Jewish literature
Encyclopedia
Jewish Literature refers to works written by Jews on Jewish themes, literary works of various themes written in Jewish languages, or literary works in other languages written by Jewish writers. Ancient Jewish literature includes Biblical literature and rabbinic literature
. Medieval Jewish literature includes not only rabbinic literature
but also ethical literature
, philosophical literature
, mystical literature
, various other forms of prose including history and fiction, and various forms of poetry of both religious and secular varieties. The production of Jewish literature has flowered with the modern emergence of secular Jewish culture
. Modern Jewish literature has included Yiddish literature
, Ladino literature, Hebrew literature
(especially Israeli literature
), and Jewish American literature
.
) flourished in Palestine in the seventh and eighth centuries with the writings of Yose ben Yose, Yanai
, and Eleazar Kalir
.
Later Spanish, Provencal, and Italian poets wrote both religious and secular poems. Particularly prominent poets were Solomon ibn Gabirol
and Yehuda Halevi
.
The first female Jewish poet to write poetry in German was Rachel Akerman (1522–1544), who wrote a poem titled "Geheimniss des Hofes" (The Mystery of the Courts), in which she described the intrigues of courtiers. A female Jewish poet writing in Yiddish during the same period was Rebecca bat Meir Tiktiner
, author of a poem about Simchat Torah in forty couplets.
: Jewish philosophical literature
, mystical (Kabbalistic) literature
, musar (ethical) literature
, halakhic literature, and commentaries on the Bible.
The modern era also saw the creation of what is generally known as "modern Jewish literature," discussed here. Modern Jewish literature emerged with the Hebrew literature of the Haskalah
and broke with religious traditions about literature. Therefore, it can be distinguished from rabbinic literature
which is distinctly religious in character. Modern Jewish literature was a unique Jewish literature which often also contributed to the national literatures of many of the countries in which Jews lived.
shook off the medieval fetters which hindered its free development. His allegorical drama
"La-Yesharim Tehillah" (1743), which may be regarded as the first product of modern Hebrew literature
, has been described as "a poem that in its classic perfection of style is second only to the Bible." In Amsterdam
, Luzzatto's pupil, David Franco Mendes
(1713–92), in his imitations of Jean Racine
("Gemul 'Atalyah") and of Metastasio
("Yehudit"), continued his master's work, though his works are not as respected as were Luzzatto's. In Germany
, the leader of the Haskalah
movement Naphtali Hartwig Wessely (1725–1805) has been regarded as the "poet laureate" of his era. Luzzatto and Wessely also wrote works of ethical musar literature
, and Luzzatto's Mesillat Yesharim
gained particular prominence.
In Galicia, important literary artists included: Nachman Krochmal
(1785–1840); Solomon Judah Loeb Rapoport (1790–1867); and the satirical poet and essayist Isaac Erter
(1792–1841); and lyric poet and translator Meir Halevi Letteris (1815–1874). Writers in Amsterdam
included the poet Samuel Molder (1789–1862). Writers in Prague
included the haskalah
leader Jehudah Loeb Jeiteles (1773–1838), author of witty epigrams ("Bene ha-Ne'urim") and of works directed against Hasidism and against superstition
. Writers in Hungary
included: the poet Solomon Lewison of Moor (1789–1822), author of "Melitzat Yeshurun"; the poet Gabriel Südfeld, father of Max Nordau
; and the poet Simon Bacher
. Romanian
writers of note included Julius Barasch. Italian
Jewish writers included: I. S. Reggio (1784–1854); Joseph Almanzi; Hayyim Salomon; Samuel Vita Lolli (1788–1843); Rachel Morpurgo (1790–1860), whose poems evince religious piety and a mystic faith in Israel's future; and Samuel David Luzzatto
(1800–65), who has been described as the first modern writer to introduce religious romanticism
into Hebrew.
Hebrew writers in the Russian empire included: the poet Jacob Eichenbaum; the Haskalah
leader Isaac Baer Levinsohn
; Kalman Schulman (1826–1900), who introduced the romantic
form into Hebrew; the romantic
poet Micah Joseph Lebensohn
(1828–52); the "father of prose," Lithuania
n author M. A. Ginzburg; and "the father of poetry," Lithuania
n poet Abraham Baer Lebensohn, whose poems "Shire Sefat Kodesh" were extraordinarily successful. The creator of the Hebrew novel
was Abraham Mapu
(1808–67), whose historical romance
"Ahabat Tziyyon" exercised an important influence on the development of Hebrew. The poet Judah Leib (Leon) Gordon was a satirist who has been characterized as "an implacable enemy of the Rabbis."
and came to be recognized as Israel
's national poet. Bialik contributed significantly to the revival of the Hebrew language
. His influence is felt deeply in all subsequent Hebrew literature. Another prominent Hebrew poet of Bialik's era was Shaul Tchernichovsky
(1875–1943), who is especially well-known for his nature poetry and for his interest in the culture of ancient Greece.
i writers, Shmuel Yosef Agnon
achieved particular reknowon after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature for novels and short stories that employ a unique blend of biblical, Talmudic and modern Hebrew. Other Israel
i authors whose works have been translated into other languages and who have attained international recognition include Ephraim Kishon
, Yaakov Shabtai
, A. B. Yehoshua
, Amos Oz
, Irit Linur
, Etgar Keret
and Yehoshua Sobol
.
is generally dated to the publication in 1864 of Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh
’s novel Dos kleyne mentshele (“The Little Person”). The most important of the early writers to follow Abramovitsh were Sholem Rabinovitsh, popularly known by his alter-ego, Sholem Aleichem, and I. L. Peretz. Later Yiddish writers of note include Abraham Sutzkever
, Isaac Bashevis Singer
, who won the Nobel Prize in 1978, and Chaim Grade
.
includes the works of Gertrude Stein
, Henry Roth
, Saul Bellow
, Norman Mailer
, Bernard Malamud
, Chaim Potok
, and Philip Roth
. The poetry of Allen Ginsberg
often touches on Jewish themes (notably the early autobiographical works such as Howl
and Kaddish
). Recent Jewish-American literature includes the writings of Paul Auster
, Michael Chabon
, Jonathan Safran Foer
and Art Spiegelman
.
and made outstanding contributions to world literature include the German poet Heinrich Heine
and the Bohemian novelist Franz Kafka
.
Other significant German-Jewish poets include Berthold Auerbach
, Else Lasker-Schüler
, Ernst Lissauer
, Jacob Raphael Fürstenthal
, Siegfried Einstein
, Nelly Sachs
, and Erich Mühsam
.
German-Jewish novelists include Lion Feuchtwanger
, Edgar Hilsenrath
, Anna Seghers
, Jakob Wassermann
, and Stefanie Zweig
.
(who never wrote on Jewish themes); Joseph Brodsky
, a poet who won the Nobel Prize in 1987; Osip Mandelstam
, another famous poet, wooer of Akhmatova, and victim of the Soviets. Vassily Grossman's experiences in WWII provide the main material for his novels.
Modern Ladino poets include Margalit Matityahu, Avner Peretz, Victor Perera, Rita Gabbai Simantov, and Sara Benveniste Benrey.
Rabbinic literature
Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, can mean the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic writing, and thus corresponds with the Hebrew term...
. Medieval Jewish literature includes not only rabbinic literature
Rabbinic literature
Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, can mean the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic writing, and thus corresponds with the Hebrew term...
but also ethical literature
Musar literature
Musar literature is the term used for didactic Jewish ethical literature which describes virtues and vices and the path towards perfection in a methodical way.- Definition of Musar literature :...
, philosophical literature
Jewish philosophy
Jewish philosophy , includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or, in relation to the religion of Judaism. Jewish philosophy, until modern Enlightenment and Emancipation, was pre-occupied with attempts to reconcile coherent new ideas into the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism; thus organizing...
, mystical literature
Kabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
, various other forms of prose including history and fiction, and various forms of poetry of both religious and secular varieties. The production of Jewish literature has flowered with the modern emergence of secular Jewish culture
Secular Jewish culture
Secular Jewish culture embraces several related phenomena; above all, it is the international culture of secular communities of Jewish people, but it can also include the cultural contributions of individuals who identify as secular Jews...
. Modern Jewish literature has included Yiddish literature
Yiddish literature
Yiddish literature encompasses all belles lettres written in Yiddish, the language of Ashkenazic Jewry which is related to Middle High German. The history of Yiddish, with its roots in central Europe and locus for centuries in Eastern Europe, is evident in its literature.It is generally described...
, Ladino literature, Hebrew literature
Hebrew literature
Hebrew literature consists of ancient, medieval, and modern writings in the Hebrew language. It is one of the primary forms of Jewish literature, though there have been cases of literature written in Hebrew by non-Jews...
(especially Israeli literature
Israeli literature
Israeli literature is literature written in the State of Israel by Israelis. Most works classed as Israeli literature are written in the Hebrew language, although some Israeli authors write in Yiddish, English, Arabic and Russian...
), and Jewish American literature
Jewish American literature
Jewish American Literature holds an essential place in the literary history of the United States. It encompasses traditions of writing in English, primarily, as well as in other languages, the most important of which has been Yiddish...
.
Fiction
Prominent examples of medieval Jewish fiction included:- Sefer ha-Ma'asiyyot, by Nissim b. Jacob b. Nissim ibn Shahin of KairouanKairouanKairouan , also known as Kirwan or al-Qayrawan , is the capital of the Kairouan Governorate in Tunisia. Referred to as the Islamic Cultural Capital, it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The city was founded by the Arabs around 670...
, written in Arabic, a book of fables based on aggadic legends. - Sefer Sha'ashu'im, by Joseph Ibn Zabara (12th century), a story combining folktales, epigrams, and passages of philosophy and science.
- Ben ha-Melekh ve-ha-Nazir, by Abraham b. Samuel ha-Levi Ibn Ḥasdai, based on an Indian tale based on the life of BuddhaBuddhaIn Buddhism, buddhahood is the state of perfect enlightenment attained by a buddha .In Buddhism, the term buddha usually refers to one who has become enlightened...
. - Meshal ha-Kadmoni, by Isaac ibn Sahula (13th century), combining aggadahAggadahAggadah refers to the homiletic and non-legalistic exegetical texts in the classical rabbinic literature of Judaism, particularly as recorded in the Talmud and Midrash...
with original stories - Mishlei Shu'alim ("Fox Fables"), by Berechiah ben Natronai ha-Nakdan, Hebrew fables which resemble Aesop's fablesAesop's FablesAesop's Fables or the Aesopica are a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE. The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children today...
.
Poetry
Liturgical Jewish poetry (PiyyutPiyyut
A piyyut or piyut is a Jewish liturgical poem, usually designated to be sung, chanted, or recited during religious services. Piyyutim have been written since Temple times...
) flourished in Palestine in the seventh and eighth centuries with the writings of Yose ben Yose, Yanai
Yanai (Payetan)
Yannai was the first payyetan to employ rhyme and introduce his name in acrostics. He flourished, probably in the land of Israel, in the first half of the 7th century. He was apparently a very prolific poet, for reference is made to "the liturgical poems of Yannai"; he is also said to have...
, and Eleazar Kalir
Eleazar Kalir
Eleazar ben Kalir was one of Judaism's earliest and most prolific of the paytanim, liturgical poets. Many of his hymns have found their way into festive prayers of the Ashkenazi Jews synagogal rite....
.
Later Spanish, Provencal, and Italian poets wrote both religious and secular poems. Particularly prominent poets were Solomon ibn Gabirol
Solomon ibn Gabirol
Solomon ibn Gabirol, also Solomon ben Judah , was an Andalucian Hebrew poet and Jewish philosopher with a Neoplatonic bent. He was born in Málaga about 1021; died about 1058 in Valencia.-Biography:...
and Yehuda Halevi
Yehuda Halevi
Judah Halevi was a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher. He was born in Spain, either in Toledo or Tudela, in 1075 or 1086, and died shortly after arriving in Palestine in 1141...
.
The first female Jewish poet to write poetry in German was Rachel Akerman (1522–1544), who wrote a poem titled "Geheimniss des Hofes" (The Mystery of the Courts), in which she described the intrigues of courtiers. A female Jewish poet writing in Yiddish during the same period was Rebecca bat Meir Tiktiner
Rebecca bat Meir Tiktiner
Rebecca bat Meir Tiktiner was a Yiddish writer, whose works include a treatise on Jewish ethics in the style of musar literature as well as a poem about Simchat Torah. She lived in the 16th century and was buried in Prague; she died circa 1550. She or her father probably resided in the northeast...
, author of a poem about Simchat Torah in forty couplets.
Other medieval Jewish literature
Medieval Jewish literature also includes:- Jewish philosophical literature
- mystical (Kabbalistic) literature
- musar literature, ethical literature dealing with virtues and vices
- Halakhic literature
- Commentaries on the Bible
Modern Jewish literature
Modern Jews continued to write standard forms of rabbinic literatureRabbinic literature
Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, can mean the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic writing, and thus corresponds with the Hebrew term...
: Jewish philosophical literature
Jewish philosophy
Jewish philosophy , includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or, in relation to the religion of Judaism. Jewish philosophy, until modern Enlightenment and Emancipation, was pre-occupied with attempts to reconcile coherent new ideas into the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism; thus organizing...
, mystical (Kabbalistic) literature
Kabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
, musar (ethical) literature
Musar literature
Musar literature is the term used for didactic Jewish ethical literature which describes virtues and vices and the path towards perfection in a methodical way.- Definition of Musar literature :...
, halakhic literature, and commentaries on the Bible.
The modern era also saw the creation of what is generally known as "modern Jewish literature," discussed here. Modern Jewish literature emerged with the Hebrew literature of the Haskalah
Haskalah
Haskalah , the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews in the 18th–19th centuries that advocated adopting enlightenment values, pressing for better integration into European society, and increasing education in secular studies, Hebrew language, and Jewish history...
and broke with religious traditions about literature. Therefore, it can be distinguished from rabbinic literature
Rabbinic literature
Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, can mean the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic writing, and thus corresponds with the Hebrew term...
which is distinctly religious in character. Modern Jewish literature was a unique Jewish literature which often also contributed to the national literatures of many of the countries in which Jews lived.
Eighteenth-Century Hebrew literature
It was with Moses Hayyim Luzzatto (1707–1746) that Hebrew poetryPoetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
shook off the medieval fetters which hindered its free development. His allegorical drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
"La-Yesharim Tehillah" (1743), which may be regarded as the first product of modern Hebrew literature
Hebrew literature
Hebrew literature consists of ancient, medieval, and modern writings in the Hebrew language. It is one of the primary forms of Jewish literature, though there have been cases of literature written in Hebrew by non-Jews...
, has been described as "a poem that in its classic perfection of style is second only to the Bible." In Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, Luzzatto's pupil, David Franco Mendes
David Franco Mendes
David Franco Mendes was a Jewish Hebrew-language poet, born in Amsterdam Aug. 13, 1713; died there Oct. 10, 1792. A business man, he devoted his leisure hours to the study of the Talmud, in which he became very proficient. He knew several languages, and was especially well versed in Hebrew...
(1713–92), in his imitations of Jean Racine
Jean Racine
Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
("Gemul 'Atalyah") and of Metastasio
Metastasio
Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, better known by his pseudonym of Metastasio, was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti.-Early life:...
("Yehudit"), continued his master's work, though his works are not as respected as were Luzzatto's. In Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, the leader of the Haskalah
Haskalah
Haskalah , the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews in the 18th–19th centuries that advocated adopting enlightenment values, pressing for better integration into European society, and increasing education in secular studies, Hebrew language, and Jewish history...
movement Naphtali Hartwig Wessely (1725–1805) has been regarded as the "poet laureate" of his era. Luzzatto and Wessely also wrote works of ethical musar literature
Musar literature
Musar literature is the term used for didactic Jewish ethical literature which describes virtues and vices and the path towards perfection in a methodical way.- Definition of Musar literature :...
, and Luzzatto's Mesillat Yesharim
Mesillat Yesharim
The Mesillat Yesharim is an ethical text composed by the influential Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto . It is quite different from Luzzato's other writings, which are more philosophical....
gained particular prominence.
Nineteenth-Century Hebrew literature
(See also: Revival of the Hebrew language)In Galicia, important literary artists included: Nachman Krochmal
Nachman Krochmal
Nachman Kohen Krochmal was a Jewish Galician philosopher, theologian, and historian.-Biography:...
(1785–1840); Solomon Judah Loeb Rapoport (1790–1867); and the satirical poet and essayist Isaac Erter
Isaac Erter
Isaac Erter was a Polish-Jewish satirist.He was born at Janischok, Galicia. The first part of his life was full of struggles and hardships...
(1792–1841); and lyric poet and translator Meir Halevi Letteris (1815–1874). Writers in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
included the poet Samuel Molder (1789–1862). Writers in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
included the haskalah
Haskalah
Haskalah , the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews in the 18th–19th centuries that advocated adopting enlightenment values, pressing for better integration into European society, and increasing education in secular studies, Hebrew language, and Jewish history...
leader Jehudah Loeb Jeiteles (1773–1838), author of witty epigrams ("Bene ha-Ne'urim") and of works directed against Hasidism and against superstition
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
. Writers in Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
included: the poet Solomon Lewison of Moor (1789–1822), author of "Melitzat Yeshurun"; the poet Gabriel Südfeld, father of Max Nordau
Max Nordau
Max Simon Nordau , born Simon Maximilian Südfeld in Pest, Hungary, was a Zionist leader, physician, author, and social critic....
; and the poet Simon Bacher
Simon Bacher
Simon Bacher was a Hungarian Neo-Hebraic poet.Bacher, whose name was originally Bachrach, came of a family of scholars, and counted as one of his ancestors the well-known Moravian-German rabbi Jair Ḥayyim Bacharach. He studied Talmud in his native city, and in Mikulov under Menahem Nahum...
. Romanian
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
writers of note included Julius Barasch. Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
Jewish writers included: I. S. Reggio (1784–1854); Joseph Almanzi; Hayyim Salomon; Samuel Vita Lolli (1788–1843); Rachel Morpurgo (1790–1860), whose poems evince religious piety and a mystic faith in Israel's future; and Samuel David Luzzatto
Samuel David Luzzatto
Samuel David Luzzatto was an Italian Jewish scholar, poet, and a member of the Wissenschaft des Judentums movement. He is also known by his Hebrew acronym, Shadal ....
(1800–65), who has been described as the first modern writer to introduce religious romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
into Hebrew.
Hebrew writers in the Russian empire included: the poet Jacob Eichenbaum; the Haskalah
Haskalah
Haskalah , the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews in the 18th–19th centuries that advocated adopting enlightenment values, pressing for better integration into European society, and increasing education in secular studies, Hebrew language, and Jewish history...
leader Isaac Baer Levinsohn
Isaac Baer Levinsohn
Isaac Baer Levinsohn , born Kremenetz, October 13, 1788; died there, February 12, 1860, was a notable Russian-Hebrew scholar, satirist, writer and Haskalah leader. He was called "the Russian Mendelssohn"...
; Kalman Schulman (1826–1900), who introduced the romantic
Romantic poetry
Romanticism, a philosophical, literary, artistic and cultural era which began in the mid/late-1700s as a reaction against the prevailing Enlightenment ideals of the day , also influenced poetry...
form into Hebrew; the romantic
Romantic poetry
Romanticism, a philosophical, literary, artistic and cultural era which began in the mid/late-1700s as a reaction against the prevailing Enlightenment ideals of the day , also influenced poetry...
poet Micah Joseph Lebensohn
Micah Joseph Lebensohn
Micah Joseph Lebensohn Russian Hebrew poet.His father, the poet Abraham Bär Lebensohn, implanted in him the love of Hebrew poetry, and Micah Joseph began very early to translate and to compose Hebrew songs. He suffered from consumption during the last five or six years of his short life...
(1828–52); the "father of prose," Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
n author M. A. Ginzburg; and "the father of poetry," Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
n poet Abraham Baer Lebensohn, whose poems "Shire Sefat Kodesh" were extraordinarily successful. The creator of the Hebrew novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
was Abraham Mapu
Abraham Mapu
Abraham Mapu was a Lithuanian-born Hebrew novelist of the Haskalah movement. His novels later served as a basis for the Zionist movement.-Biography:...
(1808–67), whose historical romance
Historical romance
Historical romance is a subgenre of two literary genres, the romance novel and the historical novel.-Definition:Historical romance is set before World War II...
"Ahabat Tziyyon" exercised an important influence on the development of Hebrew. The poet Judah Leib (Leon) Gordon was a satirist who has been characterized as "an implacable enemy of the Rabbis."
Early 20th century Hebrew literature
Hayim Nahman Bialik (1873–1934) was one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew poetryPoetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
and came to be recognized as Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
's national poet. Bialik contributed significantly to the revival of the Hebrew language
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
. His influence is felt deeply in all subsequent Hebrew literature. Another prominent Hebrew poet of Bialik's era was Shaul Tchernichovsky
Shaul Tchernichovsky
Shaul Tchernichovsky , was a Russian-born Hebrew poet. He is considered one of the great Hebrew poets, identified with nature poetry, and as a poet greatly influenced by the culture of ancient Greece.- Life :...
(1875–1943), who is especially well-known for his nature poetry and for his interest in the culture of ancient Greece.
Israeli literature
Among IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i writers, Shmuel Yosef Agnon
Shmuel Yosef Agnon
Shmuel Yosef Agnon , was a Nobel Prize laureate writer and was one of the central figures of modern Hebrew fiction. In Hebrew, he is known by the acronym Shai Agnon . In English, his works are published under the name S. Y. Agnon.Agnon was born in Galicia, Austro-Hungarian Empire...
achieved particular reknowon after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature for novels and short stories that employ a unique blend of biblical, Talmudic and modern Hebrew. Other Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i authors whose works have been translated into other languages and who have attained international recognition include Ephraim Kishon
Ephraim Kishon
' was an Israeli author, dramatist, screenwriter, and film director. He is one of the most widely-read contemporary satirists in the world.- Early life and World War II :...
, Yaakov Shabtai
Yaakov Shabtai
Yaakov Shabtai was an Israeli novelist, playwright, and translator.-Biography:Shabtai was born in 1934 in Tel Aviv, Mandate Palestine. In 1957, after completing military service, he joined Kibbutz Merhavia, but returned to Tel Aviv in 1967....
, A. B. Yehoshua
A. B. Yehoshua
Abraham B. Yehoshua is an Israeli novelist, essayist, and playwright. His pen name is A. B. Yehoshua.-Biography:...
, Amos Oz
Amos Oz
Amos Oz is an Israeli writer, novelist, and journalist. He is also a professor of literature at Ben-Gurion University in Be'er Sheva....
, Irit Linur
Irit Linur
-Biography:Irit Linur was married to Alon Ben David, Senior Defense Correspondent for Israel Channel 10 and Middle East Correspondent for Jane's Defense Weekly.-Literary career:Linur started her writing career as a satirical columnist in local newspapers...
, Etgar Keret
Etgar Keret
Etgar Keret is an Israeli writer known for his short stories, graphic novels, and scriptwriting for film and television.-Personal Life:Keret was born in Ramat Gan, Israel in 1967. He is a third child to parents who survived the Holocaust. He lives in Tel Aviv with his wife, Shira Geffen, and...
and Yehoshua Sobol
Yehoshua Sobol
Joshua Sobol, also known as Yehoshua Sobol , is an Israeli playwright, writer, and director at theatres in Israel and abroad.He is married to Edna, set and costume designer...
.
Yiddish literature
Modern Yiddish literatureYiddish literature
Yiddish literature encompasses all belles lettres written in Yiddish, the language of Ashkenazic Jewry which is related to Middle High German. The history of Yiddish, with its roots in central Europe and locus for centuries in Eastern Europe, is evident in its literature.It is generally described...
is generally dated to the publication in 1864 of Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh
Mendele Mocher Sforim
Mendele Mocher Sforim , December 21, 1835 = January 2, 1836 , Kapyl — November 25, 1917 = December 8, 1917...
’s novel Dos kleyne mentshele (“The Little Person”). The most important of the early writers to follow Abramovitsh were Sholem Rabinovitsh, popularly known by his alter-ego, Sholem Aleichem, and I. L. Peretz. Later Yiddish writers of note include Abraham Sutzkever
Abraham Sutzkever
Abraham Sutzkever was an acclaimed Yiddish poet. The New York Times wrote that Sutzkever was "the greatest poet of the Holocaust."-Biography:...
, Isaac Bashevis Singer
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Isaac Bashevis Singer – July 24, 1991) was a Polish Jewish American author noted for his short stories. He was one of the leading figures in the Yiddish literary movement, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978...
, who won the Nobel Prize in 1978, and Chaim Grade
Chaim Grade
Chaim Grade was one of the leading Yiddish writers of the twentieth century....
.
American Jewish literature
American Jewish literature written in EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
includes the works of Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
, Henry Roth
Henry Roth
Henry Roth was an American novelist and short story writer.-Biography:Roth was born in Tysmenitz near Stanislaviv, Galicia, Austro-Hungary...
, Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...
, Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
, Bernard Malamud
Bernard Malamud
Bernard Malamud was an author of novels and short stories. Along with Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, he was one of the great American Jewish authors of the 20th century. His baseball novel, The Natural, was adapted into a 1984 film starring Robert Redford...
, Chaim Potok
Chaim Potok
Chaim Potok was an American Jewish author and rabbi. Potok is most famous for his first book The Chosen, a 1967 novel which was listed on The New York Times’ best seller list for 39 weeks and sold more than 3,400,000 copies.-Biography :Herman Harold Potok was born in The Bronx, New York City, to...
, and Philip Roth
Philip Roth
Philip Milton Roth is an American novelist. He gained fame with the 1959 novella Goodbye, Columbus, an irreverent and humorous portrait of Jewish-American life that earned him a National Book Award...
. The poetry of Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
often touches on Jewish themes (notably the early autobiographical works such as Howl
Howl
"Howl" is a poem written by Allen Ginsberg in 1955 and published as part of his 1956 collection of poetry titled Howl and Other Poems. The poem is considered to be one of the great works of the Beat Generation, along with Jack Kerouac's On the Road and William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch...
and Kaddish
Kaddish (poem)
Kaddish also known as Kaddish for Naomi Ginsberg is a poem by Beat writer Allen Ginsberg about his mother Naomi and her death on June 9, 1956.-Background:...
). Recent Jewish-American literature includes the writings of Paul Auster
Paul Auster
Paul Benjamin Auster is an American author known for works blending absurdism, existentialism, crime fiction and the search for identity and personal meaning in works such as The New York Trilogy , Moon Palace , The Music of Chance , The Book of Illusions and The Brooklyn Follies...
, Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon born May 24, 1963) is an American author and "one of the most celebrated writers of his generation", according to The Virginia Quarterly Review....
, Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer is an American author best known for his novels Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close...
and Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman is an American comics artist, editor, and advocate for the medium of comics, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book memoir, Maus. His works are published with his name in lowercase: art spiegelman.-Biography:Spiegelman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to Polish Jews...
.
German Jewish literature
Jewish authors who wrote in GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and made outstanding contributions to world literature include the German poet Heinrich Heine
Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine was one of the most significant German poets of the 19th century. He was also a journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Lieder by composers such as Robert Schumann...
and the Bohemian novelist Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
.
Other significant German-Jewish poets include Berthold Auerbach
Berthold Auerbach
Berthold Auerbach was a German-Jewish poet and author. He was the founder of the German “tendency novel,” in which fiction is used as a means of influencing public opinion on social, political, moral, and religious questions.-Biography:Moses Baruch Auerbach was born in Nordstetten in the Kingdom...
, Else Lasker-Schüler
Else Lasker-Schüler
Else Lasker-Schüler was a Jewish German poet and playwright famous for her bohemian lifestyle in Berlin. She was one of the few women affiliated with the Expressionist movement. Lasker-Schüler fled Nazi Germany and lived out the rest of her life in Jerusalem.-Biography:Schüler was born in...
, Ernst Lissauer
Ernst Lissauer
Ernst Lissauer was a German-Jewish poet and dramatist remembered for the phrase Gott strafe England.He also created the Hassgesang gegen England, or ""....
, Jacob Raphael Fürstenthal
Jacob Raphael Fürstenthal
Jacob Raphael Fürstenthal was a German Jewish poet, translator, and Hebrew writer.Fürstenthal's attention was directed chiefly toward the modernization of Jewish religious services, both in and out of the synagogue, and to this end he translated into German the most important liturgical books...
, Siegfried Einstein
Siegfried Einstein
Siegfried Einstein was a German-Jewish poet, novelist, essayist and journalist.-Life:The son of department store owner Max D. Einstein, Siegfried Einstein was born in the small city of Laupheim in Württemberg. His father was the owner of the city's largest department store...
, Nelly Sachs
Nelly Sachs
Nelly Sachs was a Jewish German poet and playwright whose experiences resulting from the rise of the Nazis in World War II Europe transformed her into a poignant spokeswoman for the grief and yearnings of her fellow Jews...
, and Erich Mühsam
Erich Mühsam
Erich Mühsam was a German-Jewish anarchist essayist, poet and playwright. He emerged at the end of World War I as one of the leading agitators for a federated Bavarian Soviet Republic....
.
German-Jewish novelists include Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger was a German-Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht....
, Edgar Hilsenrath
Edgar Hilsenrath
Edgar Hilsenrath is a German-Jewish writer living in Berlin. His main works are Night, The Nazi and the Barber, and The Story of the Last Thought.-Biography:...
, Anna Seghers
Anna Seghers
Anna Seghers was a German writer famous for depicting the moral experience of the Second World War.- Life :...
, Jakob Wassermann
Jakob Wassermann
Jakob Wassermann was a Jewish-German writer and novelist.- Life :Born in Fürth, Wassermann was the son of a shopkeeper and lost his mother at an early age. He showed literary interest early and published various pieces in small newspapers...
, and Stefanie Zweig
Stefanie Zweig
Stefanie Zweig Stefanie Zweig Stefanie Zweig (born 19 September 1932, Leobschütz (now Głubczyce, Upper Silesia) is a German Jewish writer.- Background :Zweig is best known for her autobiographical novel, Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa, 1998), based on her early life in Kenya, which was...
.
Russian-language Jewish literature
Isaak Babel (1894–1940) was a Soviet journalist, playwright, and short story writer acclaimed as "the greatest prose writer of Russian Jewry." Other Russian writers of Jewish descent include Boris PasternakBoris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was a Russian language poet, novelist, and literary translator. In his native Russia, Pasternak's anthology My Sister Life, is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language...
(who never wrote on Jewish themes); Joseph Brodsky
Joseph Brodsky
Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky , was a Russian poet and essayist.In 1964, 23-year-old Brodsky was arrested and charged with the crime of "social parasitism" He was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972 and settled in America with the help of W. H. Auden and other supporters...
, a poet who won the Nobel Prize in 1987; Osip Mandelstam
Osip Mandelstam
Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam was a Russian poet and essayist who lived in Russia during and after its revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school of poets...
, another famous poet, wooer of Akhmatova, and victim of the Soviets. Vassily Grossman's experiences in WWII provide the main material for his novels.
Ladino Literature
The primary forms of modern Ladino literature have been fables and folktales. Ladino fables and folktales often have Jewish themes, with biblical figures and legendary characters, and many of them feature the folk character "Ejoha" (also "Joha"). In 2001, the Jewish Publication Society published the first English translation of Ladino folk tales, collected by Matilda Koén-Sarano, Folktales of Joha, Jewish Trickster: The Misadventures of the Guileful Sephardic Prankster.Modern Ladino poets include Margalit Matityahu, Avner Peretz, Victor Perera, Rita Gabbai Simantov, and Sara Benveniste Benrey.