"My Own Special Corner, Sacred, Beloved": The Hebrew Diary of Hava Shapiro (1878-1943)

This article deals with the diary of Hava Shapiro (1878-1943), the first known Hebrew diary by a woman, situating the diary within the broader fields of life writing or autobiographical studies. Using the author's original translations from the diary, the article highlights those unifying or literary elements in the diary that make it a readable, coherent text, including retrospective entries and repeated images of place and displacement, homecoming and homelessness. At the same time, it calls attention to the provisional, work-in-progress aspects of this diary that accord with the observations of feminist scholars of diary writing.