Rhetoric and Nation: The Formation of Hebrew National Culture, 1880-1990

Contents

Contents Acknowledgments ✦ ix Introduction Nation and Discourse ✦ 1 1. Politics and Letters Ah ˙ ad Ha-Am’s Rhetoric of the Nation ✦ 35 2. Language and Pedagogy Moshe Smilansky’s “H ˙ awaja Nazar” ✦ 75 3. Literary Criticism as Nationalist Cartography Joseph Hayyim Brenner and “The Land of Israel Genre and Its Accoutrements” ✦ 108 4. The Rhetoric of Historical Anxiety David Ben-Gurion and Meir Yaari ✦ 153 5. History and Myth Moshe Shamir’s He Walked through the Fields ✦ 195 6. History and Mourning The Reception of Moshe Shamir’s He Walked through the Fields ✦ 229 7. National Aesthetics in Crisis Amos Oz’s Political Writings ✦ 266 8. The Tussle with the Zionist Dream Yaakov Shabtai’s Past Continuous ✦ 298 viii ✦ Contents 9. A Sentimental Journey Dan Miron’s Moral Landscape ✦ 336 Conclusion Rethinking the Hebrew Discourse of the Nation ✦ 372 References ✦ 385 Index ✦ 445 ...