Close

Create a link to this page

Copy and paste this link tag into your Web page or blog:

<a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Hebrewli.html" title="Facts and informations about Hebrew literature">Hebrew literature</a>

Hebrew literature

Hebrew literature literary works, from ancient to modern, written in the Hebrew language.

Early Literature

The great monuments of the earliest period of Hebrew literature are the Old Testament and the Apocrypha . Parts of the Pseudepigrapha and of the Dead Sea Scrolls were also produced before the conquest of Judaea by Titus. The literature of the Jews developed mainly in the Hebrew language, although there were also works in Greek, Aramaic, and Arabic.

In the 2d cent. AD began the Talmudic period, which lasted well into the 6th cent. In these centuries the great anonymous encyclopedic work of religious and civil law, the Talmud , was compiled, edited, and interpreted. The Midrash —a collection of halakah (found also in the Talmud) and haggadic material—likewise forms part of the Hebrew literature of that period. In the 4th cent. the Targum to the Pentateuch and to the Prophets was finished. The 6th and 7th cent. saw the development of the Masora in Palestine. In Babylonia meanwhile many valuable additions to Hebrew literature were made by the Gaonim after the 6th cent.

Medieval Literature

Commentaries on the Talmud and haggadic material continued to be written until the 11th cent., when the Babylonian academies were suppressed and the center of Jewish literary activity shifted to Spain. France and Germany became the main centers of Talmudic commentary. In Spain, and to some extent in Italy, Hebrew literature flourished for centuries. The finest work was accomplished in the realms of poetry—influenced by Arab and Indian literature—and philosophy. Philology, exegesis, and codification also flourished. By the 14th cent. the largely Aramaic mystical treatise, the Zohar, had appeared—the masterpiece of a flourishing literature of Jewish mysticism (see kabbalah ).

Famous scholars and authors of Hebrew literature in the Middle Ages included Aha of Shabcha , Saadia ben Joseph al-Fayumi , Dunash ben Tamim , Dunash ben Labrat , Gershom ben Judah , Al-Fasi , Solomon ben Judah Ibn Gabirol , Rashi , Judah ha-Levi , Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra , Maimonides , Immanuel ben Solomon , Isaac Abravanel , and Joseph ben Ephraim Caro . In the persecutions following the Crusades, when the Jews were driven from country to country, they clung to their literature—which leaned increasingly to mysticism and asceticism—and especially to the Hebrew Bible.

Beginnings of Modern Hebrew Literature

On the threshold of the transition from the old isolated life to a wider one was the poet Moses Hayyim Luzzatto —a contemporary of the Gaon of Vilna, Elijah ben Solomon —but the modern period of Hebrew literature really began with Moses Mendelssohn . While Nachman Krochmal and Shloime Ansky (Solomon Seinwel Rapoport) were contributing to biblical criticism and historical scholarship, writers such as Peretz (Peter) Smolenskin were devoting themselves to Haskalah, or literature of enlightenment, intended to shake the Jews of Central Europe from their medieval attitudes. Other important figures of the period are the scholar Joseph Halévy, the poet Jehuda (Leon) Gordon , and the novelist Solomon Yakob Abramovich, whose pseudonym was Mendele mocher sforim .

Zionism and Literature in Israel

The rise of Zionism , particularly reflected in the writings of Ahad Ha-am (Asher Ginzberg), gave Hebrew literature fresh impetus, and Palestine became again the center of publication in Hebrew. Hebrew was proclaimed the national language of the Jews even before the establishment (1948) of the state of Israel. The two great poets of modern Hebrew literature are Hayyim Nahman Bialik and Saul Tchernihovsky , who was strongly influenced by ancient Greek literature. The poetry of Abraham Shlonsky, Lea Goldberg, and Nathan Alterman deals with social and political themes.

Among the many writers of prose are Joseph H. Brenner, who described Jewish life in Eastern Europe and pioneer life in Palestine, and Salman Shneur, who wrote of the simple and uneducated Jews. The Nobel laureate S. Y. Agnon portrayed the Eastern European milieu and pioneer life in Palestine; his works have become classics in modern Hebrew epic literature. Hebrew writers who are native to Israel seek inspiration in the classical Hebrew past or in the new life of Israel. The most outstanding writer of this group is Moshe Shamir, who in his two novels—one depicting a Hasmonean king and the other dealing with the Arab-Israeli War of 1948—gave new dimensions to Hebrew fiction.

Aron David Gordon (1856-1922) was one of the greatest social and political essayists of Hebrew literature; significant Hebrew language literary critics include David Frishman (1861-1922) and Yosef Klausner (1874-1958). In recent years the Israeli novelists Amos Oz , Abraham B. Yehoshua, and Aharon Appelfeld, and the poet Yehuda Amichai have been widely translated and have achieved international distinction. Outside Israel, the writing of the Jews is ordinarily in the language of the countries in which they live or in Yiddish , whose literary use developed rapidly after the middle of the 19th cent.

Bibliography

See N. Kravitz, Three Thousand Years of Hebrew Literature (1972); T. Carmi, ed., The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse (1981); M. Neiman, A Century of Modern Hebrew Literary Criticism, 1784-1884 (1983); B. Holtz, ed., Back to the Sources (1984); R. Alter, The Invention of Hebrew Prose (1988).

Related newspaper, magazine, and trade journal articles from HighBeam Research

(Including press releases, facts, information, and biographies)

	The age of Haskalah; studies in Hebrew literature of the enlightenment in Germany.(Brief Article)(Book Review) Magazine article from: Reference & Research Book News; 5/1/2006; 142 words ; 076183351X The age of Haskalah; studies in Hebrew literature of the enlightenment in Germany. Pelli, Moshe. Univ...Maskala, including a revival of the study of the Hebrew language. He covers the impact of deism, religious reforms... Read more
	Identity and modern Israeli literature.(Brief Article)(Book Review) Magazine article from: Reference & Research Book News; 2/1/2007; 115 words ; ...rise of nationalism and collective identity, the revived Hebrew language links modern Israeli Jewish identity, ideology, and memory, according to Domb (modern Hebrew literature, U. of Cambridge). She examines key novels by six Israeli... Read more
	Modern Hebrew Literature Made into Films. (reprint, 2001).(book)(Brief Article)(Book Review) Magazine article from: Reference & Research Book News; 11/1/2006; 103 words ; 9780761834199 Modern Hebrew literature made into films. (reprint, 2001) Hakak, Lev. Univ. Press...films. He also offers brief general overviews of Modern Hebrew literature and Israeli cinema. Works examined include Yoram Kaniuk... Read more
	Semitic studies in honour of Edward Ullendorff.(book)(Brief Article)(Book Review) Magazine article from: Reference & Research Book News; 2/1/2006; 115 words ; ...questionable theory of Egyptian influence on a genre of Hebrew literature, Dinah in a Syriac poem on Joseph, an archaic...condemning wealth and glory, Dante and modern Hebrew literature, and humor in the novels of Peretz Smolenskin... Read more
	Can a Cushite change his skin?; an examination of race, ethnicity, and othering in the Hebrew Bible.(book)(Brief Article)(Book Review) Magazine article from: Reference & Research Book News; 2/1/2006; 136 words ; ...he examines in detail the Hebrew root Cush in tenth-to-eighth-century Hebrew literature, in seventh-century exilic literature, and in post-exilic Hebrew literature. Only names and scriptural references are indexed. ([c]20062005 Book News... Read more
	ISRAEL: INSTITUTO CULTURAL ISRAEL-IBERICO AMERICA LAUNCHES WEB SITE. Newspaper article from: IPR Strategic Business Information Database; 10/25/2006; 245 words ; ...disseminating Spanish, Portuguese, and Ladino literature in Israel and Hebrew literature in the Diaspora; and fostering the translation of outstanding Hebrew literature into Spanish and Portugeuse. By these activities the Instituto Cultural... Read more
	Understanding the Hebrew Bible: a reader's guide.(book)(Brief Article)(Book Review) Magazine article from: Reference & Research Book News; 5/1/2006; 109 words ; ...reader's guide. Rabin, Elliot. KTAV Pub. House 2006 250 pages $18.95 Paperback BS1171 Rabin, a scholar of comparative and Hebrew literature based in New York City, says that the Bible conveys its simple message in such a long and complicated series of stories... Read more
	Toward a theory of cognitive poetics, 2d ed.(Brief article)(Book review) Magazine article from: Reference & Research Book News; 11/1/2008; 88 words ; ...theory of cognitive poetics, 2d ed. Tsur, Reuven. Sussex Academic Press 2008 683 pages $54.95 Paperback P311 Tsur (emeritus Hebrew literature and literary theory, Tel Aviv U.) synthesizes his thinking over 25 years that led to the notion of cognitive poetics. He... Read more
	Israeli poetry of the Holocaust.(Brief article)(Book review) Magazine article from: Reference & Research Book News; 2/1/2009; 174 words ; ...stuff. As a genre it is far-ranging, touching on every emotion at every level as it both builds and takes away. Mazor (Hebrew literature, U. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) acknowledges the feelings behind the work but also provides an aesthetic structure and means... Read more
	I Will Wake the Dawn: Illuminated Psalms.(Brief article)(Book review) Magazine article from: The Christian Century; 9/23/2008; 81 words ; ...midrash of 33 of the Psalms, which are followed by comments on the illuminations and the texts by her husband, Arnold Band, a Hebrew literature scholar. The artwork includes calligraphic renditions of the text in both English and Hebrew. Written from a Jewish perspective... Read more

For more facts and information, see all related premium articles

Related entries from encyclopedias, dictionaries, and thesauruses

	HEBREW Book article from: Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language HEBREW The Semitic language of the ancient Israelites and modern...related to Aramaic and Phoenician, more distantly to ARABIC . Hebrew is one of the oldest living languages, best known as the language of the Hebrew or Jewish BIBLE. In biblical times, it was called yehudit (Jewish) and in post-biblical ... Read more
	Hebrew language Book article from: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition ...biblical times, and most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew. The oldest extant example of Hebrew writing dates from the 11th or 10th cent. BC Hebrew began to die out as a spoken tongue among the Jews after...of the Jews from Palestine began, until modern times, Hebrew has remained the ... Read more
	Hebrew Book article from: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church ...spoken Hebrew had largely been replaced by Aramaic , but Hebrew survived as a written language and has been revived as...language of the modern State of Israel. In the NT ‘Hebrew’ may denote either classical Hebrew or the colloquial Aramaic dialect of Palestine. Apart from brief ... Read more
	Hebrew Melodies Book article from: The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature Hebrew Melodies, a collection of short poems by Byron , some written during the early days of his marriage, published 1815. Many...and lyrics: the volume was published by Jewish composer Isaac Nathan (?1791–1864), who arranged some to traditional Hebrew melodies. The poems include ‘She walks in ... Read more
	Jewish literature Book article from: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition see Hebrew literature . Read more

See all related entries