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University of California Press

Language in Time of Revolution

by Benjamin Harshav (Author)
Hardcover eBook
Price: $57.95 / £49.00
Publication Date: Aug 1993
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 248
ISBN: 9780520079588
Trim Size: 6 x 9
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About the Book

This book deals with two remarkable events--the worldwide transformations of the Jews in the modern age and the revival of the ancient Hebrew language. It is a book about social and cultural history addressed not only to the professional historian, and a book about Jews addressed not only to Jewish readers. It tries to rethink a wide field of cultural phenomena and present the main ideas to the intelligent reader, or, better, present a "family picture" of related and contiguous ideas. Many names and details are mentioned, which may not all be familiar to the uninitiated; their function is to provide some concrete texture for this dramatic story, but the focus is on the story itself.


This book deals with two remarkable events--the worldwide transformations of the Jews in the modern age and the revival of the ancient Hebrew language. It is a book about social and cultural history addressed not only to the professional historian, and a

About the Author

Benjamin Harshav, was a translator, poet, and scholar of Hebrew and Yiddish literature. Harshav was and the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Professor of Hebrew Language and Literature at Yale University, and in 1992, a professor of Slavic languages and literature.

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 

Reviews

"With his customary versatility and lucidity Professor Harshav has given us in Language in Time of Revolution a host of new and provocative insights into modern Jewish history. The modern Jewish revolution has been multi-faceted and profound. 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. Language in Time of Revolution should be mandatory reading for anyone prepared to confront and appreciate just how deep and radical that revolution has been."
--Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Columbia University
 
"A wise, original, and stimulating book . . . on shaping of modern Jewish culture. . . . Humane, deeply erudite, and very satisfying."
--Steven Zipperstein, Stanford University
 
"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