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JERUSALEM (JTA)
Among those jostling for
room in crowded conference halls in downtown
Jerusalem were a Serbian novelist, a Russian
short story writer, an Israeli poet and a
German playwright.
They were among some 100 writers who
gathered from across the world to begin a
conversation on what it means to be a Jewish
writer.
Polish-born writer Eva Hoffman spoke of how
Jewish identity intertwines with her writing
life.
"I started writing out of the Diaspora
[experience] -- the great rupture of
emigration, the loss of my first language
and finding a second language," she said
during a panel discussion. "Being inside and
outside … this is the classic Jewish and
writer's position."
Kissufim, the Jerusalem Conference of Jewish
Writers, was the first gathering of its kind
in Israel. The four-day event, which ended
April 19, featured readings and roundtable
discussions on topics ranging from memory
and the Holocaust to Nobel winner S.Y. Agnon
to the variety of languages in Jewish
literature. It was hosted by Beit Morasha of
Jerusalem, The Academic Center for Jewish
Studies and Leadership.
Central to the gathering's goals was to
expose Israeli Jewish writers and Diapora
Jewish writers to each other.
At a panel discussion on what defines a
Jewish writer, Israeli author Aharon Megged
said using Hebrew was central to his writing
experience.
"In Hebrew, every letter has meaning," he
said. "It is the language of the Bible, a
language with layers of history … there is
something Jewish deep inside it that you
cannot distance yourself from."
Melvin Jules Bukiet, a New York novelist and
literary critic, asked if the glorification
of Hebrew was not in some ways an attempt to
disenfranchise other languages.
Prize-winning writer Maya Kaganskaya, who
immigrated to Israel from Kiev and writes
exclusively in Russian, said that despite
many years in Israel it's still the Russian
language and its great authors with whom she
connects most deeply.
Such debate was among the aims of the
conference, organizers said. The idea was
not that participants should agree on every
topic but rather -- because this was a
unique encounter between Diaspora and
Israeli Jewish writers -- they would start
debating the same themes and topics.
"There is sometimes a sense that there is a
Diaspora-Israel break, that some Israelis
have a very strong sense that Israel is the
center of the Jewish world and some people
in the Diapsora feel very uncomfortable with
that, as if it is some sort of denigration
of their own lives," said Michael Kramer, a
conference organizer and director of the
graduate creative writing program in Bar-Ilan
University's English Department.
"One of the things we were trying to do was
get beyond that sense of a break," Kramer
said. "We invited people to speak and read
in their own languages, trying to get things
translated not just in the linguistic sense,
but also the larger sense to get a sense of
their world translated."
Jonathan Rosen, a New York author and
editor, said the conference provided
important insights.
"It's unusual to have a conference like this
in Israel, where Jewish identity plays a
different role in the cultural imagination
than it does in the United States," he told
JTA.
Rosen said the conference dealt with those
differences but also underscored the
emerging understanding among Israeli writers
that there's a vibrant Diaspora, just as it
allows Diaspora writers a chance to
contemplate the vital role Israel plays in
Jewish life.
"We all need each other," Rosen said.
Another theme that emerged was a return by
some American Jewish writers to the role of
religion in their lives. Rosen himself wrote
a novel, "Joy Comes in the Morning," that
features a woman rabbi as its main
character.
Rosen said that stands in contrast to the
older generation of Jewish writers, who
wrote of moving away from their religious
and immigrant origins to embrace American
culture, even viewing Ellis Island as the
new Mount Sinai.
Now, he said, there's a "journey back toward
Jewish identity and consciousness rather
than self-consciousness. It is a journey
that is equally heroic, fruitful and
exhilarating and is even quintessentially
American, because without an individual
identity one cannot have an American
identity."
Rosen traces the trend to the 1960s, when
Jewish studies began to make inroads at
American universities, the Six-Day War
boosted Jewish self-confidence and genteel
American anti-Semitism went into eclipse.
Nessa Rapoport, a Canadian-born memoirist
and writer who now lives in New York City
and long has dealt with Jewish themes, also
sees Jewish writing taking a turn toward its
religious roots.
"Once I felt considerable solitude as a
writer in my passion for the Jewish literary
tradition," she said. "Now I see an
increasing number of Jewish American writers
as engaged as I am by the eloquence of our
shared literary inheritance."
Rapoport said she sometimes is overwhelmed
by how much writing there is on Jewish
themes.
"I used to be able to read most of what was
published in American Jewish writing," she
said. "Now I cannot possibly keep up."
The conference was an opportunity for the
writers to network and begin to create a
kind of community. Plans are under way for
another gathering in two years.
Carolyn Hessel, head of the Jewish Book
Council, was among those attending the
conference. Considered among the most
powerful voices in North American Jewish
literature, she has been delighted by the
recent surge of high-quality literary
fiction produced by the younger generation.
"It's like a Renaissance of Jewish
literature," she said. |
