Towards a Materialist History of Hebrew Literature in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Scholars of Hebrew literature commonly perceive the early years of the twentieth century as a time of crisis for Hebrew literature. While Yiddish literature was gaining an ever-greater readership, Hebrew literature saw its readership rapidly dissipating. Dan Miron’s essay, “Background to the Perplexity in Early Twentieth-Century Hebrew Literature,” one of the most frequently quoted articles in the scholarship on Hebrew literature, epitomizes this line of argument. Miron traces the failure of Hebrew literature to the breakdown of Hebrew education in the Russian Empire, a failure that shattered the socioeconomic foundations of Hebrew literature. Contrary to Miron’s argument, however, Hebrew education in Eastern Europe was expanding, and the teachers and students associated with it were agents for the circulation of Hebrew literature. Thus, the gloom with which Hebrew authors and subsequent scholars view this period has little to do with the number of Hebrew readers; rather, one should look for its source in the emergence of a new form of Hebrew that did not match the ideal language of Hebrew authors and poets.

Duke Scholars

Author Shai Ginsburg Asian & Middle Eastern Studies