, some of the country's more popular and better known authors such as Amos Oz, Meir Shalev and A.B. Yehoshua. And I can't really take any pride in this since I invariably read their novels at a time when everybody was talking about them and a book just drifted into my hand.

A very non-objective survey among my Anglo friends and acquaintances over the past few weeks indicates a similar dismal ignorance of Israeli writers. Whether due to our rudimentary languages skills or simply the ongoing struggle to earn our daily bread which leaves us so little time or energy to puzzle out a Hebrew text, we Anglos have failed, on the whole, to familiarize ourselves with the literature of our adopted country. Very possibly, many of us harbor a cultural snobbism - convinced that American and/or English literature is in any case superior to whatever else exists on the face of the earth, so why bother. Whatever the rationalization, whatever the specific nationality - Americans, Aussies, Brits, South Africans, Canadians, Irish - we all seem to be in the same boat, drifting along culturally, lost at sea.

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All is not lost; there is still hope for us who want to be saved. The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature and Toby Press have thrown us hapless Anglos a cultural lifeline in the form of MHL Modern Hebrew Literature, an English-language journal of contemporary Hebrew literature. The Institute's Web site describes the journal as a high quality publication designed "to help the foreign reader keep abreast of Israel's busy literary scene." Help is extended through translated excerpts of novels and short stories, articles on various literary topics, interviews with authors, poetry selections, and reviews of books recently published in Hebrew.

So far three issues have been published. This third volume of the journal, the subject of this review, is centered around a theme of Culture and Conflict. The introduction notes state with some degree of understatement: Conflict has been a staple of Israeli life for a long time now - with neighboring countries, with the Palestinians and also within Israeli society. Today, yesterday and at various points in the past, conflict - although too small a word - resonates in Jewish diasporic reality and in the shadow of the Holocaust that inhabits Israel's collective memory.

In expressing this theme, the journal presents us with a broad selection of Israeli writers, some of course quite well known such as S.Yizhar writing on the Jaffa riots of 1921; Aharon Appelfeld presenting a young boy's experience of the Holocaust; and Yoram Kaniuk describing a 1948 battle through the eyes of an anonymous soldier.

Conflict also springs from "controversy between cultural outlooks, to different value systems that face off, cannot accommodate one another or simply fail to understand one another." The journal's more contemporary authors deal with this theme: Orly Castel Bloom satirizing Israel's affluent, Dror Burstein on corruption; Meir Shalev and Miron Izakson on struggles about Jewish identity; and Michal Zamir on young girls in a male dominated army.

These are but a few of a total presentation of excerpts from the novels of some 16 authors. In addition we find an interview - the late chief editor of the series, Gershon Shaked discussing with A.B. Yehoshua the role of conflict in his writings in particular and Israeli literature in general; poetry by Haim Gouri, Raquel Chalfi and Israel Eliraz; and essays on S. Yizhar and the poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch. The latter part of the journal, in the form of reviews of various Israeli books that have been published over the past few years, introduces us to an additional eleven authors.

Aesthetically the book is very pleasing. It is not one of those bulky tomes that try to contain everything, but is comfortable to handle and very pleasing visually. Each selection is preceded by a photograph of the writer/poet as well as a half-page of biographical details and a few sentences about the novel from which the selection has been taken.

If I have a problem with the journal it is that the selections are really too short. It's as if one has been to a cocktail party, seen who's there but with very little opportunity to meet the people or even to taste what the waiter/waitresses are passing around as they whiz by. The 3-5 page excerpt from each author's novel is insufficient and dissatisfying and I think the editors should consider reducing the number of contributors in favor of lengthier selections. Indeed, the most satisfying selection was the only complete short story the journal offered, "Simyon" by Etgar Keret, about a young woman suddenly confronted with the army rabbis informing her of the death of a husband she has almost forgotten she had married. This was the first time that I had encountered this author and find myself very much interested in reading more of his works.

I also find it a bit odd that an organization devoted to translation barely gives credit to the individuals who translated the journal's various selections. While the names of the various translators follow the selections they translated, a few more details about the translators would be welcome and, I think, highly appropriate. Another minor quibble - on the cover we find the journal is Number 3, New Series, Autumn/Winter 2006/7. On the inside title page, we have No. III. Fall 2006 and the copyright is 2006. What precisely am I getting for my money? Autumn and Winter or just the Fall of 2006? One expects a respected publishing house such as the Toby Press to impose a greater degree of uniformity on its publications.

Despite these objections, the Institute and Toby Press have done an admirable job in presenting Israeli writers to cultural ignoramuses such as myself. At least we now have a frame of reference the next time we visit the local bookstore. The Institute was founded in 1962 to familiarize foreign readers with the best of modern Hebrew Literature, and today it "commissions, supervises and handles translations into 61 languages, working with specialists around the world." In addition to its translation activities, the Institute acts as literary agent to more than 180 leading authors and publishes an annual Bibliography of Modern Hebrew Literature with information about some 43,000 translations from Hebrew literature into 64 languages. For anyone interested in exploring Israeli literature, the Institute's Web site is a good place to start (http://www.ithl.org.il). It contains a list of close to 300 entries on writers ranging from classical Hebrew authors such as H. N. Bialik and Agnon to contemporary talents. Each entry includes a short biography, a photo and a detailed bibliography of the author's published works in Hebrew.