Hebrew literature
Bernard Lewis and Bialik.
The last Hebrew classic?
A translator reminisces.
An excerpt from The Ruined House.
A survivor, he chronicled not just the Holocaust but also anti-Semitism and its spiritual effects.
A tale of coffee and sadomasochism.
An NYU professor channels the high priest.
The most tragic Jewish writer of modern times.
A City and Its Fullness.
Ḥayyim Naḥman Bialik’s faith in a Zionist-led Hebrew renaissance never faltered; nor did his labors on its behalf. Yet he also became, so he felt, Zionism’s prisoner.
Ḥayyim Naḥman Bialik was called upon by his contemporaries to play the role of a prophet. By consenting, he believed he had betrayed both his talent and his true calling.
In December 1903, Ḥayyim Naḥman Bialik burst to fame and notoriety in a storm of rage at Jewish passivity; by 1910, his poetic career had stalled.
He positions himself not as a subtly ironic modernist but as a humble, heartbroken preserver of memory.
Poems of the land of Israel.