Echoes of New Hebrew Literature in Arab Culture

A cultural symbiosis existed in the Moslem-Arab world of the Middle Ages: under the Arab aegis, Jewish culture drew upon contemporary scholarship for forms, concepts and even central themes. This contact bore noble fruit and gave Hebrew literature some of the greatest writers and philosophers the Jewish people has ever known. The Hebrew poetry of the time reached heights unknown since the days of the Old Testament, and the same was true for philology, literature and philosophy.

In the modern era, the situation is completely different. The two literatures, Arabic and Hebrew, roused in the 19th century from a sleep of hundreds of years, absorbed influences and ideas from the world at large, and each flourished and developed in a separate form. From the beginning they reflected the sentiments of mutually antagonistic national movements which, unfortunately, fought each other for many years. A cultural coexistence, the outcome of which might be expressed in works of literature, is yet to come about.

For many decades the Arab world was not aware of the existence of a modern Hebrew literature because the latter evolved mainly in the ambience of European culture. When the centre of Hebrew culture and literature moved to Palestine during the present century, chiefly after the First World War, the Arab world identified with the Palestinian cause. The Arabs refused to accept the Jewish society in Eretz-Israel as an entity with which it was possible to enter into a dialogue or even listen to. With the exception of rare and haphazard occurrences, no literary works were translated from Hebrew to Arabic in the period between the wars. The works of authors such as Bialik and Tchernichovsky, Brenner and Agnon, Smilansky and Burla were hardly ever read or discussed in Arabic forums.

However, an atmosphere of understanding and coexistence is not absolutely necessary for creating a literary dialogue. In theory, it is possible to hold an antagonistic, polemic literary dialogue when elements of the culture from one side can function in the intertextual space of the other via a "response" or "reaction," even if communication between the two sides is virtually a dialogue of the deaf. However, the condition for such a dialogue is that the one side have at least a working knowledge, however superficial and distorted it may be, of the literary works of the other; as far as the Arabs were concerned, this condition did not exist.

The situation changed with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, especially with regard to the Palestinian minority remaining within the borders of the Jewish state, a point to which I shall return. For two decades, however, the entire Arab world, including the Palestinian people living outside of Israel, had no notion of the cultural developments within the new state. Exceptions to this rule were the few Hebrew-language specialists, principally in the universities, such as Cairo University and Ain Shams University in Egypt, and in the military and propaganda establishments. Occasionally, newspapers and magazines published comments on Hebrew literature, but always keeping within a hostile and negative framework, presenting the literature as representing an enemy and an artificial entity. Whether deliberately or as a result of ignorance, there was usually confusion between "Israeli" and "Jewish" literature, and between Hebrew literature and the works of Jewish authors in other languages. A book by the Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani, "On Zionist Literature," which appeared in Beirut in 1967, is a good example of this type of publication, by virtue of both its irreconcilable hostility and its medley of fields and languages; three years later a similar book was written by the Palestinian poet Muin Beseso. These two authors were characterized by their lack of knowledge of Hebrew and by the fact that all their information came from secondary sources. It is no wonder that a writer like Yael Dayan (who writes in English) plays a major role in their books, as do Israel Zangwill, Arthur Koestler, Leon Uris and even George Eliot. Hardly any major Israeli writer was included in their surveys.

After the Six-Day War of 1967, Arabic literary translations from Hebrew, mostly of poetry, began to appear in Egyptian, Syrian and Iraqi newspapers and magazines, usually translated by university professors. They were published to prove one of two things, and sometimes both: that Hebrew literature is racist and anti-Arab; and/or, that anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli expressions can be found in Hebrew literature itself, purportedly the work of authors from eastern Jewish backgrounds who felt oppressed and frustrated by what they considered a Mitteleuropa Jewish state. Examples of this are the translations of the Egyptian Hebraist Dr. Ibrahim al-Bahrawi which appeared in Egyptian newspapers and in his book, "Contemporary Zionist Literature," published in Cairo in 1972. These trends, especially the stress put on the cracks in the Zionist entity as reflected in literature and by internal criticism, continued in the material chosen for translation in the 1970s and 1980s. For instance, S. Izhars book Kirbet Khiza was translated into Arabic more than once, as was his story "The Prisoner." David Grossmans book, "The Yellow Wind" was also translated; Amos Kenans novel "The Road to Ein Harod" was translated and printed in the quarterly Al-Karmil, edited by Mahmud Darwish.

A second translation of Khirbet Khiza by the erstwhile Israeli citizen Tawfiq Fayyad appeared in Beirut in 1988. In the preface to the translation Fayyad writes: "We will not hide the fact that the Arabic translation of this story is not a voluntary desire to become acquainted with Hebrew literature, but rather to make the conflict between us clear. Therefore, we relate to the text as an indictment without being carried away by the power of literature, which is capable of making murderers weep."

A change has begun to take place over the past 15 years, that is since the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. In recent years, researchers both affiliated and unaffiliated with universities, have published a series of books about Israeli authors and have even translated sample works. Thus, writers such as Bialik, S. Izhar, Yitzhak Orbach-Orpaz, and the poet Yehuda Amichai, as well as less-known authors, were featured in special articles dedicated to their works. The position taken by the authors of the articles and books vis--vis most of these works is usually not sympathetic, but rather continues to be anchored in hostility and in a refusal to accept the Israeli experience as legitimate. There is almost no objectivity regarding the subject, with the possible exception of the book by Prof. Ali Abd el Rahman Attia of Ain Shams University, about the history of the periodical Ha-Shiloah, based on his doctoral thesis for London University.

An additional translation project which can be considered "objective" is the anthology of excerpts of modern Hebrew literature translated by the Egyptian writer Abd al-Munim Salim and published in Cairo in 1978. As far as I know, this is the first such book published anywhere in the Arab world. The selections may not be sufficiently representative and the information given about the Israeli authors is not always accurate, but the importance of the book does not stem from its completeness or accuracy, but rather from the fact and timing of its publication.

In a short preface, the translator (who is not a specialist in the field of Hebrew language or literature) informs the reader that he met the Israeli writer Aharon Megged at a PEN international conference in 1975, and that Megged gave him the material which he translated into Arabic. Yet at the time, so Salim informs us, he came face to face with the well-known barrier (or what he calls "the traditional stone wall"}, that is, official disregard of anything positive in Israel and the resistance toward publishing anything of that nature or spirit in Egypt; thus he was prevented from publishing his translation. Eventually, the ice melted a little, and a collection of Salims translations did appear.

It would be unfair to judge the translator purely by artistic standards, because of the extenuating circumstances. The works included in the anthology were unfortunately not translated directly from Hebrew, but second-hand, via English. Actually, all the material was taken from a collection of translations edited by Richard Flanz and published in 1974 by the Israeli chapter of PEN (even the jacket of the Arabic version was copied from the Hebrew book). Needless to say, there were many discrepancies in the translations, caused by the translators lack of direct contact with the original Hebrew texts. The names of the authors as well as the names of people and places in the stories were distorted, often beyond recognition. For instance, Izhars name appears in Arabic as "Ishar" or "Izar," Hanoch Bartov becomes "Hanosh Bartof," and Amichai turns into "Amihi." The translators lack of familiarity with life and literature in Israel can be demonstrated by the following example: One of the women poets who appears in the Arabic collection is Siham Daoud, who writes in Arabic. The selection of her poems which appears in the Egyptian anthology was not, it would appear, simply reprinted in the original Arabic as logic would dictate, but rather re-translated into Arabic from the English translation which was itself translated from Hebrew.

During the past two or three years there have been signs of change: the Egyptian Dar al-Arabiyya publishing house, directed by Amin al-Mahdi, has begun a projected series of translated works. Two novels have already been published. "My Michael," by Amos Oz (published in Egypt as "Hannah and Michael"}, and "Victoria," by Sami Michael. The first was translated by Rafat Foudah, an Egyptian, and the second by an Israeli, Samir Naggash. The publisher prefaced each book with an ideological foreword in which he tried to justify the translation of Israeli literature chiefly in political terms; however, some literary justification can also be found. In his foreword to the Arabic version of Amos Ozs novel, Al-Mahdi writes: "I admit that I was overtaken by a very strange sensation when I read this book to decide whether or not to publish it. It was the first time I was ever motivated to read a work of Hebrew literature. I must admit that when I began to read I was not impartial, because "My Michael" was the product of a rival literature, and our publishing house believes that the normalization of relations with Israel should be based on total peace on all fronts... But as I began reading, line after line, one page after another, I found myself being carried along and experiencing pleasure in becoming acquainted with the world of the novel, or to be more specific, with everything that had to do with Hannah. What a strange sensation it was, to feel that way toward a Hebrew character."

A surprising event occurred in Egypt during the first three months of 1995. The leading literary monthly, Ibda, edited by Ahmad Abdal-Muti Higazi (today the most prominent of Egypts poets), dedicated three consecutive issues January, February and March, 1995 -- to Israeli literature.* These issues included translations of Israeli literature, articles on the subject and comments by Egyptian writers and intellectuals about cultural normalization with Israel. It would be difficult to claim that the Israeli reader would derive pleasure from this material (with the exception of the translations, some of which were very well done, and some of the articles, especially those translated from Hebrew). Most of what was written by Egyptian university professors was based on the principle of "know thine enemy," and showed little interest in the literature itself. For instance, in an article on the poetry of Nathan Alterman, Dr. Ahmad Hammad stresses the hawk-like aspects of the poets politics and his sympathy for the "Greater Israel" political movement in the late 1960s, but he forgets Altermans humanitarian stance, for instance, as exemplified in his highly critical poem on the events in Kafr Kassem.** The comments of the Egyptian authors, who are not well acquainted with Hebrew literature, generally oppose the idea of normalization. An article by a well-known author, Idwar al Kharrar, is characteristic, and its title is "Study the subject, yes, of course; normalization, no, never!" The editor himself is somewhat less extreme, and in his editorials to the three issues of Ibda he lays down a number of conditions whose implementation by Israel may bring about a change of heart on the Arab side.

We now move on to Arabic literature in Israel. During the first years of the state, the Arab minority knew nothing of Hebrew language and culture, but it acquired that knowledge, voluntarily or not, as a result of both the Israeli educational system and contact with the Jewish population. Today most members of the second and third generations of Israeli Arabs have an excellent command of Hebrew and many read a Hebrew newspaper and watch the Hebrew news on television. More and more Israeli Arabs have become acquainted with Hebrew literature, usually through their formal education. Arab authors of the first generation in Israel often complain bitterly that that acquaintance came as the result of coercion: the well-known Palestinian poet, Mahmud Darwish, who received most of his formal schooling in Israel, states that: "...We were exposed to cultural brain-washing. We discovered in school that we were being taught more Theodor Herzl than the Prophet Mohammed. The poems of Bialik far outnumbered the poems of al-Mutabi (one of the great writers of classic Arabic poetry). We had to study the Bible, but the Koran was not present..."

However, it would seem that Darwish, and doubtless many others like him, internalized what they learned. An Egyptian Hebraist, Dr. Gamal al-Rifai, in his book "The Influence of Hebrew Culture on Palestinian Poetry," published in Cairo in 1992, shows convincingly that the poetry of Darwish, who is today considered the greatest Palestinian poet, is riddled with motifs from the Old Testament and the works of Bialik, and that an inter-textual dialogue actually exists in his poems. Many works by Israeli Arab authors of both prose and poetry give witness to similar dialogues. For example, in a short story titled "The Fire," the Nazareth-born author, Naji Zahir, tells the tale of a young Arab man who is making love to a Jewish woman in a Jewish National Fund forest when a fire breaks out, and he is taken in for questioning. This is obviously a variation on or a reaction to A.B. Yehoshuas well-known story, "Facing the Forests." Similar reactions can be found in the poetry of Samih al-Kassem and in the stories of Emile Habibi, Riad Baydas and others. During the past decade and shortly before, a few Israeli Arab authors began writing in Hebrew (most prominent in this context is Anton Shammas, who wrote "Arabesques." (The novel was translated into English and other languages, but has yet to be translated into Arabic.)

As for Hebrew literature translated into Arabic in Israel, the situation is completely different from that of the neighbouring countries. From the first days of the state, Hebrew literature was translated by Jews who had immigrated from the Arab countries (in this context certain names should be mentioned, notably Ezra and Meir Hadad, Tuvia Shamoush, Eliahu Agasi and Aharon Zakai); during the 1960s they were joined by Israeli Arabs such as Rashad Hussein, Mahmud Abassi, Salman Natour, Zakki Darwish, Anton Shammas and Mahmud Ghanayim, who translated representative works of Hebrew literature. Three of them should be singled out for special mention: first, the late poet Rashad Hussein, who in 1966 published a marvellous anthology of the selected prose and poems of Bialik, the latter translated according to the rules of Arabic prosody; second, Anton Shammas, who translated selected works by David Avidan, Amichai and others; third, Mahmud Ghanayim, who in 1984 translated A.B. Yehoshuas "The Lover," and many other works of prose and poetry for the periodical Mifgash-Liqa, which he edited during the 1980s. (The purpose of the magazine was to publish, side by side, works in Hebrew and Arabic and their respective translations. Unfortunately the magazine was published sporadically at best, and in the last few issues the quality severely deteriorated.) There are two more translators who must be mentioned in particular for translation of poetry: Salman Masalha and Naim Areide.

I have dealt here with major translations, especially those of superior quality. However, there are also translations done quickly by people whose knowledge of the original language was not good, and many of the translated poems do not reach the level of those mentioned. In fact, an ambitious translation enterprise has never really been undertaken, even if here and there promises to that effect have been made. Most of the translations were done without any overall plan, and often the choice was made randomly. A few years ago, the Israeli Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature entered the arena of Hebrew-Arabic translations, and has been actively searching for publishing houses in the Arab countries which might be interested in bringing out translated Hebrew literature. In 1995, the Institute sponsored a convention in which a number of Egyptian translators participated and which was devoted entirely to the question of translating Hebrew literature into Arabic. In preparation for the convention, the Institute published an excellent volume containing a selection of translations done by skilled professionals. Mahmoud Kayyal, who edited the Arabic version of the work, is now writing his doctoral thesis at Tel Aviv University, the first thesis written on the subject of the translation of Hebrew literature into Arabic in recent decades.

However, it must be noted at this point that the translations done in Israel during the 1980s and 90s reached only a local audience, and that almost none of them crossed the border to be read by the neighbouring populations. Their literary echoes must be sought in the works of local writers, and as previously shown, there is no lack of such echoes.

In summary, it can be said that even if the echoes of Hebrew literature which reach us from the Arab world are few and usually negative, at least there is now a de facto recognition of the existence of modern Hebrew literature, a unique literature with achievements of its own. It is being translated increasingly although still slowly into Arabic, and the translations improve with time, as do the studies done on them in the Arab countries. Even if the three issues of Ibda devoted to Hebrew literature were not particularly sympathetic, they bear indisputable witness to the fact that Arab culture cannot ignore its existence and vitality, and that there are people in Egypt and other Arab countries willing to listen, and who perhaps, in time, will even be willing to enter into a literary dialogue.