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| Monday, 21 July 2008 | |
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Israel has a multiple literary heritage, the result of sixty years' intense political and cultural conflict. The creation of Israel was the culmination of the Zionist movement. After the Nazi Holocaust, pressure grew for the international recognition of a Jewish state, and in 1948 Israel came into being. Much of the history of the region since that time has been one of conflict between Israel on one side and Palestinians, represented by the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and Israel's Arab neighbours, on the other. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced, and several wars were fought involving Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Palestinians in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, have lived under Israeli occupation since 1967. Israel's contemporary literature is shaped by successive waves of immigration. Most visible in the Israeli press are the descendants of East European Jewish immigrants such as David Grossman, with a Yiddish and European heritage, who write in Modern Hebrew. More marginalised within the Jewish community are Mizrahi Jews (who have lived in the Middle East, Maghreb and Africa since Biblical times) such as Iraqi-born novelists Sami Michael and Eli Amir. Mizrahis often use Arabic as a first or dominant language, and have a shared cultural heritage with their Arab and Muslim neighbours. According to Professor Shmuel Morel, an Iraqi-born Israeli Jew, "During the Ottoman era in Palestine, Arabic was taught in the schools of the Sephardic Jewish community of Jerusalem from the middle of the 19th century, but it was only during the early 20th century that the leaders of the Zionist movement decided that Jewish youth should learn Arabic in the modern schools, in addition to Turkish, although the latter was the official language. Teachers such as Yosef Luria and Yitzhak Epstein supported the need for the study of Arabic as a means of rapprochement between Jews and Arabs and as a way of learning Arab customs and culture.
Today Arabic is taught in about 600 Israeli schools. About 2,000 pupils take the matriculation examinations in Arabic each year. The Histadrut (Israel Federation of Trade Unions) attaches particular attention to Arabic culture and literature. It founded the Jewish-Arab Institute in Beit Berl which publishes Mifgash L'iqa ("Encounter"), a bilingual literary magazine. The Histadrut also founded The Arab Writers' House for the dissemination of novels and other books, including textbooks, in order to compensate readers of Arabic for the shortage of books caused by the Arab embargo against Israel. There is great interest in Arabic literature in the Israeli media, notably in the Ha'aretz daily, the Voice of Israel radio, and Israel Television. The mass-circulation dailies Ma'ariv and Yediot Aharonot, publish stories and poems translated from Arabic into Hebrew, as well as critical reviews on books translated from Arabic and published by leading Israeli publishers. Most of these books tend to have a nationalist and leftist outlook." Arab-Christian and Palestinian writers working within Israel have published in both Hebrew and Arabic. Anton Shammas, an Arab Christian born in Galilee, has published novels in Hebrew and poetry and plays in Arabic, as well as translating the satirical Arabic novels of Palestinian-Israeli writer and politician Emile Habiby into Hebrew. Among eminent Israeli Arab poets translated into Hebrew are Michel Haddad, Samih al-Qasim, Nazih Kahyhr, Siham Daoud and Nida Khuri. Naim 'Araide and Salman Masalha are prominent Arab poets who also write in Hebrew.
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| Last Updated ( Tuesday, 02 December 2008 ) |
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