Reading Israel, Reading America

Reading Israel, Reading America PDF Author: Omri Asscher
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503610942
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
American and Israeli Jews have historically clashed over the contours of Jewish identity, and their experience of modern Jewish life has been radically different. As Philip Roth put it, they are the "heirs jointly of a drastically bifurcated legacy." But what happens when the encounter between American and Israeli Jewishness takes place in literary form—when Jewish American novels make aliyah, or when Israeli novels are imported for consumption by the diaspora? Reading Israel, Reading America explores the politics of translation as it shapes the understandings and misunderstandings of Israeli literature in the United States and American Jewish literature in Israel. Engaging in close readings of translations of iconic novels by the likes of Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, Amos Oz, A. B. Yehoshua, and Yoram Kaniuk—in particular, the ideologically motivated omissions and additions in the translations, and the works' reception by reviewers and public intellectuals—Asscher decodes the literary encounter between Israeli and American Jews. These discrepancies demarcate an ongoing cultural dialogue around representations of violence, ethics, Zionism, diaspora, and the boundaries between Jews and non-Jews. Navigating the disputes between these "rival siblings" of the Jewish world, Asscher provocatively untangles the cultural relations between Israeli and American Jews.

Reading Israel, Reading America

Reading Israel, Reading America PDF Author: Omri Asscher
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503610942
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 323

Get Book

Book Description
American and Israeli Jews have historically clashed over the contours of Jewish identity, and their experience of modern Jewish life has been radically different. As Philip Roth put it, they are the "heirs jointly of a drastically bifurcated legacy." But what happens when the encounter between American and Israeli Jewishness takes place in literary form—when Jewish American novels make aliyah, or when Israeli novels are imported for consumption by the diaspora? Reading Israel, Reading America explores the politics of translation as it shapes the understandings and misunderstandings of Israeli literature in the United States and American Jewish literature in Israel. Engaging in close readings of translations of iconic novels by the likes of Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, Amos Oz, A. B. Yehoshua, and Yoram Kaniuk—in particular, the ideologically motivated omissions and additions in the translations, and the works' reception by reviewers and public intellectuals—Asscher decodes the literary encounter between Israeli and American Jews. These discrepancies demarcate an ongoing cultural dialogue around representations of violence, ethics, Zionism, diaspora, and the boundaries between Jews and non-Jews. Navigating the disputes between these "rival siblings" of the Jewish world, Asscher provocatively untangles the cultural relations between Israeli and American Jews.

Reading Israel, Reading America

Reading Israel, Reading America PDF Author: Omri Asscher
Publisher: Stanford Studies in Jewish His
ISBN: 9781503610934
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Reading Across Borders analyzes the relationship between Jewish Americans and Jewish Israelis through the lens of translation studies, shedding light on the different ways in which each Jewish cultural center responded to the challenge--and potential inspiration--represented by the other.

Knowing Too Much

Knowing Too Much PDF Author: Norman G. Finkelstein
Publisher: OR Books
ISBN: 1935928775
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 493

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Book Description
Traditionally, American Jews have been broadly liberal in their political outlook; indeed African-Americans are the only ethnic group more likely to vote Democratic in US elections. Over the past half century, however, attitudes on one topic have stood in sharp contrast to this group's generally progressive stance: support for Israel. Despite Israel's record of militarism, illegal settlements and human rights violations, American Jews have, stretching back to the 1960s, remained largely steadfast supporters of the Jewish "homeland". But, as Norman Finkelstein explains in an elegantly-argued and richly-textured new book, this is now beginning to change. Reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the United Nations, and books by commentators as prominent as President Jimmy Carter and as well-respected in the scholarly community as Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer and Peter Beinart, have increasingly pinpointed the fundamental illiberalism of the Israeli state. In the light of these exposes, the support of America Jews for Israel has begun to fray. This erosion has been particularly marked among younger members of the community. A 2010 Brandeis University poll found that only about one quarter of Jews aged under 40 today feel "very much" connected to Israel. In successive chapters that combine Finkelstein's customary meticulous research with polemical brio, Knowing Too Much sets the work of defenders of Israel such as Jeffrey Goldberg, Michael Oren, Dennis Ross and Benny Morris against the historical record, showing their claims to be increasingly tendentious. As growing numbers of American Jews come to see the speciousness of the arguments behind such apologias and recognize Israel's record as simply indefensible, Finkelstein points to the opening of new possibilities for political advancement in a region that for decades has been stuck fast in a gridlock of injustice and suffering.

We Stand Divided

We Stand Divided PDF Author: Daniel Gordis
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062873717
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
From National Jewish Book Award Winner and author of Israel, a bold reevaluation of the tensions between American and Israeli Jews that reimagines the past, present, and future of Jewish life Relations between the American Jewish community and Israel are at an all-time nadir. Since Israel’s founding seventy years ago, particularly as memory of the Holocaust and of Israel’s early vulnerability has receded, the divide has grown only wider. Most explanations pin the blame on Israel’s handling of its conflict with the Palestinians, Israel’s attitude toward non-Orthodox Judaism, and Israel’s dismissive attitude toward American Jews in general. In short, the cause for the rupture is not what Israel is; it’s what Israel does. These explanations tell only half the story. We Stand Divided examines the history of the troubled relationship, showing that from the outset, the founders of what are now the world’s two largest Jewish communities were responding to different threats and opportunities, and had very different ideas of how to guarantee a Jewish future. With an even hand, Daniel Gordis takes us beyond the headlines and explains how Israel and America have fundamentally different ideas about issues ranging from democracy and history to religion and identity. He argues that as a first step to healing the breach, the two communities must acknowledge and discuss their profound differences and moral commitments. Only then can they forge a path forward, together.

Eye on Israel

Eye on Israel PDF Author: Michelle Mart
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 0791466876
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Examines the image of Israel in American culture before 1960.

America and the Founding of Israel

America and the Founding of Israel PDF Author: John W. Mulhall
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Includes bibliographical references and index.

Our American Israel

Our American Israel PDF Author: Amy Kaplan
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674989929
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
How did a Jewish state come to resonate profoundly with Americans in the twentieth century? Since WWII, Israel’s identity has been entangled with America’s belief in its own exceptionalism. Turning a critical eye on the two nations’ turbulent history together, Amy Kaplan unearths the roots of controversies that may well divide them in the future.

As America Has Done to Israel

As America Has Done to Israel PDF Author: John P. McTernan
Publisher: Whitaker House
ISBN: 1603741283
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Is America on a collision course with God? There is a direct correlation between the alarming number of massive disasters striking America and her leaders pressuring Israel to surrender her land for “peace.” Costing hundreds of lives and causing hundreds of billions of dollars’ damage, dozens of disasters including devastating earthquakes, raging fires, hurricanes, floods, tsunamis, and violent tornadoes have hit America—and always within twenty-four hours of putting pressure on Israel. What can you do as an individual—and what can America do—to change the direction of our country in relation to Israel and prevent the increasing number of calamities?

Aliya

Aliya PDF Author: Liel Leibovitz
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1466860553
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
a·li·ya, n., also aliyah. pl. aliyas or aliyot. The immigration of Jews into Israel. Why would American Jews---not just materially successful in this country but perhaps for the first time in the two-thousand-year Jewish Diaspora truly socially accepted and at home---choose to leave the material comforts, safety, and peace of the United States for the uncertainty and violence of Israel? Still, aliya is a phenomenon that affects all American Jews. Understanding this phenomenon means understanding what is arguably the fundamental question of American Jewry; it is that question that Liel Leibovitz sets out to answer in Aliya. Leibovitz focuses on the stories of three generations of immigrants. Marlin and Betty Levin, searching for excitement and ideology, traveled to Palestine before Israel was even created. There, with Marlin working as a reporter and Betty volunteering with the Jewish underground movement, the two witnessed the bloody birth of the Jewish state. Two decades later, Mike Ginsberg, overcome with awe at the heroic Jews who fought for their country in the l967 war, immigrated as well and was involved in much of Israel's tumultuous history, including the Yom Kippur War. He was a member of Kibbutz Misgav Am during the famous terrorist attack on the infants' nursery there, and he helped repel numerous waves of terrorists attacks on his kibbutz. Finally, Danny and Sharon Kalker and their children left their home in Queens, New York, to move to a West Bank settlement in 2001, during one of the most unsettled phases in Israel's existence. With a keen writer's eye and unfeigned passion for his subject, Leibovitz explores the fears, hopes, and dreams of the American-Jewish immigrants to Israel and the journey they undertook, a journey that lies at the very heart of what it means to be a Jew.

Israel--America's Key to Survival

Israel--America's Key to Survival PDF Author: Mike Evans
Publisher: Bridge-Logos
ISBN: 9780882705187
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description