What Is Jewish Literature? [Paperback]

Hana Wirth-Nesher (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1994

What Is Jewish Literature? is a richly thoughtful analysis and comprehensive overview of what defines Jewish literature. It is an international collection, featuring authors and scholars who write in different languages from different literary, spiritual, and personal perspectives. The book explores long-standing questions: What are the criteria for identifying Jewish literature? Are they language, religious affiliation of the author, religious sensibility, a distinctive Jewish imagination, or literary tradition? If the writer is the criterion, do Sholem Aleichem and Nathanael West really inhabit a shared universe? Is a text by S.Y. Agnon part of the same literary tradition as a play by Arthur Miller? Is Yiddish or Hebrew or Ladino the defining element? If so, where do we place Franz Kafka, Primo Levi, Elie Weisel, Saul Bellow, Nellie Sachs? Is tradition the yardstick? Do we then classify Saul Bellow's Mr. Sammler's Planet as a Jewish novel... as Holocaust literature... as American fiction? What Is Jewish Literature? debates all these possibilities. It is a landmark collection that encourages the reader to participate in the quest for answers that defy simple responses. The contributors reflect the multilingual and multicultural nature of any discussion of Jewish literature. Their voices range from polemical to speculative, from scientific to lyrical. What Is Jewish Literature? is an enduring contribution to the literary resource for the scholar, the teacher, and the student and for any individual who strives to appreciate, evaluate, and understand the varied riches of Jewish writing.

Editorial Reviews

Review

In What is Jewish Literature? we now have a richly thoughtful, passionately explored analysis of what defines Jewish literature: an international discourse, presenting literary scholars from different countries, who write in different languages and within different literary frames of reference. What is Jewish Literature? explores long-standing questions: What are the criteria for identifying Jewish literature? Are they language, religious affiliation of the author, religious sensibility, a distinctive Jewish imagination, literary tradition? What is Jewish Literature? is a landmark collection that encourages the reader to participate in the quest for answers that defy simple responses. It is a unique and enduring contribution. What is Jewish Literature can also serve as the perfect introduction for non-Jewish readers into a unique body of world literature. Pauses Lee Bennett Hopkins HarperCollins 0-06-024748-7 $23. -- Midwest Book Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Jewish Pubn Society; 1st edition (June 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0827605382
• ISBN-13: 978-0827605381
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,166,143 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Some excellent literary criticism, January 24, 2006

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: What Is Jewish Literature? (Hardcover)

Among the essays included in this volume are: Hana Wirth-Nesher'sintroduction 'Defining the Indefinable: What is Jewish Literature?" Saul Bellow's "On Jewish Storytelling" Cynthia Ozick's " America: Toward Yavneh John Hollander's "The Question of American Jewish Poetry " Robert Alter's " Jewish Dreams and Nightmares" Baal -Mahkhshoves "One Literature in Two Languages" Baruch Kurzweil's "Notes on Hebrew Literature" Yonatan Ratosh's Israeli or Jewish Literature?" and a host of others.

I am not sure that any one of them or all taken together answer the question the symposium is built around. But they do provide a good deal of insight into Literature.