Republic of the Philippines

Bohol Island State University Calape Campus

San Isidro, Calape, Bohol

Name: Laurence Julienne Salubre Score:

Course & Year: BSED English 3
Submitted to: Mrs. Mirasol D. Gaoiran
Final Project in EL-114

ISRAEL

Israel is small country in the Middle East, about the size of New Jersey, located on
the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and bordered by Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and
Syria. The nation of Israel—with a population of more than 9 million people, most of them
Jewish—has many important archaeological and religious sites considered sacred by Jews,
Muslims and Christians alike, and a complex history with periods of peace and conflict.

Early History of Israel

The birthplace of the Jewish people is the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael). There, a
significant part of the nation’s long history was enacted, of which the first thousand years
are recorded in the Bible; there, its cultural, religious, and national identity was formed; and
there, its physical presence has been maintained through the centuries, even after the
majority was forced into exile. During the many years of dispersion, the Jewish people never
severed nor forgot its bond with the Land. With the establishment of the State of Israel in
1948, Jewish independence, lost 2,000 years earlier, was renewed. Archeology in Israel
involves the systematic investigation of all the remains of the country’s past – from
prehistory to the end of Ottoman rule. The profusion of material remains is evidence of the
many cultures that have left their imprint on the Land.
Above all archeological research clearly reveals the historical link between the
Jewish people, the Bible and the Land of Israel, uncovering the remains of the cultural
heritage of the Jewish people in its homeland. These visible remains, buried in the soil,
constitute the physical link between the past, the present and the future of the Jewish
people in its country. This unbroken chain of history can be observed at sites all over the
country. Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, has been the focus of extensive archeological
activity and remains of 5,000 years of history have been revealed.

Culture
The diverse culture of today’s Israel is partly the result of the return of Jews from
Diaspora settlements across the world to their ancient homeland, bringing with them their
own traditions formed over hundreds of years of isolated and persecuted exile spent in
shtetls (towns) and gated ghettos. Rooted in the religious and secular traditions of
millennia, as well as in the history of the Diaspora and the ideological Zionist movement,
Israeli culture’s flexibility in embracing modern-day changes reflects the country’s unique
spirit. Trends from all over the world are accepted with enthusiasm and integrated into the
country’s rich heritage. At the same time, the unique and varied Jewish religious traditions
are linked with the nationalistic Zionism born as a reaction to anti-Semitism during the
Diaspora years. Contrasts are huge here, from the secular culture of modern Tel Aviv to the
Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jewish sects in ancient Jerusalem.
Mixed in are the traditions born of hundreds of years of settlement of Muslim,
Ethiopian, Orthodox and other Christian communities, as well as strong family and
community ties and immense patriotism. Music of all kinds from traditional to contemporary
is a major cultural aspect, and the nation is especially proud of its famous classical musicians
and many orchestras. Israeli dance companies such as Bat Dor and Batsheva are highly
acclaimed and traditional dance is a feature at all celebrations and ceremonies such as Bar
Mitzvahs and weddings. Encounters between Western and Eastern artistry have given rise
to adventures in modern art forms, with the country’s magnificent geographic features
providing inspirations of shape and line. Israel’s literary scene sprang into life in the late 19 th
century with Hebrew works rooted in the traditions of Jews from all over Europe. Many of
the early writings focused on the loss of traditional lifestyles leading to a loss of faith and
cultural identity, a concern still evident in Orthodox communities today. The Sabra culture of
the kibbutz generation is immortalized in many post-independence works.
Theater and cinema are slowly moving away from the post-independence focus on
the Holocaust, Sabra and national identity, although these themes are still popular with
many Israelis. Half of the performances are produced locally and are stylistically diverse, and
film-making, inaugurated in the 1950’s, is still focused on purely Israeli experiences such as
the Aliyah’s and the problems adjusting to a new way of life. From ancient times, physical
fitness has been a strong part of Jewish culture for its use in preventing illness, and the
country holds its own ‘Olympics’ every four years – the Maccabiah Games, restricted to
Israeli athletes. Basketball and football are the most popular sports, and the outdoor sports
culture sees hikers and campers flooding to the country’s national parks and raising their
families to love outdoor pursuits. Israelis are also known for being especially fit, as they are
all, male and female, required to serve two years in the army before attending college.
Israelis are often considered brusque or even rude by Western visitors, but this is customary
rather than deliberate, and honesty, directness, openness and warmth are the norm here.
Israelis tell it like it is – a rare trait in the politically correct world. Hospitability is
commonplace and locals delight in sharing their beloved country with visitors. Remember,
it’s only technically been an independent country for 50 or so years, so everyone that lives
there moved there by choice. You may be invited to share a meal in an Israeli home and
presented with huge quantities of food. Getting drunk is considered impolite, as is backing
away from an Israeli during a conversation, they are close talkers by Western standards.

ISRAELI LITERATURE

Hebrew Literature
Hebrew literature, the body of written works produced in the Hebrew language and
distinct from Jewish literature, which also exists in other languages. Literature in Hebrew
has been produced uninterruptedly from the early 12 th century BC, and certain excavated
tablets may indicate a literature of even greater antiquity. From 1200 BC to c. AD 200,
Hebrew was a spoken language in Palestine, first as biblical Hebrew, then as Mishnaic
Hebrew, a later dialect that does not derive directly from the biblical dialect and one that
gained literary status as the Pharisees began to employ it in their teaching in the 2 nd century
BC. It was not revived as a spoken language until the late 19 th century, and in the 20th century
it was adopted as the official language of the new State of Israel. The latter event gave
impetus to a growing movement in Hebrew literature centered in Israel.
Hebrew literature is not synonymous with Jewish literature. Some Hebrew writing
was produced by the Samaritans and in the 17 th century by Protestant enthusiasts. Jews also
produced important literatures in Greek, Aramaic, Arabic, Judeo-Spanish (Ladino), Yiddish,
and a number of other languages. Apart from the Aramaic writings, however, such
literatures always served only that part of Jewry using the language in question. When the
community ceased to exist, the literature produced in that language was forgotten (or, in
the case of Greek Jewish literature, became part of Christian tradition) except for whatever
part of it had been translated into Hebrew and thus became part of Hebrew literature.
The Hebrew language, though not spoken between c. AD 200 and the late 19 th
century, has always adapted itself to the needs of changing literary tastes. In the Bible it
develops from a simple and earthy idiom to a language suitable for the expression of
sophisticated religious thought without losing the poetic force and rhythmic fullness that
characterizes it. Mishnaic Hebrew is pedestrian and exact, and yet it can reach heights of
irony or of warmth. In medieval poetry Hebrew allows extravagant displays of verbal artistry
but also, in northwestern Europe, a simplicity equal to that of the spoken languages of its
milieu. One generation of translators in the 12 th century created a scientific Hebrew that is
not inferior to contemporary Arabic or Latin in precision or syntactic refinement. The 17 th–
19th centuries saw the formation of a stately, rigid, classical style based on biblical Hebrew,
but at the same time eastern European mystics made the language serve the expression of
their love of God. Literary Hebrew in the 20 th century draws upon ancient literature to a
marked degree, with styles often modeled upon ancient predecessors. The modern period
has also evolved a new type of language for nonliterary writing, while in novels the style is
often based upon the spoken language.

Ancient Hebrew literature

 Preexilian period, c. 1200–587 BC

All that is preserved of the literature of this period is slightly more than 20 of the 39
books included in the Old Testament (the remainder being from the next period). Poetry
probably preceded prose. Biblical poetry was based on the principle of parallelism; i.e., the
two halves of a verse express the same idea, either by repeating it in different words or by
stressing different aspects of it. Examples are found in the book of Psalms: “But they
flattered him with their mouths; they lied to him with their tongues” (Ps. 78:36); “He turned
their rivers to blood, so that they could not drink of their streams” (Ps. 78:44). To this form
was added a simple rhythm, consisting mainly in having each half of a line divided into an
equal number of stressed words. There were also folk songs, to which belonged perhaps
large parts of the Song of Solomon, dirges, epic chants, and psalms. The use of various
forms of poetry in the work of the prophets appears to be a later development.
The earlier prose texts were still very close to poetry in structure and language. The
first real prose may well have been some of the laws recorded in the Pentateuch. In
Jeremiah and Deuteronomy a high standard of prose rhetoric was achieved: some of the
conversations in the historical books were attempts to reproduce in writing the style of
ordinary speech.

 Period of the Second Temple, 538 BC–AD 70

The literary output of this period was large, only part of it belonging to the biblical
canon. The biblical Hebrew of the writings was artificial because it had ceased to be spoken
and had been replaced by Aramaic, a related Semitic language, and Mishnaic Hebrew. Works
that are included among the Dead Sea Scrolls belong to this period. Some of these works
provide evidence of a new kind of writing, the homiletic, or sermonizing, commentary to the
Bible called Midrash. The only work of real literary merit among the scrolls is the fervent
personal poetry of the Hymns of Thanksgiving.
Parts of the biblical books of Ezra and Daniel and certain works among the Dead Sea
Scrolls are in an early form of Aramaic. This period also began to provide translations (called
Targums) of most of the Hebrew Bible into a slightly later Aramaic.

 Literary revival, 500–1000

In the 6th century, some Jewish groups attempted to enforce the exclusive use of
Hebrew in the synagogue, this tendency being part of a Hebrew revival that began in
Palestine and spread westward but did not reach Babylonia until the 10 th century.

 Adoption of Arabic metre

Biblical Hebrew was re-established as the literary idiom about 900 by Sa ʾadia ben
Joseph, grammarian and religious polemicist. The Arabic system of quantitative metre was
adapted for Hebrew during this period (900–1000), probably by Dunash ben Labrat. At first
the piyyuṭ form was retained for religious poems, and the new metres were used only for
secular poetry, which closely imitated Arabic models and, like the latter, was chiefly
employed for laudatory addresses to prominent people.

The Middle Ages

 The Palestinian tradition in Europe, 800–1300

From Palestine, the Hebrew renaissance soon spread into the Byzantine Empire. In
Sicily and southern Italy (which belonged to Byzantium) several important payṭanim were at
work, and before 1000 a secular literature began to arise in Italy: a fantastic travelogue of
Eldad the Danite; a historical romance, Sefer ha-yashar (1625; Eng. Trans., Sefer ha-yashar,
the Book of the Righteous) and Josippon, a revision of Josephus’ Antiquities filled with
legendary incidents—this last-named book was popular until modern times and was
translated into many languages. Nathan ben Yehiel completed in 1101 at Rome a dictionary
of Talmudic Aramaic and Hebrew, the ʿArukh, which is still used.
In the middle of the 10th century members of the north Italian family Kalonymos
brought Talmudic studies and piyyuṭim to Mainz, Ger., where the yeshiva (school) became a
centre of studies under the direction of Gershom ben Judah, known as “the Light of the
Exile.” As a poet, he established a distinctive style of European piyyuṭ in poems that read
very much like early European popular poetry. The greatest alumnus of the Mainz academy
was Rashi, an author of complete commentaries on the Bible and on the Babylonian Talmud,
himself a poet of note.
The slaughter of Jewish peoples in western and central Europe during the Crusades
drove large masses of Jews into eastern Europe. The German Jews carried with them their
Yiddish speech but hardly any literary culture. In Germany accounts of the disaster were
written in a new prose style permeated with poetry; liturgical poetry became henceforth
mainly a chronicle of persecutions. These sufferings inspired an important mystical
movement, largely propagated through stories, of which the chief collections are the Ayn
Shoyn Mayse Bukh (1602; Maʿaseh Book) and the Sefer Ḥasidim (1538; “The Book of the
Just”), the latter attributed to Judah ben Samuel, “the Hasid” of Regensburg (died 1217).

MAJOR WRITERS

 Yosef Haim Brenner

(Hebrew: ‫ְּברנֶר‬
ֶ ‫יֹוסֵף חִַּיים‬, romanized: Yosef Ḥayyim Brener; 11 September 1881 – 2 May
1921) was a Russian-born Hebrew-language author and one of the pioneers of modern
Hebrew literature.
Literary Works

 A Life
This book follows the life story of the writer, critic, and intellectual Yosef Haim
Brenner, one of the leading figures of the Hebrew renaissance at the turn of the nineteenth
century. It describes Brenner as a representative of the generation of young Jews who were
exposed to modernity, underwent an identity crisis, and embraced Jewish nationalism as
their way of coping with the "death of God" and their deep attachment to the Jewish
people, Jewish culture and its languages. The clashes between religious Jews and apostates,
Zionists and non-Zionists, Yiddishists and Hebraists, are illuminated against the background
of tsarist oppression, emigration, and the emergence of Jewish socialism. The richness of
the cultural creation of this period is presented through the networks of writers, poets, and
intellectuals, that interacted, published journals, anthologies, and novels that brought the
great discussions of this epoch to the attention of the broader public and thus inculcated it
with the ideas, Weltanschauung, and cultural and political norms prevalent among the
cultural elite. The relationships between parents and children and between men and women
in the Pale of Settlement, London, Lvov, and Palestine are revealed through the life
trajectory of Brenner and his creative works, which encompass six novels, two novellas,
scores of short stories, two plays, and hundreds of articles and literary criticism. The myth of
Brenner, created during his lifetime but immensely expanded after his murder, gives the
reader an understanding of how and why a myth is created.pioneers

 Shmuel Yosef Agnon

Shmuel Yosef Agnon was a Nobel Prize laureate writer and was one of the central
figures of modern Hebrew fiction. In Hebrew, he is known by the acronym Shai Agnon. In
English, his works are published under the name S. Y. Agnon.
Literary Works

 The Bridal Canopy

The Bridal Canopy, a major work in Hebrew literature, has been compared to Miguel
de Cervantes’s Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605, 1615). On the surface, Agnon’s work seems
a simple tale set in early nineteenth century Galicia. On another level, the story is not simple.
It treats Agnon’s all-but-simple themes: good and evil, loss of faith, marriage as the
fulfillment of a divine command, divine providence, the centrality of the Torah, and the
return to Israel. The surreal scenes often concern the separation of the Diaspora Jew from
the Holy Land and from the Torah. On one level, the story is charming and naïve, like a
folktale, but on another level, it critiques its own naïveté.
The Bridal Canopy is a comedy, with Nuta, a wagoner and Reb Yudel’s traveling
companion, playing the foil. It evolves through parody, the creation not of Agnon the
nineteenth century Eastern European Hasid, but of Agnon the twentieth century Israeli
writer. An observant Jew, Reb Yudel is responsible for marrying his daughters and finding
their dowries, or “bringing them under the bridal canopy” (as the Hebrew title indicates).
His wife Frummet moves him to action, and, with the counsel of the Rabbi of Apta, he sets
out on a wagon journey to fulfill his obligations. This sets the picaresque plot in motion, with
Reb Yudel, Nuta the wagoner, and talking horses telling stories.
The first part of the story ends as Yudel sends Nuta home. He plans to wait for God to
send a bridegroom. The comic device of mistaken identity comes into play. Although he is
poor, he is mistaken for a wealthy man. A match is made for his daughter with the son of a
family as wealthy as they mistakenly think Reb Yudel to be. When the family is despairing
that they will never come up with a dowry appropriate to this financially ill-matched
engagement, a miracle happens. Reb Reveille, the rooster, in escaping from being served to
the potential in-laws, leads Frummet and the daughters to a hidden treasure, enough to
supply huge dowries for all three daughters. Filled with gratitude, Reb Yudel and his wife go
to Israel. The devices of comedy inform the artist’s gentle attitude.

 A Guest for the Night

Initially serialized (1938-1939) in the Tel Aviv newspaper Ha-Arets, A Guest for the
Night is a first-person narration of the disappearing world of Galicia and of one individual’s
relationship to two places and two times: Shibush and Israel, before and after World War I.
On one level an autobiography, the novel grew out of Agnon’s brief visit in 1930 to Buczacz.
Like Agnon, the narrator loses home and library and is separated from his family. The story
moves beyond autobiography, however, as the narrator describes how World War I has all
but ended the old way of life in Galicia. The artfully articulated characters reflect different
aspects of the narrator’s perception of his own situation.
  Nelly Sachs
Nelly Sachs was a German-Swedish poet and playwright. Her experiences resulting
from the rise of the Nazis in World War II Europe transformed her into a poignant
spokesperson for the grief and yearnings of her fellow Jews.
Literary Works

 Eli: A Mystery Play of the Sufferings of Israel

Her best-known play is Eli: Ein Mysterienspiel vom Leiden Israels (1951; Eli: A Mystery
Play of the Sufferings of Israel, included in the O the Chimneys collection). Before she won
the Nobel Prize on her 75th birthday, she received the 1965 Peace Prize of German Publishers.
In accepting the award from the land she had fled, she said (in the spirit of concord and
forgiveness that are among the themes in her poems), “In spite of all the horrors of the
past, I believe in you.”

In conclusion, Agnon chose to use more modern forms of the Hebrew language in his
works. His familiarity with Jewish tradition, together with the influence of 19 th and early 20th
century European literature, gave rise to a body of fiction dealing with major contemporary
spiritual concerns, the disintegration of traditional ways of life, the loss of faith, and the
subsequent loss of identity. Authors such as S. Yizhar, Moshe Shamir, Hanoch Bartov, Haim
Gouri and Benjamin Tammuz vacillated dramatically between individualism and commitment
to society and state, and presented a model of social realism, often in the heroic mode,
featuring a blend of local and international influences.
In the early 1960s, new approaches in Hebrew prose writing were explored by a
group of younger and very influential writers, including A.B. Yehoshua, Amos Oz, Yoram
Kaniuk and Yaakov Shabtai, marking a break from ideological patterns and focusing on the
world of the individual.