1. Modern Hebrew Literature
From a linguistic and literary point of view, no less than from a moral and religious standpoint, the Bible is a great and wonderful book:
[¹]בן בג בג אומר הפך בה והפך בה דכלא בה
פּרקי אבות. ה׳ כה.
[¹] Ben Bag Bag said, ponder in it, and ponder in it, for all is in it. Ethics of the Fathers, v., 25.
Not that modern Hebrew writers use the Bible merely as a storehouse of words and phrases, depending on reminiscence for their effect. The practice of cramming Hebrew writings with scriptural quotations so as to give them an artificial brilliance and a second-hand wealth of idiom and grandeur of diction was characteristic of the so-called M’lizah.[¹] In our time there is no more of this patchwork writing. The Hebrew language has become independent of quotations, but none the less the traditional spirit continues to live, and the Bible is the corner-stone of modern Hebrew literature. It could not be otherwise, for in the Jewish view the Bible must enter into every phase of man’s life, must exert an influence upon the words of his mouth, the thoughts of his mind, and the feelings of his heart. This is the result not of any dogma, but of the tradition of Jewish learning, which is a sort of intellectual devotion, a reverent feeling, a particular worship of the Torah as knowledge, teaching, thought.
[¹] M’lizah = “flower of speech.”
The revival of the Hebrew language was thus able to become the foremost factor in the Jewish national revival. Yet little attention has been paid to this part of the history of Zionism. Perhaps the most important reason is the general ignorance of the Hebrew language or of its modern literature and Press. Some writers on Zionism are quite ignorant of the whole of this literature, others are misinformed as to its past, and often imperfectly and insufficiently conversant with its present, and are only capable of repeating mechanically a few names and titles which have gained currency. Few have an adequate conception of the real activity of hundreds of writers, of the amount of work which has been done, or of the succession of the different stages of development. This lack of knowledge is the main reason for the strange opinion so often expressed by anti-Zionists in Western Europe, particularly in England, that Zionism is a mere political or materialistic movement.
Our object here is not to write a history of Hebrew literature as such, but only to illustrate a part of Zionist history which has hitherto been very imperfectly surveyed, and a certain knowledge of which is necessary for a real and adequate conception of the inner intellectual forces which have made Zionism what it is. The fact of importance from our point of view is that the best, the noblest, and the soundest ideas were brought into Zionism from Hebrew literature, that certain Hebrew writers are prominent nationalists, that from them have gone forth “the thoughts that inspire” and “the words that ignite,” and that the wide dissemination of the Zionist idea among hundreds of thousands of Jews (Russian Jews or those who came from Russia) could not have been produced merely by organization and business institutions, had they not been prepared for it by the knowledge and every-day use of the Hebrew language with its innumerable national, historical and Palestinian reminiscences and associations. And not only that: in our view even the better elements of the Hebrew literature of the period which preceded the Zionist movement, and which is commonly known as the “Haskalah” (enlightenment) period, as well as the writings of those modern authors who do not support Zionism, have contributed to that great regeneration which has enabled the national language and literature to reach such an advanced stage of development.
For the beginnings of modern Hebrew literature we must go back at least as far as Abraham Dob Bär (1789–1878) ben Chayyim Lebensohn (surnamed Michailishker; pseudonym Adam), the Hebrew Klopstock—a serious and somewhat dry poet and his son Micah Joseph (1818–1852), a graceful singer cut off in his early bloom. Contemporary with them was F. Rothstein, an almost unknown Polish Chassid and Maskil,[¹] who translated Hermann and Dorothea of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) in stanzas of laconic beauty which in precision of outline and completeness of impression are as sublime as the original. These men founded a school of poets, the tradition of which was carried on by men like Solomon ben Baruch Salkind (1805 ?–1868); Bernhard Nathansohn (b. 1832); David Moses Mitzkun (1836–1887); and Isaachar Berush Hurwitz (b. 1835). Contemporaneously, the beginnings of a modern prose literature were being created. To Mordecai Aaron ben Judah Asher Günzburg (1795–1846) we owe a Hebrew style at once forceful and condensed, in great contrast to the limp and diffuse style prevalent before him. Abraham Mapu (1808–1867), master of a pure biblical style and a wonderful imaginative sympathy with the life of Bible times, created in his romantic novel The Love of Zion a gossamer web in evanescent hues of gold and silver. Kalman Schulman (1819–1899), a versatile translator and popularizer, did much to break ground for the ideas of the Haskalah. Isaac Erter (1792–1851), of Galicia, wrote satires which are masterpieces of art in their epigrammatic beauty. These and a host of lesser men laid the substantial foundations on which later a more specifically nationalist Hebrew literature could be built up. For themselves they were too busy with their task of acclimatizing European culture on Hebrew soil to trouble overmuch about nationalism. Their tendency was even towards assimilation, so strong was their reaction against the conservatism of their environment. This tendency is seen most strongly in the greatest of these Maskilim, Judah Löb (Leon) ben Asher Gordon (1831–1892), a poet, essayist and story-teller, who united lightness of touch, clearness and elegance of diction with a great gift of expression, and combined in one harmonious whole accurate reflection and vivid imagination—an exceedingly keen satirist, and the most profound among writers of the Haskalah in the knowledge and use as well of the biblical as of the post-biblical Hebrew idiom. The recently deceased veteran novelist Solomon (Shalom) Jacob Abramowitsch (1836–1918) “Mendele Mocher Sephorim”[²] still continued to carry on the Haskalah tradition; and although dubbed “Grandfather of Yiddish,” he also produced Hebrew works of immortal value, the works of a giant artist in language and imagination. But broadly speaking the ideals of the Haskalah have given place since about 1880 to a more distinctly nationalist tendency.
[¹] Chassid—member of the sect of Chassidim or “Pious.” Maskil—upholder of the ideals of Haskalah (“enlightenment”), as against strict traditionalism with its restriction of intellectual interest to ancient Hebrew literature.