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Best regards, Andrew Stewart - - - Subscribe to the Washington Babylon newsletter via https://washingtonbabylon.com/newsletter/ Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <[email protected]> > Date: January 27, 2020 at 4:29:11 AM EST > To: [email protected] > Cc: H-Net Staff <[email protected]> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-Judaic]: Drori on Sokoloff and Berg, 'What We Talk > about When We Talk about Hebrew (and What It Means to Americans)' > Reply-To: [email protected] > > Naomi B. Sokoloff, Nancy E. Berg, eds. What We Talk about When We > Talk about Hebrew (and What It Means to Americans). Seattle > University of Washington Press, 2018. x + 238 pp. $30.00 (paper), > ISBN 978-0-295-74376-9. > > Reviewed by Danielle Drori (Oxford University) > Published on H-Judaic (January, 2020) > Commissioned by Barbara Krawcowicz > > In her 2018 novella, "The Hebrew Teacher," the California-based > Hebrew writer Maya Arad animates the debate at the heart of the > same-year anthology, What We Talk about When We Talk about Hebrew. > Edited by Naomi B. Sokoloff and Nancy E. Berg, this anthology > explores what it means to teach and learn modern Hebrew in the United > States today and why the number of Hebrew students in universities > across the Anglo-American world has dwindled over the past few > decades. Arad's satirical novella deals with similar questions and > could have easily made it into the anthology had it not been written > in Hebrew, primarily for an Israeli readership. Both the novella and > anthology engage with questions of language politics and cultural > transfer, examining the changes that Hebrew studies in North America > have undergone in the past few decades. Yet while Arad's protagonist > is an Israeli expat who fails to reckon with the impact of > globalization and war in the Middle East on Hebrew studies in the > United States, most contributors to What We Talk about When We Talk > about Hebrew are American professors of Hebrew willing to tackle, > some more explicitly than others, the ties between international > politics and foreign-language study. Their essays are complemented by > the personal accounts of three literary figures, Dara Horn, Ilan > Stavans, and Robert Whitehill-Bashan, who tell their stories of > living with or through Hebrew in non-Hebrew-speaking contexts. > > As Arad's protagonist gradually understands in "The Hebrew Teacher," > competing perceptions of Israel and of Jewish history inevitably > shape much of the debate around studying modern Hebrew in the United > States today. When faced with a decline in enrollment in her Hebrew > courses, this protagonist wonders whether the reason behind the > waning numbers goes beyond the general weakening of the humanities in > our age of professionalism and neoliberal economics. Had this > fictional character read Sokoloff and Berg's introduction to _What We > Talk about When We Talk about Hebrew_, she would have been given a > multilayered explanation: First, there is "assimilation," which has > "pulled" American Jews "in many disparate directions" (p. 8). Then, > there is the growing interest in Arabic, a language Berg and Sokoloff > discuss as seemingly more useful from the dual viewpoint of world > demographics and national security. Finally, there is the ascendancy > of English as a borderless _lingua franca_ and a broadly understood > language in present-day Israel. All of these factors turn Hebrew > literacy and proficiency into redundant goals in the eyes of many > Americans. > > In Alan Mintz's essay for the anthology, written as a memoir, the > very notion of proficiency is broken down into its components: > "understanding speech, producing speech, reading comprehension, and > writing." Mintz shows how open-ended each of these skills can be, > reflecting on his own struggle to attain what others may call "near > native" knowledge of Hebrew. He also boldly challenges the idea that > Hebrew is "native" to modern Israel more than it belongs to other > locales: "When it comes to Hebrew," Mintz proclaims, "nativeness is > an invention.... A particular style of orientalized Hebrew spoken in > the youth movements in the Yishuv in the 1930s and 1940s succeeded in > conferring upon itself the designation 'native.' Other styles of > Hebrew spoken in Europe and America were marginalized and deemed less > authentic" (p. 222). > > Mintz's persuasive claim about Hebrew's history is developed in Nancy > E. Berg's essay, "The Anxiety of Authenticity." Berg confesses her > inferiority complex vis-à-vis Israeli scholars of Hebrew language > and literature, eventually determining that as "non-natives," those > who came late to modern Hebrew are uniquely positioned to investigate > its vibrant literary canon from afar. Berg intimates that the entry > of a larger number of Israeli scholars and language instructors into > the realm of American Hebrew and Jewish studies has generated anxiety > among the "non-natives." Yet it can be as liberating for Israelis as > it is for Americans to view Hebrew the way Mintz does, as a language > whose history is long and multifaceted and whose study unavoidably > shifts as it moves across time and space. > > _What We Talk about When We Talk about Hebrew_ wages a campaign > against parochialism. Adriana X. Jacobs and Adam Rovner present > particularly strong narratives about shifting perspectives, analyzing > poems they have discussed with disparate groups of students in the > United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel. Both Jacobs and Rovner > show that talking about Hebrew means talking about translation, > dwelling on the transition of specific words and phrases from one > language to another and tackling the social and political history of > Hebrew translation. > > Indeed, _What We Talk about When We Talk about Hebrew_ is an > illuminating book for translation studies scholars, or for anyone > interested in the global circulation of texts, contexts, and > ideology. Ilan Stavans's essay, "Dying in Hebrew," opens with a brief > yet instructive discussion of translation, focusing on the English > title of Stavans's Spanish short story "Morirse está en hebreo." > When this story was adapted into a film, as Stavans recounts, the > filmmakers marketed it as "My Mexican _Shiva_," a title that assumes > knowledge of Jewish rites. The same assumption could not be made in > the Spanish-speaking world, as Spanish speakers often use the phrase > "it's in Hebrew" to convey that something is incomprehensible (p. > 36). > > Stavans also highlights one of the anthology's overarching > presuppositions: not all languages are born equal (p. 37). Some > languages have accrued more symbolic capital than others throughout > history; others have had to be formed and reformed by political > leaders; still others have been revived, reinvigorated, standardized, > or banned. Languages are also commonly perceived as more than tools > for communication, representing identity, emotional familiarity, and > cultural memory. While Stavans acknowledges the key place Hebrew > occupies in his own mental landscape, he seeks to empty it of its > psycho-political baggage when looking at it from the viewpoint of an > activist for Palestinian rights: "I am dismayed by the fact that > Hebrew, to its enemies, implies death. Actually, I hate that 'it has > enemies,' as an activist told me in Gaza. How can a language have > enemies?" (p. 49). If a language can be compared to one's friend or > kin, as Stavans argues in his essay, it can surely have enemies. > > In another essay in the anthology about reconciling Hebrew's > contradictory "identities," Wendy Zierler acts out compellingly her > ongoing attempt to understand what motivates Americans to study > Hebrew. Wrestling with the concept of "heritage-related motivation" > for language study, Zierler asks what Hebrew's heritage is and why it > does not appeal to all Jews. She notes that ambivalence about > Israel's "political and religious values" has distanced large parts > of the American liberal Jewish community from Hebrew, suggesting that > foreign language study both marks and is marked by one's moral and > ideological principles (p. 94). > > Like Zierler, the novelist Dara Horn contemplates the ties between > her religious-cultural background and her long-standing love of > Hebrew. She tells the story of her career as a "professional Jewish > nerd," beginning with her habitual reading of the weekly Torah > portion as a young girl and ending with her alleged revelation that > her English novels' Hebrew translations are in fact "the original" > versions of the same texts (p. 35). Translation studies scholars may > once again rejoice in the questions this statement raises. Horn seems > to believe that Hebrew's roots (pun intended) elevate it to the > status of what Walter Benjamin has dubbed "pure language."[1] > Fetishizing Hebrew, Horn's essay echoes the exclusionary poetics of > canonical Hebrew writers like David Frishman, who insisted in the > early 1900s that his translations of Friedrich Nietzsche and Lord > Byron's Bible-inspired works are "restorations" rather than > derivative iterations.[2] > > Less psychologically and politically loaded are Naomi Sokoloff, > Hannah S. Pressman, and Sarah Bunin-Benor's essays about learning, > teaching, and disseminating Hebrew in the United States today. > Sokoloff issues a call for the production of more language memoirs > about Hebrew (in English), while Pressman and Bunin-Benor share > pedagogical and research advice through their respective accounts of > using digital tools for advancing Hebrew studies and of understanding > the function of "immersion" and "infusion" in Hebrew-education > programs. Bunin-Benor criticizes purism as an approach to language > teaching, yet displays what can be deemed a purist view of Jewish > national difference. She deploys the term "Jewish languages" > uncritically, not taking into account recent works that have shown > how this category reifies rather than problematizes the idea of > Jewish difference.[3] > > _What We Talk about When We Talk about Hebrew_ invites the reader to > think precisely about such questions of perspective and terminology, > joining previous inquiries into Jewish language politics while also > expanding them through first-person narratives. The combination of > academic investigation and memoir makes this anthology a trove of > insights about language, translation, and Jewish history. This > combination is at its best in the pair of essays dedicated to Robert > Whitehill-Bashan's American Hebrew poetry. Whitehill-Bashan himself > explains how writing in Hebrew has required him to strip away his > defenses, whereas the scholar Michael Weingrad, interpreting > Whitehill-Bashan's work, claims that it embodies a kind of cultural > and territorial schizophrenia. Whether one agrees with the use of the > term "schizophrenia" to describe a bilingual state of being is beside > the point. Like all other parts in What We Talk about When We Talk > about Hebrew, Whitehill-Bashan and Weingrad's essays encourage the > reader to strip away her own defenses in order to reassess her > attachment to any language, "native" or not. > > Notes > > [1]. Walter Benjamin, "The Task of the Translator," in _Walter > Benjamin: Selected Writings 1913-1926 _(Cambridge, MA: Harvard > University Press, 1996), 253-63. > > [2]. Quoted in Menuha Gilboa, _Ben realizm le'romantiqa: al darko > shel David Frishman ba'biqoret_ (Tel Aviv: Ha-qibuts Ha-meuḥad, > 1975), 155. > > [3]. Yasemin Yildiz, _Beyond the Mother Tongue: The Postmonolingual > Condition_ (New York: Fordham University Press, 2012); Ella Shohat, > "The Invention of Judeo-Arabic," _Interventions_ 19, no. 2 (2016): > 153-200. > > _Danielle Drori holds a PhD in modern Hebrew literature from New York > University. She teaches at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research > and will be a visiting scholar at the Centre for Hebrew and Jewish > Studies at Oxford University in 2020._ > > Citation: Danielle Drori. Review of Sokoloff, Naomi B.; Berg, Nancy > E., eds., _What We Talk about When We Talk about Hebrew (and What It > Means to Americans)_. H-Judaic, H-Net Reviews. January, 2020. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=54248 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
