Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
helped start the Canaanite movement, which —while never attracting more than a tiny group
of people — created great controversy by declaring that it wanted to return to pre-Judaic, an-
cient Israelite cultural roots.
Literary life in Israel during the 1950s and 1960s centered on a prominent group called Li-
krat (Towards). In contrast to their predecessors, this group was more infl uenced by German
and English than by Russian or French culture, used an existentialist and ironic rather than
socialist realist style, and focused more on individual than on public issues. In retrospect, these
differences were a sign that Israel was moving toward the post-heroic stage of its history. The
remarkable variety of talented writers included Yehuda Amichai, Nathan Zach, Moshe Dor,
Pinhas Sadeh, David Avidan, Dahlia Ravikovitch, and Israel Pinkas.
Yehuda Amichai (1924 -2000) was Israel's most renowned poet throughout the second half
of the twentieth century. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he came from an Orthodox fam-
ily and was born in Germany, and he coined many new words combining classical Hebrew and
modern Hebrew slang and fusing prose phrases and poetic rhythm. Quite prolifi c, he wrote
novels, short stories, plays, and children's books, and his work was widely translated and stud-
ied abroad. While he dealt with many subjects, Amichai was particularly loved for presenting
a personal perspective that readers felt also captured their own feelings.
No particular poet can be said to be the leader of contemporary Israeli poetry since the
1980s. The number of people writing poetry has increased while the number reading it has
declined. The revolutionary poetic passion prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s ended when post-
modern ideas emphasizing individual experience, complex language, and style became domi-
nant. In retrospect, these works of political or cultural radicalism represented a natural rebel-
lion against the homogeneity of earlier patriotic and nationalist writing.
The Israeli Novel
Since the 1960s, the two most prominent Israeli novelists have been Amos Oz and A. B. Yeho-
shua. The kibbutz-raised Oz wrote books and stories providing allegories for Israel's compli-
cated history, often from a highly critical perspective, including
Where the Jackals Howl
(1963),
in which he gives his negative assessment of the kibbutz: the jackals symbolize the enemies
beyond the gates. In some of his later works, he questioned every aspect of Israel, including
its very creation. Yehoshua, in contrast, focused increasingly on Mizrahi life, both historically
and within Israel.
The 1970s saw the rise of writing about women's issues by such authors as Amalia Kahana-
Carmon and Ruth Almog. There were also stylistic innovations, including writing in a more
colloquial style and bringing in elements of popular culture. A very popular imported idea was
the magical realism style that originated in Latin America.
In
Past Continuous
(1977), Yaakov Shabtai does for Tel Aviv what James Joyce did for Dub-
lin. A 2007 survey of publishers and editors judged it the best book written since indepen-
dence. Shabtai, who died at the age of forty-seven, was a successful playwright, and this was his
only novel. Still, the style of writing resembles that of a play.
By the end of the 1970s, two powerful themes emerged that some earlier writing had pre-
pared the way for, but the new works stood in sharp contrast to most of the previous literary
