Zionist Ideology and the Translation of Hebrew — Thelanguage used by the author of a text may be ... more Zionist Ideology and the Translation of Hebrew — Thelanguage used by the author of a text may be of ideological significance, and this is a feature that may be lost in translation. As with many languages associated with relatively small, emergent nationalities, the choice to write in modern Hebrew may be related to a nationalist ideology, in this case, Zionism. This article maintains that the creation of Hebrew is similar to the creation of other minority languages, whose use is restricted to a relatively small population of native speakers, as opposed to world languages, widely known and used by people of many countries. The development and use of a minority language is an expression of self-assertion that entails a degree of isolation. This article examines a novel by a contemporary Israeli novelist, Aharon Megged, and explores the ideological significance of its being written in Hebrew as a literary feature of the novel. It notes the aspects of that ideological significance that ...
is a Slavic word for intestines that entered Yiddish, and from Yiddish it migrated to English and... more is a Slavic word for intestines that entered Yiddish, and from Yiddish it migrated to English and Hebrew. It refers to an Eastern European Jewish dish (only the hopelessly nostalgic would call it a delicacy): stuffed derma. Like so many recipes from that culture, kishka is poor people's food, basic and filling. And that's what kishkes are, the center of our body, where we have gut feelings. The Israeli author, Aharon Appelfeld, with whom I worked as a translator for decades, frequently told me that a real author writes from the "kishkes," not from the head. From time to time, until I realized how tactless I was, I would tell Aharon about a Hebrew novel by someone else, which I admired, and he would say, dismissively, that it wasn't written from the kishkes. Aharon, who survived the Holocaust on his own as a child in the Carpathian forests, definitely was driven to write from the trauma within him, a trauma that, in novel after novel, he could never overcome. He tried again and again to
A brief reflection on the importance of the inherent properties of the language in which a text i... more A brief reflection on the importance of the inherent properties of the language in which a text is written.
This short, personal essay was submitted and initially accepted in a Festschrift in honor of my o... more This short, personal essay was submitted and initially accepted in a Festschrift in honor of my old friend, David Roskies. However, the editors of the Festschrift were overridden by pedantic, idiotic editors, who rejected my essay. So, I'm honoring my friendship for Roskies and his scholarly interests by publishing it here.
When I first met David Roskies in Somerville, MA, at Havurat Shalom in 1970, I was a graduate stu... more When I first met David Roskies in Somerville, MA, at Havurat Shalom in 1970, I was a graduate student in Comparative Literature at Harvard. I knew much more then about Western culture than I did about Jewishness, and this had begun to distress me. David appeared to me -as he does to this day -as the Genuine Article: a Jew who had grown up speaking a Jewish language. I was another kind of Jew: a third generation American whose parents remained Jewish in their hearts and social life, but who were unable to transmit very much to me of the culture their parents had come from, because it was not a culture that interested them.
This is basically a review of Boyarins' book on the Talmud, "A Traveling Homeland," expanded as p... more This is basically a review of Boyarins' book on the Talmud, "A Traveling Homeland," expanded as published on the Lehrhaus website.
A short personal response to a dark comedy with characters who don't say what they mean, who aren... more A short personal response to a dark comedy with characters who don't say what they mean, who aren't who they seem, who are misnamed, and who manipulate each other. Incidentally it is asserted (but not argued) that it's important to be sensitive to the oddity of familiar works of literature, and that life may be a dark comedy.
No reader can perfectly understand any work of literature, even a short poem written in the reade... more No reader can perfectly understand any work of literature, even a short poem written in the reader's native language, because of the complexity of language and life.
A discursive reading of a very well known story from Tractate Berakhot of the Babylonian Talmud, ... more A discursive reading of a very well known story from Tractate Berakhot of the Babylonian Talmud, fol. 27b-28a.
Kishka is a Slavic word for intestines that entered Yiddish, and from Yiddish it migrated to En... more Kishka is a Slavic word for intestines that entered Yiddish, and from Yiddish it migrated to English and Hebrew. It refers to an Eastern European Jewish dish (only the hopelessly nostalgic would call it a delicacy): stuffed derma. Like so many recipes from that culture, kishka is poor people's food, basic and filling. And that's what kishkes are, the center of our body, where we have gut feelings. The Israeli author, Aharon Appelfeld, with whom I worked as a translator for decades, frequently told me that a real author writes from the "kishkes," not from the head. From time to time, until I realized how tactless I was, I would tell Aharon about a Hebrew novel by someone else, which I admired, and he would say, dismissively, that it wasn't written from the kishkes. Aharon, who survived the Holocaust on his own as a child in the Carpathian forests, definitely was driven to write from the trauma within him, a trauma that, in novel after novel, he could never overcome.
This short essay discusses the ontological difference between a text (in this case an academic ar... more This short essay discusses the ontological difference between a text (in this case an academic article or monograph) and its translation.
A survey of the difficulties in translating the Book of Job, with some sample passages, and a com... more A survey of the difficulties in translating the Book of Job, with some sample passages, and a comments on the book itself.
Zionist Ideology and the Translation of Hebrew — Thelanguage used by the author of a text may be ... more Zionist Ideology and the Translation of Hebrew — Thelanguage used by the author of a text may be of ideological significance, and this is a feature that may be lost in translation. As with many languages associated with relatively small, emergent nationalities, the choice to write in modern Hebrew may be related to a nationalist ideology, in this case, Zionism. This article maintains that the creation of Hebrew is similar to the creation of other minority languages, whose use is restricted to a relatively small population of native speakers, as opposed to world languages, widely known and used by people of many countries. The development and use of a minority language is an expression of self-assertion that entails a degree of isolation. This article examines a novel by a contemporary Israeli novelist, Aharon Megged, and explores the ideological significance of its being written in Hebrew as a literary feature of the novel. It notes the aspects of that ideological significance that ...
is a Slavic word for intestines that entered Yiddish, and from Yiddish it migrated to English and... more is a Slavic word for intestines that entered Yiddish, and from Yiddish it migrated to English and Hebrew. It refers to an Eastern European Jewish dish (only the hopelessly nostalgic would call it a delicacy): stuffed derma. Like so many recipes from that culture, kishka is poor people's food, basic and filling. And that's what kishkes are, the center of our body, where we have gut feelings. The Israeli author, Aharon Appelfeld, with whom I worked as a translator for decades, frequently told me that a real author writes from the "kishkes," not from the head. From time to time, until I realized how tactless I was, I would tell Aharon about a Hebrew novel by someone else, which I admired, and he would say, dismissively, that it wasn't written from the kishkes. Aharon, who survived the Holocaust on his own as a child in the Carpathian forests, definitely was driven to write from the trauma within him, a trauma that, in novel after novel, he could never overcome. He tried again and again to
A brief reflection on the importance of the inherent properties of the language in which a text i... more A brief reflection on the importance of the inherent properties of the language in which a text is written.
This short, personal essay was submitted and initially accepted in a Festschrift in honor of my o... more This short, personal essay was submitted and initially accepted in a Festschrift in honor of my old friend, David Roskies. However, the editors of the Festschrift were overridden by pedantic, idiotic editors, who rejected my essay. So, I'm honoring my friendship for Roskies and his scholarly interests by publishing it here.
When I first met David Roskies in Somerville, MA, at Havurat Shalom in 1970, I was a graduate stu... more When I first met David Roskies in Somerville, MA, at Havurat Shalom in 1970, I was a graduate student in Comparative Literature at Harvard. I knew much more then about Western culture than I did about Jewishness, and this had begun to distress me. David appeared to me -as he does to this day -as the Genuine Article: a Jew who had grown up speaking a Jewish language. I was another kind of Jew: a third generation American whose parents remained Jewish in their hearts and social life, but who were unable to transmit very much to me of the culture their parents had come from, because it was not a culture that interested them.
This is basically a review of Boyarins' book on the Talmud, "A Traveling Homeland," expanded as p... more This is basically a review of Boyarins' book on the Talmud, "A Traveling Homeland," expanded as published on the Lehrhaus website.
A short personal response to a dark comedy with characters who don't say what they mean, who aren... more A short personal response to a dark comedy with characters who don't say what they mean, who aren't who they seem, who are misnamed, and who manipulate each other. Incidentally it is asserted (but not argued) that it's important to be sensitive to the oddity of familiar works of literature, and that life may be a dark comedy.
No reader can perfectly understand any work of literature, even a short poem written in the reade... more No reader can perfectly understand any work of literature, even a short poem written in the reader's native language, because of the complexity of language and life.
A discursive reading of a very well known story from Tractate Berakhot of the Babylonian Talmud, ... more A discursive reading of a very well known story from Tractate Berakhot of the Babylonian Talmud, fol. 27b-28a.
Kishka is a Slavic word for intestines that entered Yiddish, and from Yiddish it migrated to En... more Kishka is a Slavic word for intestines that entered Yiddish, and from Yiddish it migrated to English and Hebrew. It refers to an Eastern European Jewish dish (only the hopelessly nostalgic would call it a delicacy): stuffed derma. Like so many recipes from that culture, kishka is poor people's food, basic and filling. And that's what kishkes are, the center of our body, where we have gut feelings. The Israeli author, Aharon Appelfeld, with whom I worked as a translator for decades, frequently told me that a real author writes from the "kishkes," not from the head. From time to time, until I realized how tactless I was, I would tell Aharon about a Hebrew novel by someone else, which I admired, and he would say, dismissively, that it wasn't written from the kishkes. Aharon, who survived the Holocaust on his own as a child in the Carpathian forests, definitely was driven to write from the trauma within him, a trauma that, in novel after novel, he could never overcome.
This short essay discusses the ontological difference between a text (in this case an academic ar... more This short essay discusses the ontological difference between a text (in this case an academic article or monograph) and its translation.
A survey of the difficulties in translating the Book of Job, with some sample passages, and a com... more A survey of the difficulties in translating the Book of Job, with some sample passages, and a comments on the book itself.
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Papers by jeffrey green
How is it, one might wonder, that my French is good enough to read Balzac in the original? In fact, I was already fluent in French in high school, having spent two summers in Europe learning the language, and I went on to major in French in college. I loved the language. I then had a Fulbright scholarship to France and went on to earn a PhD in Comparative Literature, with an emphasis on the French Renaissance. The real question is: How is it that my French is still good enough to read Balzac in the original, since I went on in a different direction after moving to Israel with my family in 1973? The answer is that I did lose a lot of fluency and command of French over the years, and one of my purposes in reading Balzac is to restore my French to what it was before Hebrew invaded my brain.
Beyond the pleasure that I find in reading Balzac’s fiction, as a sometime scholar of French literature, I have an intellectual interest in seeing how his novels work, as he was unquestionably a literary genius. Despite (or perhaps because of) the passage of almost two hundred years since he wrote them, his books remain fascinating, though the modern reader must be tolerant of his wrongheaded obsessions.
Drafts by jeffrey green
How is it, one might wonder, that my French is good enough to read Balzac in the original? In fact, I was already fluent in French in high school, having spent two summers in Europe learning the language, and I went on to major in French in college. I loved the language. I then had a Fulbright scholarship to France and went on to earn a PhD in Comparative Literature, with an emphasis on the French Renaissance. The real question is: How is it that my French is still good enough to read Balzac in the original, since I went on in a different direction after moving to Israel with my family in 1973? The answer is that I did lose a lot of fluency and command of French over the years, and one of my purposes in reading Balzac is to restore my French to what it was before Hebrew invaded my brain.
Beyond the pleasure that I find in reading Balzac’s fiction, as a sometime scholar of French literature, I have an intellectual interest in seeing how his novels work, as he was unquestionably a literary genius. Despite (or perhaps because of) the passage of almost two hundred years since he wrote them, his books remain fascinating, though the modern reader must be tolerant of his wrongheaded obsessions.