Hebrew and Modernity (review)

Hebrew Studies 36 (1995) 239 Reviews ogy than it is a contribution to Rashi scholarship. Although Doron's monograph does not address the scholarly community , he uses lower critical scholarly tools, albeit imperfectly, to "enlighten" a lay audience for whom such insights are novel. His work would be helpful to teachers in Orthodox Jewish parochial schools and seminaries, as his Hebrew is too technical for the untrained reader. No attempt is made by Doron to evaluate Rashi's comments in relation to R. Abraham Ibn Ezra, Nahmanides, R. Yosef Qara, Rashbam, or R. Yosef Bechor Schor, as this concern is defined, if only by implication, to be outside of the parameters of the commentary. Doron offers several clever conjectures concerning the reasoning underlying Rashi's more obscure comments; he is very well versed in the data of his chosen discipline. His monograph is a convenient aid in deciphering difficult passages in Rashi. The strength of Doron's methodology lies in his reading Rashi's work as a conceptual whole and his allowing instances in which Rashi is clear and precise to shed light on more laconic, obscure passages. While Doron's monograph cannot be regarded as an exemplar of academic scholarship, it offers the student of Rashi for whom contemporary scholarship on Rashi is unknown, unavailable, or outside of the community canon, a forum for penetrating difficult passages in Rashi's commentary. Alan 1. Yuter Touro College New York. NY 10010 HEBREW AND MODERNITY. By Roben Alter. Pp. xi + 192. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994. Paper, $10.95. Hebrew and Modernity contains eleven essays, written between 1981 and 1993, on aspects of modem Hebrew literature. Several pieces deal with the beginnings and development of modem literary Hebrew; others focus on Hebrew and Yiddish Holocaust literature, Hebrew literature in America, Yehuda Amichai, and several works of S. Y. Agnon. Though the Preface notes that the book is not to be seen as "merely an assemblage of miscellaneous essays," about half the pieces do not relate directly to the main theme, the "attempt to trace the history of modem Hebrew style" (pp. xxi ). However, the reader will equally enjoy both the mainstream and the Hebrew Studies 36 (1995) 240 Reviews tributary essays, since each is filled with much insight, clarity of interpretation , and an illuminating grasp of comparative literature. In the lead essay Alter suggests that modem Hebrew is a "contested" language because of the varied languages and cultures whence came the Hebrew authors. He points to the abundance of diglossia (foreign words) in Hebrew literature throughout its history. In addition, many Hebrew writers have imitated the styles of foreign writers. Moreover, Hebrew continually reflects several layers of historical language, and allusions to these historical layers proliferate. However, Alter states firmly that despite its modernization, "Hebrew refuses to be entirely subdued by the contemporary " (p. 16). These language levels also permeate contemporary works by Y. Shabtai, A. Shammas, D. Grossman, and A. B. Yehoshua. In the chapter entitled "Inventing Hebrew Prose" Alter details the process by which Hebrew literature was modernized. From the Hebrew Enlightenment in late-18th-century Berlin, Hebrew progressed from an unwieldy biblical diction to a language of plausible realism. A century later Mendele the Bookseller (a.k.a. Shalom Yakov Abramowitz) created the nusakh, an amalgam of "virtually all the historical strata of the language" (p. 53). In tum came younger writers-Brenner, Berdichevsky, Gnessinwho found Mendele's realism lacking, mainly because it had no means to express the complexities of human relations and inner experience fully. Here Alter maintains that the style indirect libre (interior monologue) adopted by these writers bridged the gap from a limited realism to an advancing modernism. Along with Gnessin, he credits the role of the poet and prose writer David Fogel, due to his "fashioning a living language...a language of [psychodynamic] introspection" (pp. 65-66). Two chapters in the volume respectively present Alter's reviews of the late T. Carmi's The Penguin Book ofHebrew Verse (1981) and the coincidental publication of Hurban by Alan Mintz and Against the Apocalypse by David Roskies. Regarding the Carmi volume, Alter suggests that there is "an unbroken tradition that ran [from medieval Spain...