The Hebrew Poetry in Yemen (review)

Hebrew Studies 34 (1993) 120 Reviews Jeremiah has been joined together with distinctive verbal and thematic linkages . One could also have wished for some indices to the valuable material that the author has given. These few details aside, judged upon its own goals and those of the series in general, the book must be deemed a distinct success. All of us, his readers, cannot help but be benefited by his analyses and challenged anew by his reminder that the text of Jeremiah invites all people to submit themselves and their situations to it so as "to stand in grateful awe before the miracle of forgiveness, to receive it, and to take from it anew, regenerated life" (p. 73). Richard D. Patterson Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary Lynchburg, VA 24506 THE HEBREW POETRY IN YEMEN. By Mishael Caspi (MaswariCaspi ) with Ruth Markevich. Pp. 16 + 372 + xx. Tel Aviv: Reshafim, 1991. Cloth. Yemen is a relatively neglected field in the modem scholarship of medieval Hebrew poetry. Although numerous poems of that school have been published during the current century, they have appeared in only two scholarly editions (Sefer Ha-Musar of Zakhariah AI-Zahiri, edited by Yehudah Ratzahbi, Jerusalem, 1965; and the Poems of Abraham Ben Halfon, edited by Yosef Tobi, Tel Aviv, 1991); furthermore, this area has not attracted the researchers to study it as a whole from the literary point of view. Instead, we have various short works about individual poets or about certain linguistic and biographical issues. In fact, next to nothing has been studied about the poetic and aesthetic features. As a result, most of those who have dealt with Hebrew poetry in Yemen have preferred to publish anthologies, beginning with A. Z. Idelsohn's Shirey Teman (Cincinnati, 1930) through Y. Ratzahbi's Yalqut Shirey Teman (Jerusalem, 1968) and Shirat Teman Ha-1lvrit (Tel Aviv, 1988); and Diwan Amallel Shir by Y. Tobi and Sh. Seri (Tel Aviv, 1988). Prof. Maswari-Caspi is not a new face in this field. He has already published many articles and two Hebrew books on the subject: Nehar Dinur (River of Sparklinq Light - Hebrew Spiritual Poetry in Yemen as derived from Meditation, Tel Aviv, 1978); and The Piyyutim ofthe Maranot in the Yemenite Tiklal (Tel Aviv, 1982). In his critical work, Maswari-Caspi has Hebrew Studies 34 (1993) 121 Reviews tried to apply aesthetic and poetic criteria to Hebrew Yemenite poetry in addition to editing and elucidating the texts. Now, in the new volume under discussion here, Maswari-Caspi has produced a work jointly with Ruth Markevich. The book is basically intended to constitute a representative anthology of Yemenite Hebrew poetry, but nothing is said about the proportional part of each of the two authors. The book is introduced (in Hebrew, pp. 9-13) by Shim'on Avizemer, a wellknown figure in Yemenite-Israeli literary activities. Following a general introduction by the authors, it is divided into eight chapters, according to the genres or the contents of the poems dealt with in each chapter. The following are the English titles of these chapters: "In the Traces of Spanish Hebrew Poetry"; "Hallelujah and Wedding Poems" "Poetry of the Soul"; "Responsive Poems"; "The Piyyutim"; "On Love and Friendship"; "The Prayer and the Individual"; and "Exile and Redemption." Each chapter comprises several poems, followed by a short explanatory section. After a short preface at the beginning of each chapter, one of the poems is analyzed in detail. All in all, this anthology includes 202 poems, which are listed at the end of the book, preceded by a relevant bibliography, and followed by an index of the poets and their poems. In the English part there is an introduction roughly parallel to the Hebrew introduction. In their brief Hebrew preface the authors declare that their motive in compiling this anthology was the neglect of Yemenite Hebrew poetry in Israeli high school and college education, and they express their hope that this fault will be repaired (Reshit Ma'amar, p. 15). Although I completely agree with their diagnosis, I am not fully confident about the benefit that high school education or academic scholarship may gain from this book, for the following reasons: (1) Hebrew was not necessarily the...