bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Elusive Biblical Hebrew Term ויהי: A Perspective in Terms of its Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics in 1 Samuel
Authors: van der Merwe C. H. J.
Published: February 2012

Although recent descriptions of ויהי have identified a number of plausible functions that this construction may fulfill, they seldom provide clearly defined criteria for interpreting specific occurrences. This paper illustrates that, if one systematically takes (1) the syntactic distribution of ויהי, (2) the semantic features of the clauses or phrases following ויהי, (3) recent advances in the description of the temporal relationships that are engaged in narratives, and (4) the position of ויה plus phrase or clause in a scene or episode, formulating such criteria is indeed possible.
The Lengthened Imperative קָט֔֔֔לָה in Biblical Hebrew
Authors: Fassberg Steven E.
Published: February 2012

The lengthened imperative קָט֔֔֔לָהָ is a salient feature of biblical Hebrew grammar. It is generally understood in one of three ways: as a stylistic variant of the regular imperative קטל, as a more emphatic form of קְ֔ט֗ל and as a polite form of קט֗ל. In this article, I shall investigate the use of the lengthened imperative in biblical Hebrew to examine which, if any, of these interpretations is correct.
Back from Oblivion: The Nature of 'Word' in Yona Wallach's Poetry
Authors: Cohen Zafrira Lidovsky
Published: February 2012

Yona Wallach (1944-1985) is both a major poet and an outstanding personality in the history of Hebrew literature. Challenged by the enigmatic nature of her poetry, literary critics tend to attribute its obscurities to the modernist and postmodernist milieus from which she emerged, deeming it essentially indecipherable. Presenting a close reading of two of Wallach's meta-poetic poems: "Precisely" ( Bediyuk Nimrats ), a four part poem from her 1969 collection Shenei Ganim (Two Gardens) , and "Let the Words" ( Ten la-Milim ) that opens the 1985 collection Tsurot (Forms) , this study exposes the traditional, essentially Romantic foundation of her work. It features Wallach's struggle with the enduring philosophical question pertaining to the origin of language and words' meaning while highlighting her deep-rooted faith in the inherently natural character of language and words' propensity to directly reveal the essence of things.
The Personal Names in Jeremiah as a Source for the History of the Period
Authors: Glatt-Gilad David A.
Published: February 2012

There is hardly another section of the Bible in which the events described are brought to life so vividly through the mention of specific individuals as in the prose sections of Jeremiah. The roll call consists of a few dozen people, including royal officials, priests and temple officials, military leaders, prophets, and others, who are said to have been active during the reigns of either Jehoiakim or Zedekiah (609-586 B.C.E. ). This paper incorporates the most up to date extra-biblical onomastic data in arguing for the essential reliability of the Jeremianic prose material. A similar conclusion is borne out through an examination of certain incidental historical data within the prose material, including details relating to the layout of the temple complex and the sharp political factionalism in the courts of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah.
Form and Content and Their Correspondence
Authors: Grossberg Daniel
Published: February 2012

This paper examines how the writer of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes succeeds in conveying ideas and evoking experiences by effectively matching elements of literary form to thematic substance. The investigation identifies the artistic and ideational refinement and consistency of the biblical writer by demonstrating the interrelated aspects of style and content in the opening passage of the Ecclesiastes. The researcher further stresses that we need to be mindful of the many ways that the ancient artists/sages employ particular literary expressions in the service of their message.
(Free) Direct Discourse in Biblical Hebrew
Authors: Hatav Galia
Published: February 2012

Literature on biblical Hebrew recognizes two main modes, or "styles," for representing speech, thought, perception, and the like: direct speech, known as direct discourse; and indirect speech known as indirect discourse. Recent studies recognize a third style labeled free indirect discourse, usually described as a quasi indirect discourse, that is, something like or approximating indirect discourse. This article suggests a fourth style, labeled free direct discourse, understood to be as a quasi direct discourse.
Free direct discourse shares many linguistic properties with direct discourse, but differs from it in function. While direct discourse represents reproduction of speech (or thought as internal speech) as performed by the character, Free direct discourse represents different kinds of communication acts as worded by the narrator. The differentiation proposed here between regular direct discourse and free direct discourse emerges from the distinction between the use of '-m-r , the verb of "saying" in its finite conjugated form [inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="01i" /] and in its infinitival form [inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="02i" /]. This article proposes that when using the finite form, biblical narrators introduce direct discourse, signaling that what follows is an exact quotation. When employing the infinitival form, however, they introduce free direct discourse, signaling that the following record of a communication may not be exact, that it may be an approximation of what was stated.
Hebrew Philological Notes (II)
Authors: Rendsburg Gary A.
Published: February 2012

Five separate studies are presented. 1) חפניו in Prov 30:4 is to be understood as both "his fists" and "his clothing," in line with the widespread use of wordplay in Hebrew poetry. 2) The presence of the Egyptian expression Int kkt "valley of darkness" in the Book of the Dead confirms the meaning "darkness" for צַלְמוֶת, especially in Ps 23:4 where the famous expression ניא צַלמות is indeed to be rendered "valley of darkness." 3) The unique feminine form תתֶמֶה "seal" in Gen 38:25 is a deliberate creation of the author, the word is intended to evoke the sounds of כתנת "robe" in Gen 37:32. 4) עַנו֗ת in Exod 32:18 refers to sexual intercourse, as always with the Piʿel of the root ענה, and not to song. 5) היו֗ם אַף-אָתָה in Prov 22:19 is to be emended to ימנמאפת Imn-m-Ipt "Amen-em-opet," the name of the author of the Egyptian "Thirty" referred to in Prov 22:20.
The Movement from Qal to Piʿʿel in Hebrew and the Disappearance of the Qal Internal Passive
Authors: Fassberg Steven E.
Published: February 2012

The assumed original intensification/plurality of the D stem (with "doubled" middle radical = Piʿʿel in Hebrew) vis-à-vis the G stem ("ground" form = Qal ) is not maintained in all stages of Semitic languages. While the intensification/plurality of the Piʿʿel is attested in classical biblical Hebrew, there is evidence in extra-biblical sources from the Second Temple period on of a shift of Qal verbs to Piʿʿel , where they no longer exhibit intensive/plural meaning. Many scholars, however, are unaware of this phenomenon since it has been discussed almost exclusively in works written in modern Hebrew. The shift from Qal to Piʿʿel can be seen in Qumran Hebrew, the Hebrew of Ben-Sira, Samaritan Hebrew, Tannaitic Hebrew, and Amorate Hebrew. It is suggested that the disappearance of the Qal internal passive and its replacement by Puʿʿal is related to the movement of verbs from Qal to Piʿʿel .
Habakkuk 3:16—Where Did the אֲשֶר Go?
Authors: Holmstedt Robert D.
Published: February 2012

Almost every modern treatment of the אֲשֶר in Hab 3:16 opts to emend the text to a form of אַשֶר "step," citing the text of the Septuagint as support. The few exegetes that choose to maintain the Masoretic Text interpret the אֲשֶר as either a causal or concessive particle. In this article, I will argue that neither option is viable—the first does not have convincing textual support; the second reflects an inaccurate understanding of Biblical Hebrew grammar. Rather, I will propose that the אֲשֶר clause in Hab 3:16 is an "extraposed relative clause" that modifies the substantive תְַּחְתִּי
Motherhood under Zionism
Authors: Shiffman Smadar
Published: February 2012

This paper attempts to portray Israeli Motherhood as reflected in Israeli fiction of the 1990s, especially in the novels of David Grossman and Orly Castel-Bloom. Formed under conditions of permanent military and existential tensions. Israeli Jewish Mothers, and the cultural institution of Motherhood, tend to paradoxically combine two contradictory aspects: on the one hand, the Mother is the familiar, well known Jewish Mother, nurturing, caring, self-effacing and adoring; on the other hand, Israeli Jewish Mothers are harnessed to the national effort. Like so many other mothers in nations undergoing birth throes, they heroically raise their adored sons to be sacrificed to the needs of the nation. The paper demonstrates the results of the paradoxical demands imposed on Israeli Jewish Mothers in mother-son relationships, and argues that it takes a woman writer to fully uncover, from the mother's perspective, the cruel implications of these demands and relations. Both Grossman and Castel-Bloom present Motherhood, an institution ostensibly belonging to the "private" sphere of life, as dictated by and constructed in the "public" domain. The insoluble paradox created by the conflicting cultural demands facing Jewish Zionist Mothers is reflected clearly in recent fiction, whether written by men or women. It seems, however, that women are more keenly aware of the crazed consequences of these conflicting cultural demands. It takes a female writer to portray the dreadful relationships between Politics and Motherhood, between the social expectations from a mother and the madness it takes to raise sons in our part of the world.
Authorship and Author in the Ancient Near East and in the Hebrew Bible
Authors: Weinberg J. P.
Published: February 2012

This article deals with two main issues: "authorship" as a cultural-literary phenomenon in the ancient Near East and in the Hebrew Bible and its importance for the understanding of a text. It presents two hypotheses regarding the possible authors of Job and Ecclesiastes that suggest some ways and means for discovering "hidden" authors in the Hebrew Bible.
Maʿamad Har Sinai : The Hasidic Homilist and the "World of History"
Authors: Wineman Aryeh
Published: February 2012

Gershom Scholem drew attention to the indifference of Jewish mysticism to "the world of history," as it tended to sever even central events in Jewish sacred history from any particular moments of past-time, reading those events instead as, in effect, perpetually present in the inner life of the devotee. This quality, noted also more recently by Moshe Idel, is observed in the homily-literature of the classical Hasidic masters where it manifests itself through various strategies of reading and interpretation, including an understanding of elements in the scenario of the Sinaitic revelation as symbolic and metaphorical of spiritual life at any time. It expressed itself in a radical temperament viewing such an event as the Revelation at Sinai as ultimately transcending time, as true of all time. But that same homily-literature could, on occasion, also display distinct concern with the biblical account of the event to the point of reiterating and subtly remolding that tradition of sacred history to mirror its own ethos. Though essentially distanced from history and time-based events, examples of Hasidism's turning to relate to "the world of history" with a substantial degree of seriousness might be explained as a response to the accusation of its own illegitimacy by locating its own ethos within a reformulation of that sacred history.
Screaming Words into the White: The Poetics of Fragmentation in Leah Goldberg's End-Of-Life Poetry
Authors: Milman Yoseph
Published: February 2012

In the poems left by Leah Goldberg published posthumously in the collection Sheʾerit Hahaim , there are a number of "death-poems" that give expression to some kind of "death experience." A study of these poems reveals a radical change in relation to death and its poetic expression that took place in the poet's later work. From a thematic point of view, the elevated view of death that sees it as an integral part of the eternal cycle of life is replaced by a view that sees it as pointless and lacking all glory. It presents death as a state of diminishment until complete meaningless extinction. From the aesthetic point of view, the densely figurative, well-wrought, high poetic language gives way to spare statement and presents "poetic fragments" that are disjointed, incomplete, and border on silence. This paper intends to examine the nature and significance of this profound change in the poetry of Leah Goldberg and to enquire into the connection between it and the modernistic worldview and poetics that Leah Goldberg apparently began to feel close to in the twilight of her life.
Ibn Ezra and Rashbam on Qohelet: Two Perspectives in Contrast
Authors: Gómez-Aranda M.
Published: February 2012

The purpose of this article is to analyze Abraham ibn Ezra's and Rashbam's commentaries on the book of Qohelet, and to contrast their respective methodologies. Both commentators use Biblical and Rabbinic Hebrew to explain the meaning of the words of Qohelet, but the tendency to refer to Rabbinic Hebrew is more evident in Rashbam. Although both commentators have recourse to philological principles, Abraham ibn Ezra uses them more extensively providing more details and specifications. Both commentators also employ parallelism as an exegetical tool, but there are differences in the extensive use of this method. Differences between both commentaries can be traced in the quotation of interpretations of previous commentators, and specifically of the rabbinic material, and in the utilization of scientific and moralistic explanations. Special attention is paid to differences in their use of terminology. The analysis of these commentaries also implies the contrast of two different traditions: the tradition of the school of Northern France and the tradition of the Spanish school.
Towards a Description of Spoken Hebrew
Authors: Bar-Aba Esther Borochovsky
Published: February 2012

The study of spoken Hebrew has been picking up over the past decades. In this paper, I try to present some methodological difficulties arising when trying to present a comprehensive description of spoken language in general and spoken Hebrew in particular: difficulties in terminology, in the subjects under discussion, in the registers of spoken language, and in the construction of the corpus. Finally, I suggest a framework for a comprehensive description of linguistic phenomena in spoken language. In particular, I indicate the need to distinguish among phenomena of production, phenomena of grammar, and those in between the two, while demonstrating this sort of scale with three linguistic phenomena: the definiteness of the construct phrases, subject-verb agreement, and abbreviated utterances. It is important to recognize this scale since many phenomena have under-gone the transition from production phenomena to grammatical phenomena, and therefore identifying the production phenomena might show us the way in which some linguistic rules are formed.
Haʿam in the Turbulent Discursive Sphere of Israeli Bumper Stickers
Authors: Salamon Hagar
Published: February 2012

In recent years Israel's roads have become a public, open, and permanent sphere for discursive political dialogues, publicly displayed in the iconic medium of bumper stickers which give voice to strong feelings of identification and conflict. The private car has become a site through which a complex communication of schism and unity is conducted, using key terms of Jewish and Israeli identity. The present article focuses on expressions of identity and boundaries of "the people," or "the nation" articulated in this popular discourse, by examining a variety of bumper stickers incorporating the term העם ( haʿam ). Analysis of the rhetoric of this discourse reveals five major organizing axes: somatic rhetoric; familial rhetoric; historical rhetoric; rhetoric of loyalty and betrayal; rhetoric of inclusion and exclusion. The plethora of variants of the concept עם ( ʿam ) in the sticker discourse emphasizes the popular voice that this discourse aims to represent. At the same time, the popular and creative play on concepts of identity, which are perceived as traditional and hallowed, in such a contemporary and ephemeral discourse, produces a powerful tension between these concepts and the political and social conflicts to which the discourse refers.
Talebearers, Peddlers, Spies, and Converts: The Adventures of the Biblical and Post-Biblical Roots רגל and רכל
Authors: Zipor Moshe A.
Published: February 2012

The first part of the article scrutinizes the exact meaning of the biblical and post-biblical words derived from the roots רגל and רכל (including Ben Sira) and how they were interpreted by the ancient versions and old sources. The biblical verb רגל is a denominative, meaning "to spy." וירגל בעבדך אל-אדני (2 Sam 19:28) does not fit this interpretation. According to the context (see 2 Sam 16:1-6), it is suggested that the verb here should be וידגל. The root דגל is common in Syriac, where it means 'cheat,' 'lie'; it appears with the same meaning in the Hebrew of the Midrash. Similarly, in Ps 15:3 we should probably read לא-דגל על-לשנו (cf. 15:2c). The second part of the article deals with the well-known story of the gentile who asked first Shammai and then Hillel to convert him to Judaism, on condition that they teach him the whole Torah על רגל אחד (usually translated: "[While I am standing] on one leg"; b. Shabb. 31b). The suggestion has been made that here רגל represents the Latin regula 'rule'; that is, one main idea or law on which the Torah is based. Hillel offered such "rule," whereas Shammai repulsed the Gentile with his builder's rule. The mishnaic words הרגל and רגיל, as well as the verb הרגיל all of them denoting 'habit,' 'custom,' etc., are probably derived from the new Latin-Hebrew word רגל/regula rather than from the old Hebrew word רגל 'foot.'
The Topography of the City and the Body: Yehudit Katzir's Haifa
Authors: Gold Nili
Published: February 2012

The thesis of the article is that Haifa's semiotic composition, as displayed in Yehudit Katzir's first story "Disneyel" (1987), endows additional meaning to the narrative structuring on both the thematic and linguistic levels. The article focuses on the representation of Haifa and argues that its role in the narrative is overdetermined. The city's topography becomes the writing tool as well as the vocabulary of the narrator, who uses it to forge the character of her mother, the symbol of quintessential femininity. Furthermore, the narrator's personal history is wrought by means of the urban topography imprinted in her body. This overdetermined semiotic sign, Haifa, not only charges the latent relationships implied in the story (mother, suitor, and daughter identifying with the mother), but also contributes to the understanding of those relationships.
The Realism of S. Yizhar's ימי צקלג (Days of Ziklag)
Authors: Nevo Gideon
Published: February 2012

ימי צקלג (Days of Ziklag; published in 1958) is the greatest novel, both in scale and in quality, to emerge from what has come to be called "Dor Tashach" (The generation of 1948) or "Dor Ba'aretz" (The generation born in the Land [of Israel]). It is a huge novel, the longest in Hebrew. Some critics have considered it to be so massive, repetitive, and dense as to render it virtually unreadable, doomed to loom on the edge of the field of Hebrew literature like some immense, deserted, dusty old pyramid that nobody visits. This article presents a new reading of one aspect of this great work, that is, its relation to historical reality. This topic has been thoroughly discussed by Avi Ma'apil and Gershon Shaked. In their astute analyses of this aspect, both critics, in different ways, measure Days of Ziklag according to a time-honored, normative, regulatory model. My contention is that the model both critics use does not do justice to the novel for it is not able to capture the full depth of its pathos and its ethos, its ardor and its moral commitment, as well as many of its artistic charms. This article proposes an alternative model.
A Note on Initial Consonant Clusters in Israeli Hebrew
Authors: Bolozky Shmuel
Published: February 2012

The acceptability of initial consonant clusters in Israeli Hebrew is affected by various factors, notably the sonority hierarchy, place and/or manner of articulation, and voicing. This note focuses on two constraints that have received little attention in the literature: one involving voicing, the other reflecting the difficulty of making very fine transitions in manner and place of articulation. It is claimed that constraints on initial consonant clusters are essentially due to the difficulty of effecting articulatory transitions that are either too extreme or too minute, whereas ease-of-articulation favors assimilation, gradual transition, or cluster splitting so as to avoid such transitions.
Would That Be Me! Ayin Hillel, an Environmental Writer
Authors: Raizen Esther
Published: February 2012

The work of Ayin Hillel (Hillel Omer, 1926-1990) projects strong ecological awareness and passionate dedication to the Land of Israel and its natural environment. This paper highlights the environmental themes in Hillel's poetry and essays, reflecting on the manner in which the personal and the ideological were meshed together in his poetics. It discusses Hillel's distaste for labeling and the tension between his propensity for fast movement through and intense association with and absorption of landforms on the one hand, and the less enthusiastic, at times apathetic tendencies of the reader/audience, whose collaborative role in the creative process is a fundamental expectation of Hillel the writer. The paper also points to the conflicted symbiosis between the natural world, struggling to come to terms with man's primacy, and man, accepting injury and loss of humanity as the price of existence within the natural world, as a major theme in Hillel's environmental work.
Why Biblical Texts Cannot Be Dated Linguistically
Authors: Ehrensvärd Martin
Published: February 2012

Zechariah 1-8 is an important text from the point of view of the history of the Hebrew language. Everyone can agree that it is post-exilic, and yet there are only a few traces of Late Biblical Hebrew in these chapters. In this regard it equals many Early Biblical Hebrew texts. The article examines the language of Zechariah 1-8 and compares it to Early Biblical Hebrew. It finds that Zechariah 1-8 exhibits a number of traits characteristic of Early Biblical Hebrew and rare in Late Biblical Hebrew. Holding this fact together with the absence of any significant Late Biblical Hebrew features, the article concludes that the text is an Early Biblical Hebrew text. If correct, this means that knowledge of Early Biblical Hebrew did not end with the Exile and raises the question of how long this knowledge lasted.
Jewish Ambivalence towards the Bible
Authors: Greenspahn Frederick E.
Published: February 2012

Jewish tradition from antiquity to the present has been ambivalent about the Bible, despite its obviously foundational role. One reason for this surprising phenomenon is the extent to which the Talmud usurped the Bible's place, particularly (though not only) within the Ashkenazi community. Another is the importance accorded the Hebrew Bible within Christianity; even modern biblical scholarship has absorbed some Christian views, albeit in secular guise. As a result, Jews have sometimes been suspicious of those who study the Bible. Nowadays, biblical studies is frequently considered outside of Jewish studies; earlier practitioners were suspected of heresy. The growing interest in the Bible that has taken place within the Jewish community over the last two centuries is the result of both Christian influence and an effort to reclaim what was becoming a lost element of the Jewish heritage.
The Young Historians or Chronicles of Homes: Lily Perry's ביקור התלײן (The Executioner's Visit)
Authors: Ratner Tsila Abramovitz
Published: February 2012

Daniel, the thirteen year old boy who is "too clever for his age but is afraid and anxious as befits his age," is the protagonist of Lily Perry's novel The Executioner's Visit . Instead of writing about the destruction of the First Temple, The First House, for his history class, Daniel chooses to write the chronicles of his dysfunctional family. The history assignment lends its discursive structure to Daniel's account of his parents' divorce and the subsequent suicidal depression of his mother. His narrative is constructed around what he perceives to be an accurate, objective, and well-researched historical account. His anger at the mother who wants to die, his oedipal rivalry with his father, and his cries for help are all delivered within the paradigms of "professional and scientific" chronicles. Through Daniel's mimcry of history telling, Perry's novel examines the discourse of the family as a paradigm and historiography as an objective discipline. The novel turns around the conventional power relations between the two: instead of appropriating the family to serve the ends of the historical discourse, it uses the historiographical discourse to represent the family. Consequently, the presumed priority of historiography is questioned and undermined. Perry's novel introduces a new perspective to the literary representations of the hegemonic/marginalized relationship by shifting the focus to the discursive. Daniel's mimicry of history writing empties it from its conventional content (international relations, wars, etc.) thus laying bare its hierarchical principles, which marginalize and trivialize the power relations that constitute the family. Furthermore, this reversal of appropriating processes suggests that gender politics govern not only family constitution but also the historical discourse.
Metaphors in Hebrew Slang, and Their Parallels in Hebrew Literature and in the Sources
Authors: Bolozky Shmuel
Published: February 2012

A common misconception is that slang constitutes a "corrupt" form of language, and that because it deviates from accepted norms of "appropriateness," it must be regarded as an inferior mode of expression. The fact is, however, that slang does not violate any standard grammatical norms; it only defies stylistic conventions and breaks social taboos in order to impress the hearer with the distinctiveness and originality of some well-defined group of speakers. Furthermore, it can be shown that slang can be as creative as literary language. In Israeli slang, for instance, there are no less metaphors than in the highest literary registers of Hebrew: in both literature and slang, metaphors provide tangible realization of concepts through the use of objects and situations taken from real life, helping the reader/listener visualize an idea or concept in the most direct and colorful fashion. Although slang metaphors tend to be more blunt and down-to-earth, they are often characterized by a degree of creativity that may even overshadow the imaginative use of metaphors in the literary register, displaying highly sophisticated use of humor, sarcasm, double entendre, puns, etc.
הלא as a Discourse Marker of Justification in Biblical Hebrew
Authors: Moshavi Adina
Published: February 2012

The Biblical Hebrew clausal adverb הֲלֹא is synchronically distinct from the combination of interrogative הֲ and negative לֹא. Syntactic and pragmatic evidence confirms that הֲלֹא in some of its occurrences is non-interrogative in meaning, and exhibits the syntactic traits of a clausal adverb, rather than those characteristic of the combination of the interrogative and negative particles. The clausal adverb הֲלֹא occurs in various pragmatic contexts, including answers to questions, announcements, predictions, and, most commonly, justifications. In most of these uses, the clausal adverb הֲלֹא has a parallel in the presentational clausal adverb הִנֵּה. The present study examines the use of הֲלֹא as a discourse marker of justification in Biblical Hebrew. The justificational use of הֲלֹא is found in both poetic and prose texts, and in the classical as well as the late strata of Biblical Hebrew. Altogether, seventy-four occurrences of justificational הֲלֹא were identified. הֲלֹא can justify a preceding or a following claim. The claims justified by הֲלֹא are of various types, including direct assertions, presuppositions, and implications of rhetorical questions, directives, and oaths. In its justification of all of these types of claims, הֲלֹא can be compared to הִנֵּה. A characteristic of justificational הֲלֹא which distinguishes it from הִנֵּה is its occurrence in the middle of a three-part argument structure in which the claim is repeated for persuasive effect.
Rabbinic Responses to Aging
Authors: Harris J. Gordon
Published: February 2012

Rabbinical literature elevates old age and filial obligations. Elders reflect God's blessing and wisdom. Second, teachings of the rabbis cherish filial respect as does the Roman patria potestas and illustrate how an adult child should honor parents despite parental provocations. Two biblical terms show the importance of filial respect in Judaism: " kibbud " and " moraʾ ." Respect for aging parents becomes the basis for unconditional support for the leadership of the older generation and social structures they represent. Consistancy and uniformity in rabbinical literature emphasize the importance of the elderly and a widespread ethos of support for elders.
J. L. Gordon's Early Stories and Their Role in His Poetic World
Authors: Eshel Einat Baram
Published: February 2012

The present article investigates the reasons for J. L. Gordon's repeated assays into short prose, which lacked both the brilliance of past works and the impressive spaciousness of the modern novel. What was it that drove Gordon, a champion of poetry and an excellent practitioner thereof, to go back constantly to writing short fiction which was usually greeted with considerable reservation? In what follows I shall claim that short fiction served Gordon as a field of experiment and practice, something which its formal and thematic freedom enabled, and even encouraged. An examination of the interrelation between his early story "The End of Happiness Is Sadness" and his lengthy poems about the present reveals that the former served as a kind of poetic "exercise," a means of experimenting with important features which would later appear in his mature poetry. Consequently we may surmise that the supposedly great distance between Gordon's prose and poetry was in fact bridged by artistic principles derived from his experience in writing prose and then applied with great success in his poetry.
Poetic Discourse and the Problem of Verbal Tenses in the Oracles of Balaam
Authors: Notarius Tania
Published: February 2012

The paper aims to contribute to the discussion about the problem of verbal tenses in biblical poetic discourse. The present research is based on three main insights: (1) The verbal forms in the poetic text are analyzed according to the universal semantic and pragmatic parameters; (2) The distinctive linear character of the poetic text (the parallelism) has no decisive influence on the semantic value of the verbal categories; (3) The functioning of verbal tenses in the biblical poetic text is not necessarily similar to their functioning in prosaic conversation. The criteria for the discourse analysis of a biblical poetic text endorse different levels of semantic and pragmatic information: the participants of the communication, the main pragmatic inferences of the speech, the aspectual and temporal arrangement of the text, and the principles of text progression. This approach enables us to perform an adequate semantic analysis of the verbal tenses to the biblical poetic discourse; the Oracles of Balaam are taken as a case study. The system of verbal tenses reconstructed with regard to the Oracles of Balaam reveals some deviations from Classical Biblical Hebrew: the system has some typologically archaic features, which are, nevertheless, arranged in a coherent and non-contradictory way.
Reb Gershon and Reb Yudl: Thoughts on the Achievement of Gershon Shaked on the First Anniversary of his Death
Authors: Mintz Alan
Published: February 2012

The late professor of Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University Gershon Shaked pointed to an essay he published in 1978 on S. Y. Agnon's novel Hakhnasat kalah as one of his best pieces of critical writing. As a tribute to Shaked, this article examines the scholarly qualities that the article exemplified. Shaked deployed theoretical tools taken from structuralism, genre theory, folklore studies, as well as his own concepts developed in his earlier work on Agnon in order to make sense of the difficult problems presented by the novel. The article further suggests an affinity between Reb Yudl, the protagonist of the novel, and Shaked himself.
Orly Castel-Bloom and Yoel Hoffmann: On Israeli Postmodern Prose Fiction
Authors: Shiffman Smadar
Published: February 2012

Postmodern Israeli prose fiction is a cluster of rather different novels and short stories, representing different poetics and ideological stances. Yet these different "postmodernisms" have something in common: the tendency to cling to some kind of narrative and meaning. The two writers discussed in this paper, Orly Castel-Bloom and Yoel Hoffmann, represent the "disintegrated" or "unraveled" prose fiction, characteristic of postmodernist writing. A few examples of these writers' fiction will illustrate that Israeli postmodernism, even when it deconstructs the collective narrative or the meta-narrative, doesn't actually give up the attempt, desperate as it may be, to cling onto the narrative and the promise of a meaning embodied in it.
Are There Grammatical Differences between the Language of Religious and Secular Jews?: Observations on a Morphophonological Aspect of Israeli Hebrew
Authors: Gonen Einat
Published: February 2012

Religious Jewish Hebrew speakers in Israel are accustomed to pray regularly, which might affect their language. The question is whether there is an apparent grammatical difference in their language as opposed to the language of secular Jewish people, who are not accustomed to prayer. In this article, I will examine the implementation of the vowel reduction rule in the language of the religious Jews in Israel in comparison to the language of the secular Jews. Furthermore, I will show that there are differences between the two groups only when reading sections of the prayer, and that the religious tend to a more accurate reading of part of the forms. On the other hand, it has been distinctly found that the reading common in prayer does not permeate into the ordinary natural speech of the religious speakers, and their grammar is formed similarly to that of their secular counterparts.
An Epic of Birth, Survival, and Growth: Preliminaries , by S. Yizhar
Authors: Ben-Dov Nitza
Published: February 2012

The article traces the shared development of an individual, a people, and a universe as expressed in the eighteen episodes of Preliminaries . Each episode is a work in itself, yet at the same time, it is provisionally part of the architectural structure of the novel, which has a preface and five chapters. Each chapter (including the preface) has three episodes, a kind of triptych. The publication of the novel in 1992 came as a surprise to the Israeli reader: Yizhar had gone back to writing after thirty years of silence. The article uncovers the mode of writing and the pattern of the novel.
The Compound Subject in Biblical Hebrew
Authors: Shepherd Michael B.
Published: February 2012

The standard grammars do not have space to devote to a full-length discussion of compound subject constructions. This article provides an overview of the syntactical possibilities and discusses the role of these constructions in narrative. It also discusses variation in the textual witnesses where compound subjects occur. Familiarity with the use of compound subjects helps the reader identify main characters and navigate textual problems associated with the constructions.
Unamuno, Schleiermacher, Humboldt: A Question of Language
Authors: Longhurst C. A.
Published: February 2012

In Unamuno criticism there has been an irresistible temptation to see him as a precursor of some of the later twentieth-century developments in linguistics and literary theory. But a comparison of his ideas on language with those of certain nineteenth-century linguistic philosophers, with whom he was acquainted through his early philological training, shows that his ideas are reworkings of early-nineteenth-century thinkers. Two in particular, Friedrich Schleiermacher and Wilhelm von Humboldt, appear to have exercised a shaping and lasting influence on Unamuno’s ideas on language, which he formulated throughout his life. This article considers how Unamuno came across these two thinkers, and compares his and their ideas on language and thought, language and person, language and nation, and language and creativity.
La inspirada poética del soneto “Al rey, nuestro señor”, de Hernando de Acuña
Authors: Fernández J. Ignacio Díez
Published: February 2012

What is today considered to be the most important sonnet by Acuña has not always been so appreciated. The decisive factor is not determining the adressee, as the poet blurred that very deliberately. Rather, it is this very ambiguity that is the most outstanding feature of a poem that uses powerful language for a very vague prophecy.This is a good example of the value of the poetics of ambiguity.
Bersani’s James
Authors: McWhirter David
Published: February 2012

Henry James has been a persistent point of reference and attention in Leo Bersani’s critical trajectory. Considering both the continuities and the changes in his reading of James over the past fifty years, this brief essay asks why Henry James has played such a crucial role in Bersani’s unique and evolving account of modern literature’s “ethical-erotic”--and profoundly political--“project,” from his earliest against-the-grain readings of realist novels and his subversions of standard models of psychoanalytic criticism through his mid-career “polemic” against the modernist “culture of redemption” to his recent efforts to rethink the nature and vocabularies of modern subjectivity, sociability, and intimacy.
Extending Enforcement: The Coalition for the International Criminal Court
Authors: Welch Claude E. , Watkins Ashley F.
Published: February 2012

With judges chosen, cases underway, and judgments rendered, the International Criminal Court has officially begun operations. As the Court has proceeded with its activities, its potential has become enhanced. The creation of the Court through the 1998 Rome Statute came through cooperation of an exceptionally broad coalition of NGOs with like-minded states. This article examines the historical background to the Court’s establishment, exploring why seemingly favorable conditions after the World Wars failed to result in a permanent judicial institution. Even post-1948 genocides in Southeast Asia, Central Africa, and elsewhere did not lead to international steps. Unexpected events, including the end of the Cold War and special tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, reopened the possibility for action. Despite opposition from most Permanent Members of the Security Council, the Coalition for the International Criminal Court—the major focus of this study—coordinated a network of citizen groups to exert pressure successfully. The 2010 Review Conference for the International Criminal Court reaffirmed the Court’s basic directions, and broadened the areas over which it exercises powers of judgment. The 1998 “miracle on the Tiber” and subsequent steps strengthening the Court thus call into question long-standing assumptions about the relative significance of states and civil society.
The Literary Case of Wen Ho Lee
Authors: Lye Colleen
Published: February 2012

Lye's essay produces an important dialogue between historical and literary approaches to the term "Asian American." Comparing two treatments of the Wen Ho Lee story, the "autobiographical" My Country vs. Me , co-written with Helen Zia, and Susan Choi's "historical" novel A Person of Interest , Lye argues for the necessity of historicizing "Asian American" by considering its political and literary senses as non-homologous. Her contrapuntal reading shows how literature supplements history by constructing a post-1965 Asian American professional middle-class subject, and how history supplements literature in an "epistemology of racial formation."
"The Entreaties and Perswasions of our Acquaintance": Gambling and Networks in Early America
Authors: Cohen Kenneth
Published: February 2012

This article explores the particular form of "public gambling" that emerged at spectator sporting events in early America. The piece begins by describing the origins and function of public gambling in the late colonial period, which arose from efforts to cultivate business and political "friends" rather than a desire for winning bets and money. After the Revolution, this networking function became less connected to close personal friendships, and more closely tied to an impersonal, expanding, and lucrative horse breeding industry, in which bettors used public wagers to express confidence in a bloodline and thus raise its value. Yet the article concludes by showing how the depersonalization of public gambling at racetracks coincided with its adaptation by politicians eager to use the older association with "friendship" to connect with a widening electorate of white men who associated citizenship with bold and successful economic risk-taking. In sum, then, this essay argues that not all gambling was motivated by individualistic greed or marked by class distinction, as much of the current literature suggests. Instead, gambling was a diverse set of practices, and public gambling reveals how the act was used to build extensive vertical networks of "friends" that helped cohere the white male republic.
"An Attack Well Directed": Aaron Burr Intrigues for the Presidency
Authors: Baker Thomas N.
Published: February 2012

This article challenges a reigning interpretation of the pivotal contested U. S. presidential election of 1800: the view that Aaron Burr did not try actively to wrest victory from his running-mate Thomas Jefferson. With variations, this case is advanced in Nancy Isenberg's Fallen Founder (2007), Edward J. Larson's A Magnificent Catastrophe (2007), Joanne B. Freeman's Affairs of Honor (2001), and most other modern accounts of this election. This article offers new evidence of behind-the-scenes scheming to sustain the case that Burr did indeed act to compass the presidency for himself. First and foremost is a newly-discovered incriminating letter from a political deputy detailing a plan to steal the election in the U. S. House of Representatives. Re-examination of the political and constitutional crisis surrounding the election also yields new information about how Alexander Hamilton sabotaged Burr's schemes; evidence to show why delays in communication probably lost the presidency for Burr; and insight into how Burr and his deputies conspired to cover up their machinations despite the best attempts of partisan antagonists to expose their treachery. In offering a revised interpretation of this consequential electoral crisis and its partisan dimensions, the article redirects our attention toward the importance of might be called the dark side of early republican politics, a shadowy and Machiavellian world where ambition, deal-making, deceit, and disinformation could—as they did on this occasion—lead the nation to the brink of civil conflict.
Kant’s Transcendental Idealism and Newton’s Divine Sensorium
Authors: Insole Christopher
Published: February 2012

When Kant read Newton (and Clarke) the following conceptual space could
have been opened up for him: space is neither a substance nor an
accident, but is the way in which objects are present to the (divine)
mind. Space is the divine sensorium, the means by which God is present
to the creation. That objects have a spatial form occurs insofar as
objects are dependent upon and known by (divine) mind. Such a conceptual
space, transposed (with some modifications) to the human cognitive mind,
might plausibly—both philosophically and historically speaking—have
helped Kant along the road to transcendental idealism.
On the Liberty of the Ancients and the Moderns: A Reply to My Critics
Authors: Skinner Quentin
Published: February 2012

A symposium, held at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in October 2009, marked the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Quentin Skinner's essay "Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas." Four scholars, Melissa Lane, Bryan Garsten, Nadia Urbinati, and Philip Pettit, presented appraisals of Skinner's work. In his "Reply to My Critics" Skinner addresses the papers of each of the four scholars.
“Will you be as gods?” ( U 3.38): Joyce Translating Flaubert
Authors: Baron Scarlett
Published: February 2012

This essay begins by considering a cluster of instances from Joyce’s early works (the student essays, Stephen Hero , and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ) in which the author acts as the translator of phrases borrowed from Gustave Flaubert. It goes on to analyze the ways in which those Joycean acts of translation have themselves been interpreted by his French translators. Joyce’s translations—particularly in A Portrait —deviate from their originals in ways that interrogate the traditional meaning of originality. The acts of translation staged in A Portrait —wherein they are delegated to Stephen Dedalus—reflect Joyce’s understanding of the potential for originality inherent in even that most intertextual of creative processes. This understanding would come to assume a central role in Joyce’s subsequent writing: his variations on Flaubert in his first published novel betray an insouciant and playful disrespect for the primacy of originals that adumbrates the more generalized and radical intertextuality of his later works. Whether subtle or flamboyant, Joyce’s departures from his source text pose problems for his translators: in its final stages, the essay examines how these snippets of text are rendered back into their original language and how the existing various translations shed light on Joyce’s own compositional choices.
Transmutation in Digress
Authors: Senn Fritz
Published: February 2012

This essay inspects some almost inevitable actions of translators in dealing with intricate, multiply refracted works of literature. On the one hand, they tend to rectify minor oddities, possibly to facilitate understanding, but they may not notice ambiguities because the target languages do not allow for analogous departures from apparent norms. Translations of Joyce’s works in general are more syntactically correct and slur over his textual ruptures. On the other hand, the numerous links that hold the sprawling and dispersive Ulysses together are almost impossible to preserve. The second French translation, entitled Ulysse and published in 2004, was undertaken by eight different translators, and it highlights these issues particularly well. It makes sense to divide Joyce’s idiosyncratic episodes for a parallactic approach, but, conversely, the problems of coordination become overwhelming. Moreover, almost automatically, interpretation comes into play, and translators frequently have to make decisions that are left to readers in the original.