Language in Time of Revolution / Edition 1

by Benjamin Harshav

Overview

This book on culture and consciousness in history concerns the worldwide transformations of Jewish culture and society and the revival of the ancient Hebrew language following the waves of pogroms in Russia in 1881, when large numbers of Jews in Eastern and Central Europe redefined their identity as Jews in a new and baffling world.

Reviews

"With his customary versatility and lucidity Harshav has given us . . . a host of new and provocative insights into modern Jewish history. . . . This book is an outstanding attempt to juxtapose the revolution in Jewish life with that of the Hebrew language in such a way that each informs our understanding of the other."

—Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi,

Columbia University

"It is no small component of Harshav's success in this altogether fascinating book to have made clear the family resemblance between what is still regularly called 'the almost miraculous revival of the Hebrew language' and the coterie movements of European high modernism in both politics and the arts."

—Modernism/Modernity

"A wise, original, and stimulating book on the shaping of modern Jewish culture. . . . Humane, deeply erudite, and very satisfying."

—Steven Zipperstein,

Stanford University

"Israeli Hebrew, Angel Sáenz-Badillos has written, 'is not the result of natural evolution but of a process without parallel in the development of any other language.' The precise nature of the process is studied in illuminating detail in Language in Time of Revolution."

—London Review of Books

"The crisscrossing among the discourses of literature, ideology, history, and linguistics makes for a heady intellectual experience. . . . Harshav writes with great authority and verve. . . . His discussions are a model of clarity."

—Alan Mintz,

Brandeis University

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804735407
Publisher:	Stanford University Press
Publication date:	08/01/1999
Series:	Contraversions: Jews and Other Differences
Edition description:	1
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Benjamin Harshav is Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at Yale University. Among his many books is The Meaning of Yiddish (Stanford paperback, 1999).

Table of Contents

PREFACE
PART I • THE MODERN JEWISH REVOLUTION
An Essay on the History of Culture and Consciousness
1. Transformations: Extrinsic and Intrinsic 
2. The Internal Response to History 
3. A New Period in History 
4. The Centrifugal Movement 
5. The Force of Negation 
6. The New Cultural Trends 
7. The Secular Polysystem 
8. Assimilation 
9. A Jewish Century 
10. The Continuous Rainbow 
11. The Individual 
12. Flashback: Collapse and Victory of the Enlightenment 
13. Politics and Literature 
14. Consolidation 
15. Two Endings to One Revolution 
16. The Age of Modernism 
PART II • THE REVIVAL OF THE HEBREW LANGUAGE
Anatomy of a Social Revolution
17. The Miracle of the Revival of Hebrew 
18. The Social Existence of Language 
19. Theory of Twin Systems 
20. Language as a Unifying Force 
21. The Pitfalls of Scholarship 
22. The Beginnings of the Language Revival 
23. Three Factors in the Revival of the Language 
24. The Life of "Dead" Hebrew 
25. The Revival of Written Hebrew 
26. New Cells of Society in a Social Desert 
27. Ashkenazi or Sephardi Dialect? 
28. Remarks on the Nature of Israeli Hebrew 
29. Principles of the Revolution: A Retrospective Summary 
30. Remarks Toward a Theory of Social Revolution 
PART III • SOURCES ON THE HEBREW LANGUAGE REVIVAL
Translated from Hebrew by Barbara Harshav
Rachel Katznelson: Language Insomnia (1918) 
Yitzhak Tabenkin: The Roots (1937) 
Berl Katznelson: On the Question of Languages (1919) 
Yosef Klauzner: Ancient Hebrew and Modem Hebrew (1929)
Tsvi Shats: Exile of Our Classical Poetry (1919) 
REFERENCES
INDEX 

Editorial Reviews

With his customary versatility and lucidity Harshav has given us . . . a host of new and provocative insights into modern Jewish history. . . . This book is an outstanding attempt to juxtapose the revolution in Jewish life with that of the Hebrew language in such a way that each informs our understanding of the other.”—Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Columbia University

From the Publisher