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BORIS PASTERNAK ' S DOCTOR Z HIVAGO

IN THE E YES OF ISRAELI W RITERS

AND I NTELLECTUALS (1958-1960)

(A MINIMAL F OUNDATION OF M ULTILINGUAL

JEWISH PHILOLOGY )

ROMAN KATSMAN

The extensive life and oeuvre of Boris Pasternak (1890-1960), his

numerous biographies and letters, together with the letters and memoirs of

his contemporaries, as well as expansive discussions of his works (and

sometimes scandalous details about their publication) in periodicals, serve

as inexhaustible sources of contextual research. They present article also

belongs to this type of study. However, in order to avoid the temptation of

hyper-contextualization, the analysis of Israeli intellectuals' response to

Doctor Zhivago, following the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Pasternak,

will be accompanied by some meta-contextual reflections concerning the

nature of Jewish-Russian

literary research.

Lazar Fleishman's fundamental book on the response to Zhivago by

circles of Russian emigrants lacks a description of the responses of Israeli

intellectuals (many of whom were emigrants from Russia), except for that

of Julius Margolin and his doubtful testimony, concerning the acceptance

I accept the arguments of Maxim D. Shrayer in favor of using the term " Jewish-

Russian literature" instead of "Russian-Jewish literature" and other variants, which

is "by close analogy with such terms […] as African-American Literature, French-

Canadian literature, and Jewish-American literature. […] The first adjective

determines the literature's distinguishing aspect (Jewishness) and the second the

country, language, or culture with which this literature is transparently identified

by choice, default, or proxy" (Shrayer, An Anthology of Jewish-Russian Literature ,

xxxi; see also xli-xliii). However, as will be emphasized in the second part of this

article, the terms of this literature's " biculturalism," "duality " (in the words of

Simon Markish), and " Jewish texture," partly adopted by Shrayer, seem to be

opposed to the "most inclusive" (as Shrayer puts it) approach, and less appropriate

to the present study.

Roman Katsman

of the novel on the Israeli literary scene.

Leonid Katsis wrote about the

acceptance of Zhivago in Yiddish periodicals.

Th us, the Israeli / Hebrew

part of the entire "affair " has remained outside the realm of scholarly

attention.

Fleishman hastens to draw an overly generalized conclusion

about the "harshly negative relation of Israeli readers to Pasternak's

interpretation of the Jewish theme."

The bored, cute girl described by

Margolin, whom he met "at the discussion in The Writers House in Tel

Aviv,"

and who had never even heard about Pasternak previously, is

nothing more than a mean caricature. The work, described by Margolin as:

"the hastily made Hebrew translation of the novel " , in fact took six months

to complete, as was noted by the translator, Tzvi Arad

(and one may

recall the amazing quickness of Pasternak's own translations) . The "scoop-

chasing magazines that boosted the book that was forbidden in the USSR",

mentioned by Margolin, were not the only context in which Zhivago was

discussed. For example, the open letter to Pasternak, "Pasternak's

Advice" , by the famous Israeli writer, S. Shalom (which will be discussed

in more detail below), was published in the Davar newspaper on

December 19, 1958, and written, according to the author's dating, on

December 7th - the same day Margolin's article was published in Novoe

russkoe slovo. Quite curiously, the main arguments of S. Shalom and

Margolin regarding the Jewish theme are identical: the advice to

assimilate, to cease the useless struggle, as presented in Zhivago to the

Jewish People, contradicts Pasternak's own position and deeds.

Margolin's article, since it is written in Russian, will not be discussed

here. However, the review below shows that his report about several

unidentified "too-zealous Jewish 'nationalists'," who "were reproachfully

niggling in their criticism" and "called [Pasternak's] book 'harmful'

Fleishman, Vstrecha russkoy emigratzii s 'Doktorom Zhivago' , 267-271.

Katsis, "'Doctor Zhivago' vstrechaetsa s idishem."

I am grateful to Leonid Katsis for the idea of writing the present article.

Fleishman, Vstrecha russkoy emigratzii s 'Doktorom Zhivago', 269.

I have not found any information, either in press or in the Gnazim Institute of the

Writers Association, about the event in the Writers House devoted to Pasternak's

novel and the Nobel Prize, which Margolin mentions. However, there was an event

in the Tzavta Club (then located at 214 Dizengoff St., Tel Aviv) (November 14,

1958, 20:30): "Opening address by Avraham Shlonsky: 'Pasternak the poet.' Lea

Goldberg: 'Doctor Zhivago.' A. B. Yaffe" (announcements "Be -tzibur," Davar ,

November 14, 1958: 8). For a discussion of the responses of the three participants

from this evening, see below.

Ohad, "Zhivago be-ivrit."

Margolin, "Byt' znamenitym – nekrasivo," 2.

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the Eyes of Israeli Writers

because of several naïve thoughts about Jewish literature,"

is , at the very

least, partial and inaccurate.

My paper aims to fill the gap left by Fleishman, but a few remarks

should first be made, clarifying the unique nature of the material. (1) I

focus mostly on the publications immediately following the Nobel Prize

notification - those which appeared about one year after October 1958, the

date of the notification. I also discuss the publications following

Pasternak's death in 1960 . (2) Most of the people whose opinions will be

discussed here were born in the Russian Empire and had strong links to

and attitudes about Russian culture, especially Russian literature.

However, as they were also strong Zionists, their self-consciousness and

mentality were in some respects different from those of the Russian

emigrants in Europe, America, and Australia. Thus, they can scarcely be

included in the emigrant response context, but should rather be considered

as part of the more general context of international response, or as

constituting a separate context with its own unique characteristics. (3) For

most of the authors presented here, Russian was not their mother tongue

(nor was it one of the languages they acquired in the childhood); however,

they read Zhivago or parts of it in the original Russian. (4) The

relationship between Israeli intellectuals and other intellectuals around the

world, as regards the Zhivago discussion, was not mutual. Read ing

periodicals in European languages, they could hardly hope that their

publications in Hebrew would be read anywhere besides Israel. However,

their writings could have evoked responses in the Hebrew-reading

audience among American Jews, for example. These responses could then

have been published in English and Yiddish. This possibility remains

beyond the scope of the current article, but definitely merits further study,

along with the investigation of the possible translations of the Hebrew

articles under discussion into other languages. (5) On the other hand, the

authors under discussion belonged to the Israeli intellectual, political elite

circles and were, at one time or another, highly influential and

authoritative figures in Israeli society and culture, many of whom were

involved in the initial creation and shaping of the State. Thus, they could

justly expect that their words would have a significant impact on the

Israeli scene. (6) Private correspondences will not be taken into account

here; however, they can most definitely provide a good case for an

additional, separate study.

Ibid.

For example, Batia Valdman has found a few references to Pasternak and his

"affair" in the letters of the prominent Israeli poetess, Yocheved Bat-Miriam

(Mariasha Zhelezniak, 1901-1980), to her daughter. In them, Bat-Miriam appears

Roman Katsman

Let us now briefly recall the course of events connected to the

awarding of the Nobel Prize to Pasternak. Zhivago was completed to 1955.

In 1956, Pasternak submitted the manuscript to Novy mir, but it was

refused, and a letter stating this was written by the editors and duly

published in Literaturnaya gazeta, after the Nobel Prize had been

awarded. On November 23, 1957 the Italian translation of the novel came

out. During the next few months, Zhivago was translated into more than

twenty languages and published. On October 23, 1958 Pasternak received

a telegram informing him that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for

literature. He immediately responded by telegram with words of grateful

acceptance. October 25th and 27th: Meetings of the governing bodies of

the Writers Union are held, where in Pasternak is taken to task for his

"anti-Soviet " novel and actions. October 29th: Pasternak sends the Nobel

Prize Committee a telegram in which he refuses to accept the Prize.

October 31st : In a Writers Union general meeting, Pasternak is expelled

from the Union. November 2nd : TASS reports that the authorities would

not prevent Pasternak from either going to Sweden to attend the Nobel

Prize ceremony or remaining in the West, if he so desired . November 6 th:

Pasternak's "penitential " letter is published in Pravda. On February 11th,

Pasternak's poem "Nobel Prize " is published in Daily Mail. After a short

break in the persecution, on March 14 th, 1959 Pasternak is arrested and

interrogated by Attorney General Roman Rudenko, who makes him

promise not to contact foreign journalists and publish his works abroad in

exchange for not being officially accused of treason in the Homeland. The

same year, Pasternak falls ill with lung cancer and passes away on May

30th , 1960.

to be a delighted admirer of Pasternak's poetry, and expresses her shock in reaction

to the events following the awarding of the Nobel Prize. When she wrote these

letters, she had not yet read the novel. Her definition of Pasternak's language in the

letter from November 25th, 1958 is quite curious: "The language of Pasternak is

the translation from Hebrew" (Valdman, "Peterburg (Leningrad) v zhizni i poezii

Yocheved Bat-Miriam (Zhelezniak).") The same idea was put forth in the article

written by Mikhail Epstein "Khasid i Talmudist." Referring to the Jewish theme in

Zhivago, he claims that the novel's Christianity " grew from the unconscious roots

of the Hassidic worldview."

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the Eyes of Israeli Writers

1. "A Jewish Grain"

Я ими всеми побежден,

И только в том моя победа.

All these are victors over me –

And therein lies my sole victory.

Boris Pasternak, "Rassvet" ("Dawn"),

—Doctor Zhivago

The major Israeli newspapers regularly reported the developments of the

"Pasternak affair " ; the documents and proclamations that appeared in the

Soviet press were immediately translated and published. Despite this, one

cannot say that the Israeli public was overly occupied by Pasternak.

Several short notices / articles, particularly those informing the public

about the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Pasternak, appeared on the front

pages of newspapers. However, further developments were mostly pushed

to the margins and superseded, as usual, by the stormy political life of

Israel and the Middle East, and by the dramatic events of Khrushchev's

activities in the Cold War, including the progressive deterioration of the

relationships between Israel and the USSR. One subject related to this

political turmoil must have had an especially powerful impact on the

response to Zhivago— the wide political, intellectual, and public discussion

of two questions: First, the question of "who is a Jew," how the

Jewishness of an Israeli citizen should be determined - both at the legal

and cultural level.

Second, partly connected to the first, was the question of

what the future of repatriation of Jews from the USSR and countries from

the socialist camp would be. These two questions were unified in the

question of Jewish status and of the repatriation of the Ethiopian community

known as Beta Israel. Two years later, in May 1960—when the notices on

Pasternak's death first appeared, and in the following months — public life

and, to a great extent, public self-consciousness and the consciousness of the

Holocaust in Israel was inflamed by the capture and imprisonment of Adolf

Eichmann. These events of 1958 and 1960 must have provided the

conflictive background for the acceptance of Zhivago.

Just a reminder: According to the Israeli Law of Return, confirmed in 1950, the

term "Jew" is not defined, but is implicitly meant to be rather a Halachic Jew, i.e.

the son or daughter of a Jewish mother. In 1970, the Law also included

descendants of a Jewish father or grandfather, but excluded (following the case of

Oswald Rufeisen—Brother Daniel—in 1962) those demonstrably belonging to

another religion (other than Judaism).

Roman Katsman

Haaretz (October 7, 1958), p. 3. "Dr. Zhivago. Internal diseases specialist. The

clinic is closed."

In 1958, Israeli periodicals start responding to Zhivago with the

publication of translated articles (or abstracts and reviews of articles) and

letters: by an Italian political activist and essayist Nicola Chiaromonte

(Davar , February 28, 1958); by Alberto Moravia (Davar, June 27, 1958);

by the Yugoslavian politician and writer Vladimir Dedijer ( Davar ,

November 7, 1958); by the American journalist, Joseph Alsop (an

exclusive letter for Davar, November 14, 1958); and by the American

Alberto Moravia's essay "Entretien avec Pasternak " reporting his visit to

Pasternak was published in the French journal Preuves: cahiers mensuels du

Congrès pour la liberté de la culture, 88 (July 1958): 3-7.

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the Eyes of Israeli Writers

writer and scholar, Edmund Wilson (Davar, July 10, 1959).

In June

1958, a political-literary journal, Molad, publishes the translation of the

article by Max Hayward—the translator (jointly with Manya Harari) of

Zhivago into EngliS. He praises Zhivago as the best Russian-language

novel of the 20th century, and Pasternak takes his place in the respected

line leading from Gogol to Chekhov.

Already in October 1958, Molad

devotes half of the issue to translated materials about Pasternak and

Zhivago: a chapter from the novel (from Part 11); articles by the critics

John Michael Cohen

and Stuart Hampshire;

and a short essay by a

German journalist, Gerd Ruge, about his meeting with Pasternak earlier

that year.

Along with the translated papers, this issue also includes the

article by K. Kadmai, a Molad writer and author of several political-

cultural articles on USSR affairs: "The Revealed and Concealed in the

Pasternak Affair." According to K. Kadmai , the novel is "moderate and

objective" and includes no "falseness, defamation or lie"

about the

revolution and the intelligentsia's role in it. The author sees the final

refusal to publish Zhivago in the Soviet Union within the political context

of reactionary responses in Poland and Hungary in 1956.

However, the

main reason for this is the Bolsheviks' long-lasting fear of the

intelligentsia's inner power: "It is not new that Boris Pasternak cannot

'take in' the revolution. The real news, which would have shaken the

USSR had the book come out, and which has caused astonishment

throughout the entire world, which is now reading the book, is that over

the course of its forty years the revolution has not managed to 'take in'

Pasternak!"

Two extensive articles appeared in the newspaper Davar (October 31,

1958),: one (by the editor), "The Voice that Breaks through the Iron

Curtain," surveyed the story of the "affair," while the other, signed " A.Z."

and entitled "Boris Pasternak"—were both exceptionally favorable.

Among other superlatives, " A.Z." writes on Zhivago: "For the first time, a

Soviet writer—and he is a Jew— by means of his thoughts and images

First publication: "Legend and Symbol in 'Doctor Zhivago'," Encounter (June

1959): 5-15.

Hayward, "Pasternak's 'Dr. Zhivago'," Molad 16:119 (June 1958): 293-301.

First published in Encounter (May 1958): 38-48.

First publication: "The Poetry of Boris Pasternak," Horizon (July 1944): 23-35.

First publication: "Doctor Zhivago," Encounter (November 1958): 3-5.

First publication: "A Visit to Pasternak," Encounter (March 1958): 22-25.

K. Kadmai, "The Revealed and Concealed in the Pasternak Affair," 559.

Ibid. 560-561.

Ibid. 561-562.

Roman Katsman

creates the figure of a prophet who sacrifices his life, elevating himself

above government rule and violence." One of the earliest and most

profound responses was an article that appeared in the newspaper, La-

merkhav (October 31, 1958) written by A. Ben-Azay. Having observed the

process of creating the novel and its publication, and described with

astonishment the reaction of the Russian authorities and writers, Ben-Azay

asks: " What is his sin?"

But there is no response.

Dan Pinnes (1900-1961) was the leader of the Ha-khalutz organization,

and a Zionist activist in Russia till 1930; a journalist, publicist and

politician who published extensively in Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew, and

English periodicals; a lexicographer and author of several historical-

biographical books; one of the chief figures in the Israeli newspaper,

Davar; and the founder of the newspaper, Omer. In Omer, on October 31,

1958 he printed an article entitled "Boris Pasternak—Reality and

Symbol," emphasizing its main point in the subtitle: "Zhivago - 'A

Wandering Jew' denies his Jewishness."

Pinnes interprets, half-seriously

and quite surprisingly, the name Zhivago as "Juif " (" Jew," Fr.) "vago"

("vagabond, " from the Latin " vagus" ) — a symbol of the Wandering Jew

who does not know his/her origin. Since someone like Pinnes could not be

mistaken concerning the true meaning of this name in Russian, his

interpretation must be purposely provocative. It hints, on the one hand, at

the theme of the Wandering Jew (Ahasver) from the medieval legend, who

was punished for his refusal to aid the suffering Jesus. This could have

made sense within the Jewish theme in the novel, especially with regard to

Zhivago's poem "Miracle, " in which a fig tree is punished for the same sin

(see below our discussion of Aharon Reuveni's essay for the comparison

to Gogol's tale "A Terrible Vengeance " and the motif of the eternal curse).

On the other hand, the alleged "vagabond " in the name Zhivago could

have referred to the Holocaust theme, thus connecting the Christian and

Nazi ideologies of the Jews' "non-existence. " Moreover, the theme of the

Wandering Jew can also be related to the problem of the Soviet

concentration camps - to which the East European Jews, saved from

Nazi's camps, as well as Yiddish critics like Y. Rappoport in his article in

Heimish in October 1959 were extremely sensitive, as Katsis writes.

In

this regard, Pinnes' words about tragedy, cited below, become clearer.

From the beginning, having stated that Zhivago is a great literary work

because the problem of personality is in its center, Pinnes dramatically

proclaims that "for us, there is a specifically Jewish issue in this novel.

Ben-Azay, " Ha-martirologiya shel B. Pasternak."

Pinnes, "Boris Pasternak – metziut ve-semel."

Katsis, "'Doctor Zhivago' vstrechaetsa s idishem," 276.

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the Eyes of Israeli Writers

And this issue is very tragic. Perhaps because of this tragic Jewish point ,

the internal hesitations of the author are so genuine. And perhaps because

of it Pasternak has recently been so 'loved and embraced' in different

camps." Further, having surveyed Pasternak's early periods, Pinnes re calls

two meetings which, being recommended to the poet by Isaac Babel, he

had with Pasternak in 1925-1926. Pinnes invited Pasternak to write for

Davar, and was refused, of course.

Finally, Pinnes approaches the Jewish theme in the chapter quite

eloquently entitled "Shame and Misunderstanding." Since this theme is

referred to in other publications as well, in this paper we shall quote its

main expressions in Zhivago— the notorious words of Misha Gordon,

Zhivago's childhood friend, in two places. The first: " What did it mean to

be a Jew? What was the purpose of it? What was the reward or the

justification of this impotent challenge, which brought nothing but

grief?"

The second—after Zhivago and Gordon witnessed Cossacks

tormenting the old Jew:

The "national idea [of Jews] has forced them, century after century, to be a

nation and nothing but a nation—and they have been chained to this

deadening task all through the centuries when all the rest of the world was

being delivered from it by a new force which had come out of their own

midst! Isn't that extraordinary? How can you account for it? Just think!

This glorious holiday, this liberation from the curse of mediocrity, this

soaring flight above the dullness of a humdrum existence, was first

achieved in their land, proclaimed in their language, and belonged to their

race! And they actually saw and heard it and let it go! How could they

allow the spirit of such overwhelming power and beauty to leave them,

how could they think that after it triumphed and established its reign, they

would remain as the empty husk of that miracle they had repudiated? What

use is it for anyone, this voluntary martyrdom? Whom does it profit? For

what purpose are these innocent old men and women and children, all

these subtle, kind, human people, mocked and beaten up throughout the

centuries? […] Why don't they [the Jewish leaders and teachers] say to

them: 'Come to your senses, stop. Don't hold on to your identity. Don't

stick together, disperse. Be with all the rest. You are the first and best

Christians in the world. You are the very thing against which you have

been turned by the worst and weakest among you."

Gordon, Pinnes notes, seems to accuse the Jew of being a Jew, rather than

the Cossack for beating the Jew. Thus, "Pasternak-Zhivago withstood the

ordeal in regard to human dignity, in general, but failed the ordeal in the

Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, 13.

Ibid. 122-123.

Roman Katsman

case of his People's dignity." He seeks, Pinnes continues, the sanctuary

within the walls of the most powerful Church, that which causes in

Christian critics sublime joy and sympathy to Pasternak, as in the case of

Sholem Asch. Thus, Pinnes' comparison of Pasternak to Asch (1880-

1957) - an author of a few scandalously known novels in Yiddish about

Jesus (The Nazarene) and other Evangelic figures (Mary and The Apostle)

- although hardly justifiable in itself, testifies to the context in which

Pasternak is considered: in spite of the extremely traumatic, humiliating

content, and in spite of the Russian language and culture of his works, he

is a Jewish writer. Leonid Katsis has mentioned the American Yiddish

critic, Hayim Lieberman's, praise of Zhivago, which was included in the

annotation to the Yiddish translation of the novel (1959). Katsis

emphasized that it is especially significant with regard to Lieberman's

severe attacks against Asch, in particular in his book The Christianity of

Sholem Asch published in 1953.

On November 7, 1958 one of the major Israeli newspapers, Maariv,

published an article by Yosef (Tommy) Lapid, entitled "The Tragedy of

Man and Literature. Israeli Writers about the Pasternak Affair " consisting

of a series of interviews (reprinted with changes in the newspaper Heruth

on November 18). The term " tragedy" in the title, which seems prophetic

but hardly appropriate at this point in time, might be an echo of Zhivago 's

ideas, rather than Pasternak's condition. Yosef Lapid (1931-2008), a

journalist and the future founder of the Shinui party; a member of Knesset

(1999-2006) ; and a minister in the Israeli Government (2003-2006) groups

several prominent Israeli writers into left-wing and right-wing (according

to the Israeli political map) and reports their opinions, noting however that

they have not yet read Zhivago . The left-wingers, Avraham Shlonsky, Lea

Goldberg, and Moshe Shamir refused to speak (the essay by Shamir is

discussed below). The famous poet, Alexander Pen (1906-1972), knew

Pasternak personally and was significantly influenced by his poetry.

He

responds to the journalist with ostentatious indifference, accusing him and

his colleagues of not having cared about Pasternak previously. Avigdor

Hameiri (1890-1970), a writer, poet, translator, playwright, and editor,

views Pasternak as the sole heir of Pushkin; and as "the poet of truth who

has not given up on his credo but freed his art "; and as "a saint, because he

has not feared to do so."

Max Brod (1984-1968) praises Pasternak the

poet as one of the greatest writers in the world. Yizhar Smilansky (S.

Yizhar, 1916-2006), one of the best Hebrew writers of the 20th century,

Katsis, "'Doctor Zhivago' vstrechaetsa s idishem," 27 4-275.

Lapidus, Russkie vliyaniya na ivritskuyu literaturu, 226, 248.

Lapid, "Tragediia shel adam ve-sifrut."

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the Eyes of Israeli Writers

says that "the Pasternak affair is outrageous, and his destiny as a writer

and man arouses sympathy and compassion. The only important point here

is the freedom of an intellectual to talk; either someone likes it or not."

And he adds: "There is no doubt that this affair includes the Jewish point

as well, but in this respect the picture is not clear yet."

The short article ends with the abrupt but significant words of perhaps

the greatest Modern Hebrew poet, Uri Zvi Grinberg (1896-1981), who

must have represented the right political wing, according to Lapid's

grouping: " I do not disparage the importance of the Pasternak affair, but

today, here in Israel we are facing either greatness or extinction. There is

no escaping the average life, no idyll. We have attained the cruel burden of

the independent state, which is much harder in every respect than the

burden of exiles. I see now all these affairs, which are not our business, as

a kind of distraction from what is going on around us. This is fateful for

us. I am not going to deal with the Pasternak affair."

Grinberg is not

indifferent to the destiny of his pen-pal, as A. Gai, the journalist of Heruth,

where the interviews are reprinted, writes.

Interestingly enough, in his

attempt to avoid discussion of the Pasternak affair, Grinberg does actually

enter the dialogue about Zhivago, which he has not even read. Politically,

his words about "greatness or extinction" can be applied to any moment in

the history of Israel (perhaps least of all to 1958), and not of Israel only.

There is no doubt that such "fateful moments" is the main motif of

Grinber's poems, of Zhivago , and of many other of Pasternak's works.

Zhivago is the story of how building the new state is much harder than

waging a revolution, not from the practical perspective, but rather from an

ethical, human point of view. At such historical moments, one does not

need universal abstract ideas, but a maximal focusing on "our business,"

on "what is going on around us." This anti-universalist advice of Grinberg

looks like a direct (although imaginary) response to Pasternak's

(Gordon's) advice about assimilation. Instead of proposing grandiose

projects for solving metaphysical problems and attaining world harmony,

Misha Gordon (together with all Russian intelligentsia) should have

thought of the ethical, human consequences of the adventurous "affair " in

which he took part. And at last, on the actual level, as Grinberg does not

want to deal with Pasternak's "affairs " with his State, even if (or precisely

because) Pasternak is an exiled Jew, so Pasternak should not deal with the

"affairs " of Grinberg 's State, even if (or perhaps because) this is the

Jewish State. Although this dialogue was imaginary, it is easy to imagine

Ibid.

Ibid.

Gai, "Pasternak ve-… sofrei Israel."

Roman Katsman

how Gordon's monologue would have been responded to by Grinberg,

who in 1923 had already published his famous poem In the Kingdom of

Cross, which predicted the Holocaust.

However, of course the opinions collected by Lapid were not the only

responses to the events. Nathan Alterman (1910-1970), a famous Israeli

poet, responded to the events that followed the awarding of the Nobel

Prize to Pasternak in his poetical weekly "The Seventh Column" (" Ha-tur

ha-shvi'i" ) in Davar on November 7, 1958. The imaginary " Talk of A.S.

Pushkin" to Pasternak expresses unconditional support of the oppressed

poet, along with an ironic hint at the worldview of Zhivago 's author: he

has become a victim of nature's forces and laws, of those features of the

environment that he has purposely avoided describing and interpreting.

What are these features? What is there in the landscape that Pasternak has

purposely avoided speaking about? "You know, as I do, that the landscape

consists not only of wide fields and poplars at the edge of forest."

And

this is not only the "Slavonic spirit." Pushkin (Alterman) defines the novel

as "the most Russian book of all times," and emphasizes that its author has

been called "Judah Iscariot," in Russia — a feature that is presented as

being opposed to Pasternak's " Russianness." This hint at Pasternak's

Jewishness is used by Pushkin, as it were, as an analogy to the allusions to

his own roots. Pasternak has been frequently compared to Pushkin, and not

only with regard to their " foreign" roots as, for example in Tzvetaeva's

letter (1931) but, more importantly, with regard to the collision of their

conflict-and-reconciliation with the ruling Powers. Thus, both represent

something " strange" in the landscape, something that is, at one and the

same time, a part of this landscape—however unspeakable or hushed up it

might be. This is the reason why, for "Pushkin, " Pasternak did not have to

go so far in glorifying the Homeland and swearing that, beyond its

borders, he "would have died as uprooted from the soil."

Ironic as this is, Alterman's sympathy is completely on Pasternak's

side, and his characterization of Soviet writers and critics as hunters,

predators, and fools are unambiguous. Indeed, "Pushkin " calls Pasternak

"comrade, " and " Mayakovsky, " another character in the poem and

Pushkin's neighbor, threatens to protest against the declaration of the

Union of Writers before Stalin, Zinoviev, and Bukharin. However, the

main problem lies on an absolutely different plane: this writers'

declaration is not readable; Mayakovsky cannot comprehend it at all "as if

it is written by Tatars."

Thus, the "landscape, " in which Pasternak is

Alterman, "Sikhato shel A.S. Pushkin," 87.

Ibid. 88.

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the Eyes of Israeli Writers

currently rooted, is neither Russian, nor Slavonic, nor even Christian, but

is rather barbarically pagan. This landscape is exactly that which is

strange, foreign, and invasive, rather than people like Pushkin and

Pasternak with their "foreign blood." To sum up, Alterman proclaims in a

"politically correct " manner that the USSR is not the best place for the

Russian poet, especially when it is not the really Russia, and especially

when the poet is not quite Russian.

Another, albeit implicit, reason for calling Pasternak "comrade " and

for such deep empathy to him could be Alterman's position on the scene

of Israeli poetry at the end of 1958. Somewhat similarly to Pasternak, just

a year previously Alterman, one of the canonical Hebrew poets, had

returned to his "big poetry," after a thirteen-year break (though not quite a

complete " silence" ) with the book City of the Dove ( ' Ir ha-yona ).

However, clouds were already gathering above his head: in 1959 Nathan

Zach, another great Israeli poet,— a novice, who had published his first

book of poems just a few years before - provoked by his famous article

"Thoughts on Alterman's Poetry" ("Hirhurim 'al shirat Alterman")

a

fierce controversy about Alterman's poetry, doubting its widely

acknowledged virtues. Zach accused Alterman of decorative figurativeness,

mechanical rhythm, archaic language, tendentious rationalism, and

abstractness. However, denouncing this criticism, Dan Miron pointed out

the main strength of Alterman's poetry, which remained unnoticed by

Zach: "the creation of dramatic narrative symbols, of significant balladic

performances with multiple meanings."

These words, as well as the

following ones can be easily related to Pasternak, the novelist, no less than

to Alterman: "The unusual broadness of the battlefield [in which

Alterman's poetry intends to act] is evident not only in the great victories

of this poetry but also in its failures, in which the power that is felt is

measured by another criteria, those of the exceptional. Indeed, such great

failures can cause more interest and credence than several small victories

in our poetry."

In 1958, although this discussion had not yet taken place;

Alterman was already creating for himself the fraternity of Pushkin,

Mayakovsky and Pasternak in order to constitute and preserve - both for

them and for himself, and perhaps for his entire generation - the essential

right to th ese "other criteria."

On November 17, 1958, the newspaper Haaretz reported on a new

book that had been published in the USSR: The State of Israel —Its

Akhshaw 3-4 (1959): 109-122.

Miron, Arba panim, 94.

Ibid. 108.

Roman Katsman

Condition and Politics by Konstantin Ivanov

and Zinovy Sheynis (the

author of several books about Soviet politics and diplomacy). The title of

the article read: "The Booklet of Russian Politics against Israel Denies the

'Reactionary People' the Right of Self-Definition. The Solution Is

Assimilation." The article summarized the key points of the book, among

which the central one was the deadlock of Zionism. Of course, there is no

connection between this propagandistic deceitful lampoon and Pasternak,

but its publication in the midst of the Nobel Prize "affair " possibly served

to sharpen the sensitivity of Israelis to the assimilatory voice in the Soviet

novel, Doctor Zhivago . In addition, it might also have caused some

influential intellectuals and writers to avoid responding to the novel or

even boycott it.

As was already mentioned above, an event devoted to Pasternak took

place in the Tel Aviv Tzavta Club on November 14, 1958, in which

famous Israeli writers spoke out: Avraham Shlonsky (1900-1973), Lea

Goldberg (1911-1970), and Avraham Benjamin Yaffe (see below for

details about his article). Shlonsky was deeply influenced by Pasternak's

poems

and translated some of them into Hebrew. Goldberg admired

Pasternak as one of the greatest contemporary poets. As her diaries show,

she pondered his early poems, such as "Even More Stifling Dawn"

(" Escho bolee dushny rassvet"): "Even in the most severe illness the lines

of Pasternak will ring in my ears: 'Please, water, sister' [Ispit',

sestritza]."

Later—she focused on his translations: "I was very glad to

hear how he [Shlonsky] talked about Pasternak's translation of 'Faust,'

and how, in the end, he discovered Goethe."

In September 1954

Goldberg participated in the visit of the Israeli delegation to the USSR,

and was apparently expecting to meet Pasternak. About one of the events

organized "in the Literature Museum", she writes: "Selvinsky, Bagritzky,

Plotkin— but no trace of B. Pasternak."

And later she adds: "The poems

by Pasternak in Znamia N. 5 1954."

Goldberg means the publication in

Znamia, no. 4 (April 1954) of ten "Poems from the Novel in Prose 'Doctor

Zhivago', " which did not include the Christian poems that were later

Konstantin Ivanov is the pseudonym of Vladimir Semyonov – then Deputy

Minister of Foreign Affairs, after WW2 – one of the chief figures in East German

Soviet politics.

Lapidus, Russkie vliyaniya na ivritskuyu literaturu, 16.

Goldberg, Yomanei Lea Goldberg, 263 (August 22, 1939), 267 (September 29,

1939).

Ibid. 346 (July 15-16, 1954).

Ibid. 499.

Ibid. 503 (September 6, 1954).

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the Eyes of Israeli Writers

included in the novel. In a short preface to the publication in Znamia,

Pasternak announced that "the novel would supposedly be completed by

the summer."

As we saw above, Goldberg and Shlonsky refused to be

interviewed by Tomy Lapid concerning Zhivago (November 7, 1958);

their silence on Pasternak and his writings in the daily and scientific

periodicals is exceptionally bewildering.

S. Shalom (Shalom Yosef Shapira, 1904-1990), a famous poet, writer

and translator, responded to Zhivago in his bitter note "Pasternak's Advice

(An Open Letter of Sorts)", published in Davar on December 19, 1958.

This is one of the earliest and sharpest responses on Pasternak (later,

Aharon Reuveni makes reference to it as his source). Almost simultaneously

with his article about Pasternak, S. Shalom writes his response to Prime

Minister David Ben-Gurion's inquiry concerning the ceremony of

circumcision and other rites of Jewish initiation that could or should be

managed in Israel (part of the wide public discussion about who is a Jew,

mentioned above). S. Shalom's opinion states that if a child is born to a

"mother who has not converted to Judaism, " Jewry should be considered

as a "sublime 'Order'" " full of suffering and heroism," which can be

broached by means of a symbolic ceremony in addition to circumcision.

Three months later, probably within the context of the same discussion

about Jewish identity, he writes to the famous Israeli philosopher and

scientist, Yeshayahu Lelbowitz, responding to his criticism of S. Shalom's

essay devoted to Heine (a poet of special importance for Pasternak, as

well): " Although during the years I have become distanced from the full

poetic linkage to Heine, the Judaic link has remained in force, and no

'stories of abomination and apostasy' about his life, which I knew later,

could overshadow it. […] His Jewish soul was much bigger than his

deeds. […] Bringing the bones of our departed from exile, we should not

leave in the hands of gentiles the bones of the greatest poet of the People

of Israel in foreign languages."

In his article, comparing Pasternak to Freud, and Zhivago to Moses and

Monotheism, S. Shalom accuses Pasternak of having a "Jewish self-

hatred" complex.

Of course, he refutes the advice to Jews to assimilate

and disappear, but his main point is altogether different: in this idea

Pasternak contradicts himself, as other ideas and positions are expressed in

the novel, as well as in his other works, as well as in his life. S. Shalom

gives several examples. The advice of Gordon is similar to that of

Evgeny and Elena Pasternak, Zhizn Borisa Pasternaka, 428.

S. Shalom, Mikhtavim, letter to Ben-Gurion (November 30, 1958), 151-152.

Ibid., letter to Yeshayahu Lelbowitz (February 23, 1959), 153.

S. Shalom, "Pasternak's Advice."

Roman Katsman

Komarovsky to Zhivago— to not provoke them— to which he responds by

proudly denying that his destiny is in Komarovsky's hands. To Gordon's

words about the uniqueness of the Christian miracle, Zhivago himself

responds by claiming that life renews and recreates itself over and over

again, and this includes, for S. Shalom, the history of nations and the

recreation of the People of Israel in their Land. Lara repeats Gordon's

doctrine, but the narrator himself praises both Lara and Zhivago for their

refusal to accept all the typical and collective attitudes of their

environment. S. Shalom accuses Pasternak, as follows: On the one hand,

you ask your People to conform; yet on the other hand, your characters

perceive this act as being highly ignoble. He dramatically concludes: "Do

not advise that the murdered will cease to exist, but rather advise the

killers to stop killing! You, the one who defends the existence of the small

individual within the large masses, must understand that there is also a

reason for the existence of a small nation within the big and violent ones in

the Universe, especially the nation which, as you say, has brought to the

world 'the miracle of redemption from paganism'." And at last, like in the

case of Heine, S. Shalom promises that the nation's arms are always open

to everyone, even those who have betrayed it, among them "Boris, that is

Dov-Ber, the son of Leonid, that is Arie-Leib, named Pasternak."

This short article is in every sense far from being a vulgar Zionist

proclamation, but its author's dating imparts it with the metaphysical and

meta-historical meaning: " 1st Day of Chanukah, year 5719." The 1st day of

Chanukah that year was December 7 th. Chanukah celebrates the victory of

the Jews over Greeks, the purification of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem,

and the renewal of worship. It celebrates the miracle of the oil, wherein

one day's worth of oil burned in the Temple menorah for eight days — the

eight days needed to prepare a new batch of pure Temple oil. The

Judaization of the names of the Pasternaks (father and son) seems, in this

respect, like a symbolic act of purification and redemption. The

miraculous reconstitution of religious identification in history on the one,

the smallest individual is an ethical initiation quite in the spirit of the late

Pasternak. In this view, S. Shalom's dramatic but playful rhetoric is

apparent: to implicitly turn Pasternak's metaphysical (if not mystical and

messianic) argumentation against himself. It is as if S. Shalom completes

Pasternak's poem "Miracle " ( " Chudo "), one of the most famous poems of

Yuri Zhivago: the fig tree from the Gospel parable, totally burned by the

poet's exaltation, must resurrect itself in the end; otherwise, a miracle

would not be a miracle.

Ibid.

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the Eyes of Israeli Writers

Following the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Pasternak, a prominent

Israeli writer, Moshe Shamir (1921-2004), wrote a short sketch (dated

1958), which was later included in his collection of essays By a Quick

Quill ( Be -kulmus mahir). Having started with recalling H.N. Bialik's

article about the father of Boris Leonidovich, Leonid Pasternak, and

reminding the reader of the true given name of the latter—Avraham Leib

be-rabbi Yosef

—Shamir notes that Zhivago is " undoubtedly an alien

element" in Soviet culture, but claims a writer's right to be " a party unto

himself," to be mistaken and not to always be right.

Thus, Shamir's main

argument is against the overestimation of the Nobel Prize's importance, its

ideological tendencies, and against Soviet writers' unanimously raising

their hands in support . Shamir opens his essay by citing Bialik, who points

out the main " motifs" in Leonid Pasternak's life and oeuvre —the peace of

home (" shlom bayit " ), children, family and family celebrations ("khag " ).

Shamir concludes with the apology of a " weed" (" 'esev shote" ), a

nonconformist and rebel, in one's own "small garden." As a whole, his

piece looks thus like a projection of traditional values, exemplified by a

Jewish though secular family, onto the social, political and ideological

reality. Is this naivety? Perhaps it is, but his line of advocacy fits his

political worldview, both from a Jewish as well as a socialist perspective.

However, Shamir's argument will look a little less naïve if we return to

Bialik's essay. Shamir exclaims: " What a wonderful article! "— and we can

perceive this as an indication of a far broader acceptance of Bialik's ideas

than he would like to admit in his own article. His rhetoric is an implicit

analogy between the Pasternaks—father and son—by adopting Bialik's

viewpoint. Bialik wrote his essay in November 1922 in Bad Homburg, at

the time when Leonid Pasternak lived there with his wife and daughters

(both the painter and the poet left Soviet Russia in 1921). Bialik opens

with a lament on Jews who have abandoned their People and brought their

talents and powers to "the altar of the gentile God, " writing sporadically,

like making " a relic of destruction" (" zekher le-khorban " ), on the Jewish

subject "as if 'the Jewish theme' were the main thing here."

If so, what is

the main thing? The material, Bialik writes, referring to a realist painter of

Jewish origin, is gentile, the technique is European, but "the inside" ( "ha-

mibifnim") hides "something, a small grain of his Jewish spirit that he has

unwittingly inherited from his ancestors." Yet, this tiny thing is enough -

like Leonid Pasternak's conversation about his Jewish mother or a few

lines dedicated to her in his book on Rembrandt, which are "full of the

Bialik, "A.L. Pasternak," 272.

Shamir, "Boris Leonidovich," 49-50.

Bialik, "A.L. Pasternak," 272.

Roman Katsman

sacred awe and sublime and pure longing."

Alternatively, turning from

the ancestors to the descendants, Bialik finds the "Jewish grain" in

Pasternak's family paintings, which depict his children and celebrate the

"eternal testament between fathers and sons."

Moshe Shamir trembles at the thought that one of those children Bialik

is talking about is Boris Pasternak. Yet, if he accepts Bialik's conception,

there must be more to his awe than the admiration of the living classic: He

wants to believe that time is not out of joint even today, in the late 1950s,

and according to the said testament the Jewish grain can be found in both

the son as well as the father. Or perhaps, he strives to find it by entangling,

on one hand, the fashionable comparison of Boris Pasternak to Lev

Tolstoy and the continuous "silence " of the former with, on the other hand,

Bialik's comparison of Tolstoy, as he appears in Leonid Pasternak's

paintings, to " an old Torah scribe [Sofer STaM], who sits secretly in his

chamber, writing the sacred names in purity and seclusion, or a 'hidden'

righteous one [tzadik nistar], who writes using the quill conjuration

[hashba'at kulmus] and discovers the mysteries of the world."

Moreover,

Bialik quotes the words that Tolstoy uttered to Leonid Pasternak, and

which he heard from the latter several times: "You are a complete pagan, a

servant of forms! You worship the vanity and emptiness, the outer beauty.

Although I am a 'gentile,' I am more of a 'Jew' than you are. Art for art's

sake is regarded as nothing in my eyes."

It does not matter whether the

comparison of Boris Pasternak to Tolstoy is justified or not: Moshe

Shamir could have wanted to see the author of Zhivago as "more of a Jew"

in this Tolstoyan sense.

When Shamir praises and admires Bialik's essay, he surely means the

last part as well, where the poet calls Pasternak—and all quasi-assimilated

Jewish artists—to account: Where have you been and what have you done

for your People during the long years of persecution and executions? What

has been your part in reviving the Nation and rebuilding its Home? And he

bitterly concludes: Not one of you has come. Moreover, many have

perpetrated evil upon their People, their future and hope, although they

owe them their power and spirit. However, the purpose of Bialik's pathos

is not to denounce these assimilated Jews, but to accept them anew, "with

all their sinfulness and righteousness, mistakes and evils." Thus, to Leonid

Pasternak, who seems to him one of those who left, but eventually

Ibid. 273.

Ibid. 275.

Ibid. 276.

Ibid. Such abnegation of art for art's sake was also Bialik's position. See, for

example, his "Pure Art" (" Ha-omanut ha-tehora" ).

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the Eyes of Israeli Writers

returned, Bialik says: We do not require any "Jewish themes," ju st come

and live among us, on our ground; you are our brother— welcome!

This spiritual and political call was not abstract, but practical as well:

After two years, in 1924, Bialik moved to the Land of Israel. During that

same year, Leonid Pasternak also visited there. However, in 1958 Israel,

being included in Moshe Shamir's subtext, this call – allusively already

addressed to Boris Pasternak – could sound both provocative as well as

friendly. It was if Shamir were trying to complement Bialik's essay wit h

what had curiously been absent from it—a reference to Boris Pasternak,

who in 1922 had already become quite an acknowledged poet, and Bialik

must have known this. In any case, the anti-Semitic passages in

Pasternak's letters or prose, like in his letter to his wife from August 27,

1926 or in Gordon's speech in Zhivago , would not have prevented either

Bialik or Shamir from pronouncing their " welcome" , keeping in mind

Pasternak's infinitely small " Jewish grain. "

Aharon Zeev Ben-Yishai (1902-1977), a critic, poet, translator and

editor who started out in the Moscow Hebrew periodicals Ha-am , Ha-

tkufa, and Shtilim, opens his article "The Pasternaks " ( Davar, November

28, 1958) with memoirs about his visit to David Frishman in the autumn

of 1918, in Moscow (8 Novaya Basmannaya Str., 4th floor). In the

apartment of Frishman, the editor of Ha-tkufa, Ben-Yishai was present at

Frishman's conversation with Leonid and Boris Pasternak. Leonid

Pasternak, as Ben-Yishai notes, was a frequent guest at Frishman's. They

often had long conversations in Russian, German or Yiddish over a cup of

tea and a game of chess.

That same evening, David Frishman (1859-

1922), a renowned Hebrew and Yiddish writer, poet, translator, editor and

publisher, received a present from his guests: Boris' book Over the

Barriers (Poverkh baryerov ). In 1916, Leonid Pasternak painted a portrait,

in which Frishman and Bialik were depicted in the midst of conversation.

The well-known and ongoing controversy between the two focused on the

essential question of the development of Modern Hebrew literature:

Should it be based on the heritage of ancient Jewish genres, as Bialik

thought, or adopt European genres and styles, as Frishman believed?

When Ben-Yishay opens his article with the epigraph from Bialik (the

lines that bitterly mention the conflict between fathers and sons) and the

episode about Frishman, he is apparently seeking to touch upon the

Ibid. 277-278.

Ben-Yishai, "The Pasternaks," 5.

Roman Katsman

context of the Bialik-Frishman controversy, in the midst of which he

presents the Pasternaks' visit and Boris Leonidovich's new book.

Frishman's opinion of Boris Pasternak, as understood by Ben-Yishai,

is unambiguous: " There is nothing in the poems of this guy apart from

massive heaps and piles of words, ear-rasping images, and futurist

babbling. An educated guy, a musician, a student of Skriabin, a student of

Hermann Cohen, but far from being a poet. "

Frishman was most likely

only expressing his own personal poetical tastes, but Ben-Yishai's

comments on his words, noting that the " Jewish ember ," which has not

died out in the father, has been almost completely extinguished in the son.

Furthermore, Ben-Yishai recalls the conversation about Hermann

Cohen (who had passed away only several months earlier, on April 4,

1918), about his visit to Russia in 1914 (following the Beilis trial), the

memories of which were still very much alive, along with the memory of

Cohen's prayer in the Moscow synagogue followed by the speech in

Hebrew made by Moscow's Chief Rabbi, Yakov Mazeh. This speech was

published in Frishman's journal Ha-tkufa in 1918, and Ben-Yishai refers

to its two main points, which are directly connected to the controversies of

Bialik-Frishman and of the Pasternaks, both father and son. First, Mazeh

praises Cohen for his idea, according to which Judaism is the core of

European philosophy; and second, he severely criticizes the leader of the

Marburg School of neo-Kantianism for his anti-Zionism, emphasizing that

Judaism is inseparable from the national idea of the return to Zion.

Ben-

Yishai comments that Cohen's visit caused many Jews, who were "on the

borderline of assimilation," to return to Judaism. He supposes that Leonid

Pasternak was one of these, perhaps forgetting or ignoring his unsuccessful

encounter with Cohen in Marburg in 1912, the period when his son studied

there, successfully, but for only a short time. However, Ben-Yishai

perceives, not quite justifiably, the influence of Cohen in Boris Pasternak's

thirst for freedom and justice.

Another subject that was discussed related to Rabindranath Tagore,

whom Frishman admired and had passionately translated into Hebrew, and

of whom Boris Pasternak was "disapprovingly reserved." After the

Pasternaks left, Ben-Yishai continues, Frishman declaimed Pasternak's

poems and criticized them as hopelessly futuristic and thus—meaningless.

Yet now, forty years later, Ben-Yishai goes on, Pasternak has been

About other (personal and national) contexts of the relationships between Boris

Pasternak and Frishman's family, see: Katsis, " Nachalnaya pora. "

Ben-Yishai, "The Pasternaks," 5.

Mazeh, " Le-zekher Hermann Cohen."

Ben-Yishai, "The Pasternaks," 6.

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the Eyes of Israeli Writers

crowned the greatest Russian poet, while still remaining subjectivist and

individualist, as most of his Soviet fellow poets and critics note. These are

also the features of Zhivago, whose "Jewish moment" Ben-Yishai

discusses in the last part of his essay, noting that Pasternak's love for Jesus

and Christianity has not protected him from being branded Judah

Iscariot.

Avraham Benjamin Yaffe (1924-2008), a journalist and editor, literary

critic and writer, and a member of the PEN Club included his brief review

of Zhivago in the collection of essays published several years later

(however, he had already started giving lectures on Pasternak on

November 12 in Beyt Lisin, and on November 14, 1958 in Tel Aviv's

Tzavta Club).

This review is highly favorable, but says nothing new.

Describing the basic features of Pasternak's poetry, Yaffe emphasizes that

"there is no poetry that is more Russian than his."

He then glorifies

Zhivago, through which he says Pasternak has returned "the Slavonic

soul," individualism, and the mystical link to the Soviet novel.

Although

it is an extremely exceptional book in the Soviet literary context, Zhivago

is apparently not anti-revolutionary,

and Yaffe leaves it to the reader to

decide whether it is anti-Soviet, how its characters cope with their

dilemmas, and the extent to which Pasternak identifies with them: "This

work is of the highest degree of art, where no simple differentiation

between black and white, pro et contra is possible. "

Uri Rapp, a translator of scientific literature who later became a

professor of arts, theatre, and psychology at Tel Aviv University, printed a

thoughtful two-part essay in Haaretz - one of the biggest Israeli

newspapers(November 11 and December 5, 1958): "'The Inner Emigrant':

Thoughts on Dr. Zhivago and the Irony of History. " He starts out with a

quotation from the novel, where Zhivago, after being captured by the

"reds, " is forced to participate in a battle and shoot " whites, " wound one

of them, and then save and heal him—after which he runs away and

returns to the rows of the " whites." According to Rapp, this episode

reflects the embodiment of Zhivago's character—the character of a free,

detached, and invulnerable humanist, the most unique one in all of

literature. He is the only human "Archimedes point" "beyond any

alternatives of the pro-et-contra of the revolution;" he is Hamlet retiring

Ibid.

Announcement in Davar (November 9, 1958): 5.

Yaffe, "Boris Pasternak," 110.

Ibid. 113.

Ibid. 115.

Ibid. 116.

Roman Katsman

from the drama, as reads the first of Zhivago's poems.

Zhivago seems to

be protected by the highest forces, as both the red and white soldiers killed

in the mentioned battle would like to be protected when they hang the

same good-luck charm with the verse from Psalms in it around their necks.

Perhaps this detail moved Rapp to accompany each part of his essay with

epigraphs from Psalms, in which the protection and salvation of Heaven

are promised.

Rapp understands why Zhivago caused such strong resentment and

hatred in the USSR: It is the boldest possible humiliation of all Soviet

values and "styles " (discourses, as perhaps we would say today), as the

author writes using the terms of the novel. However, he looks for a way to

cope with this problematic book: "The question is if we, the cultural

people who seek humanity and even support a full-scale social revolution,

can and are allowed to give this book up; if the world of the victorious

revolution (whatever its image is) without such books, without the

spiritual world of Yuri Andreevich deserves to live and suffer in it?" And

Rapp is happy to find that Soviet people do not give up the book, that the

new generation of Russian poets needs it. In this, he sees the irony of

history and the confirmation that "the chain of Hamlets," as time itself, is

not out of joint.

Is this just a naïve attempt on the part of an intellectual writer from a

leftist newspaper to save the remnants of communist ideology and thus

take part in the Cold War, or an attempt, much less naïve, to culturally

appropriate Pasternak and his novel within the left camp by playing with

the ideal of humanism and confusing historicism with determinism? It is

probably a little of both. And indeed, the second part, the philosophical

part of the essay, shows that according to its author the discussion about

revolution is full of sense and practical significance. For him, revolution is

justified by default only because it is the embodiment of action, carried out

by "people of action" - those who choose one possibility from among

many, leaving others behind. After this, it is the " Zhivagos" turn — those

individuals whose intellect and imagination, detachment from acting

enable them to "keep in mind the map of crossroads and unrealized

possibilities" and open up new possibilities "for the next resurrection. "

"People like Zhivago do not live in 'today's world,' because they never

prepare for 'tomorrow'; they don't know that they are the guarantee of

'after-tomorrow.'"

This is why they cannot conform to the inspiration of

their generation. However, this disadvantage, Rapp reassures his readers,

Rapp, "'The Inner Emigrant'" (November 11, 1958).

Ibid.

Rapp, "'The Inner Emigrant'" (December 5, 1958).

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the Eyes of Israeli Writers

is act ually an expression of their advantage: their ability to create objects

of inspiration. This passivity is the Archimedes point, on which the

activists (i.e. "people of action," revolutionaries) establish their lever.

Indeed, Rapp seems to forget what usually happens to the "Archimedes

point" after the lever has crushed it, but apparently in his essay he is

talking about his political vision, rather than about Pasternak's novel.

Perhaps this is why he is so optimistic and sees Zhivago as a joyful hymn

of life, especially everyday life.

Rapp " understands" Pasternak's "dislike of the Jewish People and its

exilic culture" : " he is deeply involved in the life of the sacred mother

Russia, and of the Orthodox Church." Rapp, like other critics, points out

the (contrasting) parallelism between Gordon's reproach of the Jews for

the uselessness of their sufferings, and the blessed usefulness of the

sufferings of Zhivago and Lara. Rapp reasserts Pasternak's " right" to

despise a Jewish individual for his/her conformism, and even calls upon

the readers to examine themselves in view of this criticism, but he denies

the writer's right to judge the Jewish People, either with regard to

Pasternak's own individualistic worldview, or because the Jewish

millennia-long standing power of life cannot be a historical mistake.

Similarly to Pasternak himself, the Jewish People is a type of free "inner

emigrant" , which always stands out from any regime that supports the

notion of spiritual slavery. This is why the Soviet regime, which "has

become conservative," can endure neither Jews nor Pasternak: "It doesn't

matter what he thinks; as far others are concerned, they are one and the

same." From here, Rapp somehow comes to formulate his final theorem

about the current condition of the revolution, as if it is still occurring in

1958 and, moreover, needs to be thoughtfully planned for the future: the

Regime and the Poet (Pasternak, compared to Prophets) "cannot coexist,

but they have to . "

Aharon Reuveni (1886-1971) was a well-known writer, poet,

researcher and translator of Russian, French, and German literature, a

Zionist activist and the brother of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the second President

of Israel. From December 1958 to January 1959 (the dates are known from

his correspondence of February-March 1959, and his public address on

April 24, 1959), he wrote an extended essay entitled "The Pasternak

Dance" ( " Makhol Pasternak" ), but the editors of the journals Molad and

Moznayim refused to accept it.

Instead, the editor of Moznayim preferred

the article written by Israel Zmura (discussed below), which was, in

Ibid.

Ibid.

Sadan-Loebenstein, Aharon Reuveni, 113-114.

Roman Katsman

Reuveni's opinion (expressed in the letter written in autumn of 1959),

made-to -order and much weaker than his.

On April 24, 1959 he read the

essay before an audience in Jerusalem, stating in the introduction that

publication of this essay, and publishing it on time, was of great

importance to him, and that any delay was thus extremely regrettable.

He

then published the essay as a separate booklet; later its text was included

in his collection of essays. His criticism lacks the light irony of Alterman,

and the thoughtful gravity of Shamir: on the surface, it is harsh and clear-

cut. His epigraph reflects the article's idea and tone: "A fish was dancing

with a crab, And parsley—with parsnip [Pasternak], A tomato – with

asparagus, A young girl —with a Cossack." And there is a footnote by the

word "parsnip " : "I've been asking myself: what's the nature of this

vegetable?";

meaning, as is clear from the essay, that Pasternak's works,

virtuous as they are, remain chaotic and poor, and do not achieve aesthetic

and thematic wholeness.

Yet, this sardonic epigraph contains a little more: Reuveni, a native of

Poltava, translates a humorous Ukrainian folk song, which has been

quoted in the classical story of another native of Poltava Governorate,

Nikolai Gogol—"A Terrible Vengeance" (to make a comparison with this

story also leads to one of Zhivago's poems, entitled "Fairy Tale "

("Skazka " ).

An epigraph from this story by Gogol also appears in

Pasternak's poem "Decay " ( " Raspad " ), included in My Sister, Life (Sestra

moya—zhyzn)).

The original song expresses an absurd, meaningless

confusion of unconnected elements, which is, for Reuveni, the main

feature of Pasternak's writing. Moreover, in Gogol, a line from this song is

included in a song sung by Katerina after she has gone insane; this song is

in itself a meaningless mixture of various songs: "This was how she

muddled lines from different songs."

However, besides this, she also

dances: " And uttering these incoherent sentences Katerina began dancing,

looking wildly around her and putting her arms akimbo. With a shriek she

tapped with her feet; her silver heels clanked regardless of time or tune.

Her black tresses floated loose about her white neck. Like a bird she flew

around without resting, waving her hands and nodding her head, and it

seemed as though she must either fall helpless to the ground or soar away

Ibid.

Ibid. 114.

Reuveni, "Makhol Pasternak," 7.

Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, 537-540.

Pasternak, Sobranie sochineniy, vol. 1, 145.

Gogol, "A Terrible Vengeance," 165.

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the Eyes of Israeli Writers

from earth altogether."

In Reuveni's eyes, Pasternak's dance is also sorely

lacking in "time and tune" and any "successful musical sense"

(although

the main meaning of the expression "the Pasternak dance" in the essay is

the turmoil around Pasternak and the Nobel Prize affair).

However, this pandemonium is the result of trying to find in Pasternak

any point of reference, and first and foremost — the "Jewish point, which

Pasternak was working hard to hide,"

to such an extent that "in his

memoirs he does not mention even once the name of his mother (it is too

Jewish)"

(this reminds us of Tzvetaeva's reproach, not quite just, of

Pasternak for not visiting his mother on his way to the Paris Congress of

Writers in 1935.

Most interestingly, she talks about his mother, not

mentioning his father, and quotes the song by Jean Richepin, in which a

son cuts out his mother's heart and feeds it to his lover's pigs. And this is

again reminiscent of Gogol's "A Terrible Vengeance" where, by

inversion, Katerina tries to kill and cut out the heart of her father —a black

wizard who has coveted her and killed her family).

Interpreting the title of Pasternak's My Sister, Life, Reuveni links it

neither to Alexander Dobroliubov, nor to Saint Francisco or Paul Verlaine,

as other critics do, but, as if ironically continuing the theme of songs and

dances, to the Song of Songs (4:9, 12): "You have stolen my heart, my

sister, my bride. […] You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride; you

are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain." However, in Pasternak's poems,

as opposed to the title of his book, "there is no life."

Having severely criticized Pasternak's poems before the 1940s, partly

on the basis of Pasternak's sel f-criticism, Reuveni comes to acknowledge

that Zhivago "is much better than his old poems" in its form and content;

however, it is still "a novel that is not a novel."

This is so, in part, due to

the writer's conflict between the Thaw's winds of freedom and the fear of

Soviet tyrants—both dead and alive. The strength of the novel is its

humanism, and for its sake Pasternak "clings to the edge of Jesus' coat."

(For its sake the writer is also hunted down and forced to remain in his

Homeland, and we will never know, assumes Reuveni, whether he really

would ever have been allowed to leave or not.) However, in spite of the

Ibid. 164.

Reuveni, "Makhol Pasternak," 8.

Ibid. 9.

Ibid. 12.

Perepiska Borisa Pasternaka, 406-408.

Reuveni, "Makhol Pasternak," 11.

Ibid. 16.

Ibid. 17.

Roman Katsman

humanistic ideal, the characters of Zhivago are not "living souls," and in

spite of being considered realistic, the novel remains archaically

romantic.

It is highly probable that the somewhat angry reaction of Reuveni may

be explained by the troubles he was experiencing in those days in

November 1958, when he had finished his new novel Metempsychosis

(Gilgul neshamot), and was desperately looking for a publisher.

The

subtitle of this novel is identical to his comment about Zhivago mentioned

above: " A Novel that is not a Novel" (" Roman lo roman" ). Reuveni's

work is, according to his own opinion and those of the critics, precisely the

mad dance of unconnected elements that he attributes to Zhivago . Thus, in

his criticism on Pasternak who had just received the Nobel Prize for his

"novel that is not a novel," Reuveni sought legitimization of his own work

and perhaps even a sense of solidarity with his fate, feeling unwanted and

even persecuted for his nonconforming, " no n-leftist" beliefs.

Reuveni

was known for standing alone, avoiding any kind of true connection to any

political faction, for being, like Pasternak, a party unto himself, during his

long life periodically moving from anonymity to canonization and back.

His solidarity with Pasternak remains, however, implicit, perhaps because

of the deep contradiction between his proclaimed materialism, even

physicalism,

and Pasternak's idealism. In any case, in view of this

playful and self- ironic parallelism between his and Pasternak's "unfortunate"

novels, Reuveni's criticism transforms from reprimand to defense.

When he comes to discuss "the Jewish side" of the novel, Reuveni

does not bother to argue with the ideas expressed in Gordon's monologue:

he dismisses them as too old, banal, and flat (besides, respecting the right

of a Jew to assimilate, he denies him/her the right to call upon others to do

the same). Still, one thing causes his extreme bewilderment: How could it

be that in all of Paternak's monumental epic there is only one scene

portraying the Cossacks' cruelty towards Jews, and a mild scene at that:

"Cruelty? Evil? God forbid! Cossacks are good-hearted children of nature!

What, after all, has happened to the old Jew if he was beaten a little on his

bottom? They just wanted to have some fun and sought no evil. Pasternak

has a 'Russian heart.' No Russian has such a Russian heart."

Does

Reuveni mean someone in particular? This remark implicitly returns to the

epigraph discussed above: "A Terrible Vengeance" is the most cruel and

Ibid. 21.

Schwartz, Likhyot kedey likhyot, 257.

Ibid.

Ibid. 273.

Reuveni, "Makhol Pasternak," 25.

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the Eyes of Israeli Writers

horrific of all of Gogol's tales about Cossacks, in which the author

sympathizes with their national character at the very least, and which is

repaid and overwhelmed by the true faith in the end. Apparently, Pasternak

should have known what Gogol already knew a century before Zhivago.

Yet, as Reuveni notes while citing Forester, "Pasternak is interested in

people least of all"

(the observation expressed by many critics, including

the poet's friends), and his characters are not " living souls " ; thus, they are

"dead souls"—another reminiscent of Gogol, too sarcastic even for

Reuveni. And indeed, Reuveni concludes his discussion of "the Jewish

side" of Zhivago by noticing that Pasternak, deep in his soul, knows that

he has not a Russian heart, but a Jewish heart. For Reuveni, this minimal

knowledge is the very "Jewish point" he has been looking for from the

beginning of his essay.

Peretz Bernstein (1890-1971), an Israeli politician and editor, and one

of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence, read Zhivago in the

French translation and thus could judge, by his own confession, only its

ideological side.

His essay (dated November 7, 1958; July 3, 1960) was

later included in the volume of his papers. Bernstein is so impressed "by

the intensity of the Russian character as it is expressed in this work," that

he puts it on the scale of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, but mourns the fact that

the "tragedy " of Pasternak is his undeserved anti-Soviet fame. Another

side of his tragedy is, for Bernstein, his being not only Russian, but

"Jewish as well."

The context of this tragedy is the growing anti-

Semitism in the USSR, following its government's hostility to the State of

Israel, especially severe after communism has fallen to solve the "Jewish

problem."

And here Bernstein touches upon the question that seems to be

most relevant to this context and important to him —repatriation of the

Soviet Jews to Israel: "We are playing with the thought that if the Jews of

Russia were allowed to emigrate, the majority of them would have

repatriated to Israel. […] But this is not said about Pasternak [who], even

after being denounced as a 'traitor,' didn't want to leave Russia ." This is

happening because "Jews are becoming attached by the very strings of

their soul to the land of their residence, the land of exile, to the landscape

and nature, and even to the People who do not love them."

Besides this insight, apparently not by chance or through any kind of

naivety, Bernstein then compares the Pasternak case to the polemic among

Ibid. 19.

Bernstein, "Dr. Zhivago," 253.

Ibid. 256.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Roman Katsman

Zionists in Germany "before anyone knew the man named Hitler" : Is a

Jew who writes in German allowed to lay claim to the title of being a

German writer? Finally, Bernstein mentions the Nazis' attacks on Heine.

This entire move of Bernstein's is not too complicated rhetorically, but its

final purpose is quite significant: Supposing that "the collective feature of

the People must not be revealed always and in everyone," and that "a Jew,

naturally inclining to assimilation, does not want to be identical to the

People with which he lives but to be similar to them, as much as is

possible," Bernstein desperately looks for the tiniest element that would

enable the differentiation of Pasternak from the Russian People. He fails to

find this single element, however, and concludes: "In the case of

Pasternak, the spiritual and artistic assimilation has reached the highest

possible degree."

If so, Pasternak surely can (if he must) claim for

himself the title of being a Russian writer, but in the context presented by

Bernstein this does not sound very optimistic, but rather darkly ironic.

However, the main point is not this, nor is it the question of whether

Bernstein is right or not, but the readiness and even the desire of the critic

to find some small sign of national differentiation as expressed in a work

of art.

Joshua A. Gilboa (1918-1981), a historian of Jewish (Yiddish and

Hebrew) culture and literature in the Soviet Union, published articles on

Pasternak in the newspaper Maariv before (March 7, 1958) and after the

Nobel Prize events (November 7, 1958), before and after he had read the

novel. He admires Pasternak as a writer and a personality, while including

him within the context of Jewish-Russian literature and comparing him to

Babel, Ehrenburg and others.

Yosef Crust, a prolific translator and

biographer, devoted an article to Pasternak (Heruth, November 7, 1958).

He places Pasternak in a highly prestigious and unique context: the

struggle of the individual against the community, while denying the fact

that he broke the laws of this community in order to save his own life. In

this regard, according to Crust, Pasternak shares the company of Socrates

and Tomas Moore. Crust compares P asternak to Ibsen's Thomas

Stockmann ("An Enemy of the People"), with his famous statement that

"the strongest man in the world is the man who stands most alone. "

Shlomo Gepstein (1882-1961) was an author of Russian Jewish

journals in Moscow and Petersburg (Rassvet, Evreyskaya zhizn, Evreysky

narod), one of the editors of the journal Rassvet in Russia and Germany

Ibid. 257.

Ibid.

Gilboa, "Asir toda, nirgash, ge'e…"

Crust, "Boris Pasternak – 'oyev ha - 'am'."

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the Eyes of Israeli Writers

(the chief editor until1924, when Vladimir (Zeev) Jabotinsky took over

this position), and later —one of the editors of Jabotinsky's Complete

Works. In his article in Heruth (November 14, 1958), he compares the

behavior of the Soviet authorities to "the Goebbels style," but denies the

assumption that the cause of the resentment of Pasternak's enemies is the

fact that he is a Jew.

This is apparently a sort of fierce and uncontrollable

anger that must be taken out on someone. Bolsheviks are obsessed by the

spirit of Cain since they have lost their God, since revealing their Messiah

as a false messiah. This attitude resembles those responsible for the deeds

of the Inquisition, Muhammad's epigones, and those of Tiberius, Nero and

Caligula during the times of the decline of the Roman gods, and of the

death factories of Hitler and Stalin. Pasternak's affair is thus an example

of the tragedy of our times.

Yekhiel Halpern (1896-1984), an editor and journalist, the author of

the books Israel and Communism and The Jewish Revolution, and of the

numerous articles in Hebrew and Yiddish, in newspapers and journals, in

Israel, the USA and Poland, writes in his article "Boris Pasternak" (Davar ,

December 19, 1958) about "the tragedy of Pasternak and of his writing,"

as well as about his "Jewish sense of justice and compassion, which does

not expire in the Jewish heart even after he has detached himself from his

People" (on the other hand, Halpern continues, these are the same

humanistic values Pasternak has accepted from Russian literature and

philosophy). However, the heroes of the novel put the destiny of the world

in the hands of God only, " freeing" a man from the duty to actively fight

evil, which is why Christianity is so admired by them while Judaism is so

alien to them. The power of tyrants is based not only on their loyal

servants, but also on the passivity of "those who preserve God's spark in

their soul. The worldview of Zhivago, in which fatal passivity becomes the

highest value in life, cannot serve as a guide for those who seek freedom."

Israel Zmura (1899-1983), an influential editor, critic, translator, and

publisher, wrote a review of Zhivago in Hebrew translation by Tzvi Arad

(Moznayim 8:2, 1959). His main concern was, however, not the quality of

the translation but the value of the novel itself, " with regard to what we

actually found in it, but not to what had been promised or what we had

expected to find in it, knowing its author."

Zmura thus finds that the

novel is not anti-Soviet or anti-revolutionary; moreover, it lacks any

serious analysis of the revolution and revolutionaries; it is full of

Gepstein, "Melekh le-layla ekhad," 3.

Ibid. 4.

Halpern, "Boris Pasternak."

Zmura, "Doctor Zhivago" 106.

Roman Katsman

ambivalences and hesitation, and the author "cannot decide in his soul

what is good and what is bad."

Of course, Zmura must have known that

this was a common characteristic of Pasternak's writing already from his

early period, and he plays with the title of the famous children's poem

written by his friend Mayakovsky, entitled What is Good and What is Bad .

Using this " formula," Zmura implicitly compares Pasternak's proudly

"concluding " and allegedly mature novel both to his early children 's

poems ("Carousel " and " Zoo" ("Zverinetz " )) and to Mayakovsky's

oeuvre, both quite ambiguous as regards the late Pasternak. On the other

hand, however embarrassing this comparison may seem , Pasternak's

children's poems are too serious and symbolic to be dismissed and, like

many of his other works; they indeed foreshadow many characters and

images from Zhivago . However deep and sincere Pasternak's love for

Mayakovsky might have been, as expressed, for example in Safe Conduct

(Okhrannaya gramota), all his writing and thinking seem to be a negation

of his friend's maximalist dichotomies. In this regard, Zmura's evaluation

demonstrates not only pejorative criticism, but also subtle comprehension.

His verdict is that " Doctor Zhivago is an important and valuable book if

you know who its author is; it's important to know what Boris Pasternak

is talking about."

This enables Zmura to proceed to the ad hominem argumentation on

the Jewish-Christian theme in Zhivago with regard to Pasternak's Jewish

origin, although he notes that it has not influenced his judgment of the

book at all. The moment Pasternak made it part of the content of his novel,

"admonishing, condemning [Judaism], and preaching in favor of

Christianity,"

we have the right, says Zmura, to judge his treatment of

the theme and even to argue with him. Thus, having cited the famous lines

from Gordon's monologue, Zmura assumes that Pasternak has apparently

intended to provide an apology or alibi for himself, as he has deserved

such "compliments " (meaning the words: "you are the first and best

Christians" ) being born a Jew. This is not the same Pasternak we knew

previously, concludes Zmura, but a " banal missionary," and " this

anachronism, this fall" ruins, from the inside, the novel as whole. It is

evident that, after all, the fact that Pasternak is a Jew is viewed by Zmura

as both the foundation of the writer's motivation for elaborating the

Jewish-Christian theme, and the explanation of the inherent moral and

intellectual collapse of this project.

Ibid. 107.

Ibid. 108.

Ibid. 109.

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the Eyes of Israeli Writers

The artistic disappointment of Zmura - a translator of Tolstoy and

Chekhov, Gogol and Leskov, Proust and Rilke - is quite understandable.

However, one sentence looks a little odd, even for a Jew, especially one as

educated as Zmura: "A great poet, a wise man, as one can judge from his

poetry, an experienced and learned man reaches such foolishness that he

preaches to People with such a long of history – thousands of years old,

like the People of Israel, and he presumes that he alone is supposed to

teach this People how to change their history."

Zmura must have

understood that Gordon is speaking on behalf of Christianity, even if he is

only expressing the author's thoughts, and narrating well-known and

centuries-old dogmas. Yet, probably his concern is not only Pasternak, nor

even Christianity, but rather the current international politics, where the

question of which nation has the right to teach another nation has become

increasingly urgent, relevant and crucial. The Cold War had reached one

of its peaks with the Berlin Crisis (starting in November 1958), was

already facing the victory of the Cuba Revolution (1959), and preparing

for the Caribbean Crisis (1962). Although the USSR under Khrushchev's

leadership - after the uprisings in East Germany (1953) and Poland (1956),

and especially after the Hungarian Revolution and Suez War (1956) - had

completely lost its celebrated role, Khrushchev was already working on

his "shoe-banging " speech (1960). Europe had been discredited by the

Holocaust, and Israel was rapidly approaching the Eichmann trial (1961).

The Algerian War and the Taiwan Crisis were in high gear; the former

putting an end to European colonialism's " teaching" and, as regards the

latter, China was already casting its line in hopes of filling the vacancy.

The Vietnam War has just begun. Several years would pass and the

"teaching " role of the US would, for the first, time be fully exercised in

regard to Vietnam, but also questioned. This political reality can perhaps

explain Zmura's tense sensitivity to Pasternak's version of a final solution

to the Jewish question, as well as Zmura's "point of blindness," which

appears when he discusses the content of this version.

Shlomo Grodzensky (1904-1972), an influential Hebrew and Yiddish

critic, journalist, and editor, writes ( Davar, January 9, 1959) about

Zhivago as a "great novel" as a matter of course

(which caused Aharon

Reuveni's resentment), and does not mention one word about the Jewish

theme (which perhaps caused even more resentment in Reuveni). Another

obvious fact, according to Grodzensky, is that "the philosophical 'impulse'

is the main motivation of Pasternak's work. Pasternak belongs to that

Ibid.

Grodzensky, "Pasternak: min ha-'etudim' ad le - 'tmuna ha - gdola'."

Roman Katsman

human type for whom the real experience is, first and foremost, the

exercising of the knowledge of acquisition." Extensively quoting from

Zhivago, Grodzensky claims that for Pasternak any act, including the act

of artistic creation, seeks the transcendental, and is thus a return home and

renewal of the world. This return, which is embodied in Zhivago, enables

the writer to break away from his "pre-consciousness " and "pre-

enlightenment," and to finally create the " big picture " of his life and art, to

write his "tragic story upon the happiness of existence."

In another article (Davar, January 23, 1959) Grodzensky discusses the

great importance of the cultural and literary heritage in Pasternak's

worldview and writing,

and connects it, somewhat vaguely, to three of

Zhivago's virtues: " innocence, science, poetry — forces with which a man

fights against the myth of the victorious revolution, whose core is the lie

about 'the transitory period,' whose only uniqueness is that it does not have

an end."

Zhivago so terrifies the regime because of its "demythologization

of the ideology," of "Marxism as the State religion," of "the official

mystics of the permanent dictate disguised as a science." This book is

about the victory of innocence. However, Grodzensky gravely writes at the

end of his article, "There is one side in this (un)ambiguous novel of many

meanings that disturbs by its very dubiousness " : "the very vulgar Jewish

evil whose explicit name is assimilation." And he concludes with an

analogy comparing Zhivago 's conception of the meaninglessness of

Jewish existence after Jesus, and the radical Zionist anti-exilic conception

of meaninglessness of Jewish existence after "the loss of national

independence" two thousand years ago until the signing of the Israeli

Declaration of Independence in 1948. "But this analogy does not atone and

does not solace. What a distorted thing a Jewish soul is!"

Leo Koenig (1889–1970), a prominent art critic, and the leader of the

artistic group " Makhmadim" ( "The Precious Ones") established in 1912 in

the La Rouche residence in Paris, published in Davar (April 22, 1959) the

article "The Torments of Judaism" ("Khivley yahadut "), directed against

the assimilatory ideas of Pasternak and others. The Yiddish version of this

article has already been analyzed in Katsis' study.

One more detail,

Ibid.

Grodzensky, "Pasternak: ha-'politika,' ha - 'hulin' ve -ha- 'agada'," 5.

Ibid. 11.

Ibid.

This article by Leo Koenig was later printed in Yiddish in the Tel Aviv Yiddish

journal Heimish: Zhurnal fur literatur kritik un sotziale problemen 47 (April

1960): 4-6, under the title "Tzi hobn azoy getroft nor Dostoevsky, Pasternak,

Berenson, Simone Weil? (Epes vegn habli-Jahdus)" (Did only Dostoevsky,

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the Eyes of Israeli Writers

however, can be added: in Davar, the article is accompanied by a

reproduction of the painting of an Israeli painter, Chaim Gliksberg (1904-

1970), "The Aboab Synagogue in Safed." This painting, along with its

subject— the astoundingly beautiful interior of the ancient synagogue in

the Galilean capital of Kabbalah—reflects the main idea of Koenig's

article and his credo as one of the "Makhmadim, " and as the author of the

book Jews in Modern Art : If, as Dostoevsky's theorem quoted by Koenig

says, there is no Jew without faith, so Jewish art (and literature) is the

amalgamation of faith and craft, inspiration and ritual. Th us, the fate,

historical and spiritual path of a nation (the Jewish People, in this case) is

its subtly elaborated craftwork (izdelie , in Pasternak's words), which must

be carefully preserved and protected from vandalistic attempts at

destroying, appropriating or forging it, or at effacing its unique and actual

significance. In the back ground of this picture, Pasternak seems to be

included in the context of the "Jews in Modern Art." Moreover, this

echoes Margolin's words from his article mentioned at the beginning of

our work: "[Pasternak's] path from Soviet Moscow to the Galilee is also

'repatriation to Israel' of sorts, the only possibility for a Russian poet. […]

And it is no coincidence that from among all the poets who are now

writing in the Soviet Union about the true path to the Gospel, thatthe

religious overwhelming of the meaninglessness of life was found and felt

to be expressed by a Jew, a son of the People for which the Galilee is not

only the homeland of the spirit, but is literally the homeland of life, of

everyday routine existence and work."

We conclude this review with the article by Michael Ohad (1923-

1998), a prominent journalist of literature, art, and culture, and the author

of books about the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra and stage actor, Rafael

Klachkin. In Davar h e published a long and enthusiastic article on

Pasternak, following the death of the writer (June 10, 1960), concluding

with these words: "Was 'Zhivago' the political sensation of 1958 or the

'War and Peace' of the 20th century? Due to the stubbornness of the Italian

publisher, the manuscript has been saved. The poet has been buried. The

sensation has disappeared. Now we can read the novel anew."

A number of conclusions can be drawn from the material presented above.

The response of Israeli intellectuals to Zhivago was neither unanimous nor

unambiguous. A number of prominent figures participated in the

Pasternak, Berenson, Simone Weil Think this Way? (A Few Remarks about the

Torments of Judaism)). This Yiddish version has been presented by Leonid Katsis

("'Doctor Zhivago' vstrechaetsa s idishem," 280-281).

Margolin, "Byt' znamenitym – nekrasivo."

Ohad, " Ha- esev tzomeakh le'at."

Roman Katsman

discussion through the pages of Israeli intellectual journals and major

newspapers. All of the authors expressed their strong support of the

persecuted writer and condemnation of Soviet politics. Few of them were

skeptical about the artistic virtues of the novel and of Pasternak's po etry .

All of them welcomed Pasternak's philosophy of freedom and love;

however, those of them who chose to touch upon the Jewish theme in the

novel denounced the call to assimilation voiced by the book's characters .

Most of the authors knew several European languages, including Russian,

and thus were able to read Zhivago together with its poems the moment

they were printed. Some of them were dissatisfied with the Hebrew

translation and outraged that the poems were not included in the first

edition of this translation. Some of the Israeli critics of the novel d id not

view Zhivago as an anti-Soviet or anti-revolutionary novel, while others

analyzed the complex causes of Soviet resentment. In short, the criticism

was usually friendly, thoughtful or playful, though sometimes it was ironic

and quite severe. The "Jewish theme" in the response has two quite

obvious features: first, warm empathy towards Pasternak as a Jew and

victim (and sometimes as a Jewish victim), whatever his own relation to

his Jewishness and to Judaism might have been, and however

unacceptable his advice to Jews was; and second, the persistent intention

to hold to the smallest (if the bigger ones are not easily distinguishable)

element of Jewishness in Pasternak's life and oeuvre. Since these

features— empathy and minimalism — seem to be constitutive in the

Jewish-Russian criticism under discussion, in the next chapter we shall try

to elaborate their theoretical foundation.

2. Ze ' ir Anpin

И должен ни единой долькой

Не отступаться от лица,

Но быть живым, живым и только,

Живым и только до конца.

Boris Pasternak, "Byt' znamenitym nekrasivo,"

Kogda razguliaetsa

(When the Weather Clears)

The review presented above demonstrates that if Pasternak's "Jewish text"

exists, it does not consist of the pages of his works or biography, but is

"reestablished " in the works of critics and interpreters, that is to say — by

Ze'ir Anpin —a small face (Aramaic).

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the Eyes of Israeli Writers

the Jewish-Russian philological effort. In the next section, I shall present

some of the conclusions that summarize my reflections on multilingual

Jewish philology. Years ago, I began writing about the ethical-mythic-

chaotic conception of Jewish-Russian literature developed in the chapters

devoted to Babel, Luntz and Mandelstam in my Poetics of Becoming

(2005), and have now given them a new form in this article.

In multilingual Jewish literature studies, one can observe two main

types of scholars: maximalists and minimalists, who accordingly impose

the maximal and minimal possible number of conditions that define the

studied phenomenon. Maximalists (like Dov Sadan, Shimon Markish,

Zsuzsa Hetényi, Benjamin Harshav, Ruth Wisse, Alice Nakhimovsky,

Avner Holtzman) and minimalists (like Israel Tzinberg, Dan Miron,

Gershon Shaked, Efraim Sicher, Itamar Even-Zohar, Harriet Murav,

Leonid Katsis, Maxim Shrayer, Dennis Sobolev) do not always oppose

each other; the differences between them don't necessarily match their

relation to the lingual or national problems or other theoretical and

methodological assumptions. Notwithstanding the various differences

between them, all of the critics of Pasternak's Zhivago presented above

demonstrate a minimalist approach to the question of Jewish-Russian

literature, including those who did not even touch upon the Jewish theme.

However, the problem is not what multicultural Jewish literature is, but

why this question is the wrong question and why no answer to this

question is possible. Of course, the definition of Jewish literature becomes

a problem when it reaches the borderline of its Jewishness. However, the

question is whether the Jewishness of literature exists as an object of

research before the research? What is the research object of multilingual

Jewish philology, and what text does it seek to establish? It is impossible

to think of literature as a community or, even worse, as a catalogue. Even

systemic or ecological conceptions seem too abstract or relativistic. On the

other hand, the reduction of the methodological scope from the identity of

an author to the identity of a separate work

is not enough and does not

make the questions mentioned above redundant. The "reduction " that is

required here is the phenomenological transition from an essential to a

methodological point of view. Dan Miron points in the direction of

minimalistic, most inclusive, and non-essentialist thinking: " A Jewish

writer […] is a writer whose work evinces an interest in or is in whatever

way and to whatever extent conditioned by a sense of Judesein, being

Jewish, or is being read by readers who experience it as if it showed

interest and were conditioned by the writer's being Jewi S. That this gives

See: Hetényi, In a Maelstrom, 32-33; Murav, Music from a Speeding Train, 4.

Roman Katsman

rise to any number of literary hybrids, and excludes in advance any

essentialist notion of a Jewish literary 'purity,' is simply a fact of our

cultural life."

However, the term "conditioned " is vague and thus

problematic, as well as the term "hybrid " : Pasternak's work, for example,

is by no means a Jewish-Russian " hybrid." Moreover, the essentialist

approach should be excluded regarding not only "puritan " but any

definitions of multilingual literature. And finally, the argument that

"widely inclusive Jewish literary complex does exist […] because many

(albeit by no means all) Jewish writers and readers feel and behave as if it

did"

is not quite sufficient. W riters' origin, language, mentality,

consciousness, (self-) identification, themes, ideologies, and poetics are, in

and of themselves, facts that are established by their study;

thus, they

cannot be both the scientific foundations of the study and its disciplinary

determinants.

In their essay, Leonid Katsis and Elena Tolstoy make an attempt at a

methodological and institutional rethinking of the relationships between

Judaica (Slavica) Rossica and Rossica (Slavica) Judaica. They suggest that

a new discipline should be established which would allow for taking into

account both Slavic and Judaic elements, and to manage a dialogue

between scholars of both disciplines.

However, until the very

conception of categorizing literary studies according to languages is

theoretically and, most importantly, institutionally revisited, the divided

disciplines will remain isolated from one another. On the other hand,

ideally, the study of letters has to take into account all languages and

cultures that constitute and feed a literary work and provide its context,

even if their actual presence in a text is disproportionately small (smaller

even than the very minimalistic efficient and necessary criteria suggested

by Maxim Shrayer).

This type of multilingual approach is characteristic

of Classical studies and philosophy: one cannot research Bible without

Aramaic, Cicero without Greek, or Franz Rosenzweig without Hebrew.

For millennia, authors of ethnic and cultural minorities have written

"minor" literature in "major" languages, and philologists did not have to

wait for Gilles Deleuze's theory of the subversive and political "bark " of

Miron, From Continuity to Contiguity, 405.

Ibid., 404.

See the ways in which the implicit Jewish language (Yiddish) of Babel is

established (Sicher, Babel' in Context) or the implicit Jewish text, mentality and

themes are established (Katsis, Smena paradigm i smena paradigmy).

Katsis and Tolstoy, "Judaica Rossica – Rossica Judaica."

Shrayer, An Anthology of Jewish-Russian Literature, xiv.

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the Eyes of Israeli Writers

"minor literature" in order to study the letters.

Deleuze's discourse

consists of the hypertrophy of victim and vengeance, thus distorting the

reliable picture of the literary process (for example, works that cannot be

considered as politically loaded or linguistically subversive would be

excluded from the discussion). Thus, the discipline Katsis and Tolstoy are

talking about has always existed as General Philology, always sensitive to

every smallest textual or contextual detail in any relevant language, aiming

towards the (re)establishment of origin and text (and what remains is

simply to perceive text and origin metaphysically as configurations of

meanings). Katsis and Tolstaya are right in noting that generations of

Soviet education have erected a wall between Russian and Jewish studies,

but there are also institutional walls between languages in almost all parts

of the study of letters. Th us, the main problem is not the institutional or

political definition, but the theoretical one.

An attempt to define Jewish literature that is not written in Jewish

languages is likely doomed to failure. This is an inherent methodological

failure, and it has four causes. (1) Petitio principii : we try to define a

priori what should be the result of the research; even our choice of authors

and works is already motivated by our intuitions and stereotypes,

sensitivity and ideological preferences, memory, education and pragmatic

purposes. (2) We try to determine the borderlines of the phenomenon that

is located on the borderline, and therefore the classic mechanism of

definition fails: in every category, the phenomenon under discussion

belongs simultaneously to at least two subjects (for example, Jewish-

Russian literature is simultaneously Jewish literature and Russian

literature). From these two results, two other results ensue: (3) The

definition of " hybrid" literature is based upon the definition of at least two

"basic " cultures, which is not self-evident by itself and also suffers from

the petitio principii fault (for example, the definition of Russian culture is

a problem in itself). (4) If we deny the classical mechanism of definition

and define a phenomenon only by means of its actual borderlines, we

arrive at a tautology: the borderline phenomenon is a phenomenon that is

found on the borderline. Moreover, in this case, the borderline phenomena

are those which define the basic "territories, " and not vice versa; but the

borderline phenomena are those which are supposed to be an object of

research and definition; they are an unknown quantity in the equation. In

this case, even the concepts of relationship, of ecological or systemic

synergy or interdependence cannot solve the problem; since, at any

moment, the sides of the relationships or interdependences themselves are

Deleuze, Kafka, 16-27.

Roman Katsman

not defined. Thus, instead of viewing Jewish-Russian literature as a

phenomenon of reality, we should rather perceive it as a method and

talk about Jewish-Russian research. This is not only a semantic switch,

and moreover—not only a methodological one, but a transition from

positivism to transcendental criticism, in which the object of research is

defined by the research.

Jewish language and text—these two concepts should be

comprehended anew before any discussion of hybrid configurations of

Jewish literature: they are the transcendental (re)constructions of a

philologist (in the broadest sense of the word as a researcher of letters).

According to Eric Gans' Generative Anthropology, for establishing

language and culture, as well as for their inquiry, a minimal "originary "

hypothesis is needed.

Multilingual Jewish philology establishes a

"Jewish text " on the basis of a minimal transcendental hypothesis

about its Jewish origin. In Gans' terms, the purpose of this philology is to

reconstruct the cultural originary scene, in which the "abortive gesture of

appropriation" towards the meaningful ( " sacred" ) center turns, in the eyes

of all the participants, into a sign of this center's Jewishness. In other

words, if a researcher succeeds in demonstrating at least that a given

eloquence results from deferral of the desire toward an infinitesimal

Jewish element, then this eloquence can be defined as a part of the

reconstructed Jewish text, i.e. as an object of multilingual Jewish research.

This hypothetical imaginary scene becomes open to understanding and

interpretation, to sharing with others, i.e. becomes part of the scientific

discourse.

This sort of conception provides Jewish-Russian literary research with

a broad anthropological foundation, thus enabling the avoidance of its

methodological pitfalls mentioned above. Originary thinking allows for,

on the one hand, understanding the origination of a sign in the general

context of struggles for cultural appropriations (national and lingual), and

on the other hand, to establish the text of these struggles' representation as

a locus of meaning creation, by means of deferring the conflict. The

minimal " Jewish sign" is understandable by all participants, because its

origination has become possible only thanks to their temporal deferring of

the appetitive desire towards the center of signification. This minimal sign

causes love and resentment (for being permanently desirable but

untouchable, but in any case—ineffaceable), thus provoking conflict anew

time and again.

Gans, A New Way of Thinking, ix-xv.

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the Eyes of Israeli Writers

From the generative point of view, the national factor, the biological

origin of a writer is viewed as one of the contingent transcendental

hypotheses of the minimal Jewish origin: beyond any empirical

experience, any personal memory and any communal imagination, the

infinitesimal sign of belonging to the Jewish People can create a powerful

originary scene (as happened in the exemplary though controversial case

of Afanasy Fet).

The same goes for cultural linkage: the smallest

originary link to a Jewish element can make a text Jewish. This reminds us

of what Mandelstam, and after him Katsis, referred to as "the musk of

Jewishness" : its spirit is so strong that the smallest grain is enough to

permeate everything. However, this analogy is not quite accurate, as well

as the metaphor "around the point" : a minimal origin is a reader's

hypothesis; it is contingent and does not necessarily extend to the bigger

spaces of the text; it does not require all cultural spheres to revolve around

it; it does not impart on an author or work bicultural or binational dualism;

indeed, it is enough for it to be a foundation of reading, understanding, and

investigation.

This model successfully describes, in particular, the role of Jewishness

attributed to Boris Pasternak and his novel by the Israeli intellectuals

presented in this article. Their search for a "Jewish point" and its

interpretation in Pasternak is nothing but the transcendental hypothesizing

of the minimal Jewish origin. Neither the life of Pasternak nor the world of

Doctor Zhivago revolves around the Jewish point; the Jewish grain of

musk does not fill them with its spirit. However, the defining of a few

words about Jews from the novel or from the letters of its author as the

minimal origin of reading - causing both love and resentment - can

justifiably turn those words, along with their contexts, into an object of

Jewish-Russian philology.

Works Cited

Pasternak, Boris. Doctor Zhivago. Trans. Max Hayward and Manya

Harari. New York: Pantheon, 1958.

—. Sobraniye sochineniy v piati tomakh (Collected Works in Five

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A.Z. "Boris Pasternak." Davar (October 31, 1958): 7.

Shrayer, An Anthology of Jewish-Russian Literature, 20-25.

Roman Katsman

Alterman, Nathan. "Sikhato shel A.S. Pushkin" (The Talk of A.S.

Pushkin) (November 7, 1958). Ha -tur ha-shvi' i (The Seventh

Column). Vol. 6. Tel-Aviv: Ha-kibbutz ha-meukhad, 2005: 86-88.

Ben-'Azay, A. " Ha-martirologiya shel B. Pasternak" (The Martyrology of

B. Pasternak). La-merkhav (October 31, 1958): 2.

Ben-Yishai, Aharon Zeev. "The Pasternaks. According to the Moscow

Notebook from 1918." Davar (November 28, 1958): 5-6.

Bernstein, Peretz. "Dr. Zhivago" (November 7, 1958; July 3, 1960). Sefer

Peretz Bernstein: Mivkhar maamarim u-masot (The Peretz Bernstein

Book: Selected Articles and Essays). Tel-Aviv: Va'ad yedidim, 1962:

253- 257.

Crust, Yosef. "Boris Pasternak – 'oyev ha -'am'" (Boris Pasternak – An

'Enemy of the People'). Heruth (November 7, 1958): 4.

Gai, A. "Pasternak ve-… sofrei Israel" (Pasternak and… Israeli Writers).

Herut (November 18, 1958): 2.

Gepstein, Shlomo. "Melekh le-layla ekhad" (King for One Night). Heruth

(November 14, 1958): 3-4.

Gilboa, Joshua A. "Asir toda, nirgash, ge'e…" (Grateful, Excited,

Proud…). Maariv (November 7, 1958): 3.

—. "Khalom ha-kherut she-nagoz " (A Dream of Freedom that Evaporated).

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Goldberg, Lea. Yomanei Lea Goldberg (Diaries of Lea Goldberg). Bnei

Brak: Sifriat Poalim, 2005.

Grodzensky, Shlomo. "Pasternak: ha-'politika,' ha - 'hulin' ve -ha- 'agada'"

(Pasternak: The "Politics, " "Secularity, " and "Fairytale " ). Davar

(January 23, 1959): 5, 11.

—. "Pasternak: min ha-'etudim' ad le - 'tmuna ha - gdola'" (Pasternak: From

'Etudes' to the 'Big Picture'). Davar (January 9, 1959): 5, 7.

Halpern, Yekhiel. "Boris Pasternak." Davar (December 19, 1958): 2.

Hayward, Max. "Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago." Molad 16:119 (June 1958):

293- 301.

Kadmai, K. "The Revealed and Concealed in the Pasternak Affair." Molad

16:123 (October 1958): 555-565.

Koenig, Leo. "Khivley yahadut" (The Torments of Judaism). Davar (April

22, 1959): 6, 9.

Lapid, Yosef (Tommy). " Tragediia shel adam ve-sifrut. Sofrei Israel al

parashat Pasternak" (The Tragedy of Man and Literature. Israeli

Writers about the Pasternak Affair). Maariv (November 7, 1958): 13.

Margolin, Julius. "Byt' znamenitym – nekrasivo" (It Is Graceless to Be

Famous). Novoe russkoe slovo (December 7, 1958).

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Ohad, Michael. " Ha - esev tzomeakh le'at" (The Weed Grows Slowly).

Davar (June 10, 1960): 31.

—. " Zhivago be-ivrit " (Zhivago in Hebrew). Davar (November 21, 1958):

27.

Pinnes, Dan. "Boris Pasternak – metziut ve-semel" ("Boris Pasternak –

Reality and Symbol"). Omer (October 31, 1958): 3.

Rapp, Uri. "'The Inner Emigrant': Thoughts on Dr. Zhivago and the Irony

of History." Haaretz (November 11, 1958) and (December 5, 1958):

12.

Reuveni, Aharon. "Makhol Pasternak" (The Pasternak Dance) (1959).

'Iyun ve-bikoret (Research and Criticism). Jerusalem and Tel Aviv:

Newman Publishing, 1967: 7-30.

Shamir, Moshe. "Boris Leonidovich" (1958). Be -kulmus mahir (By a

Quick Quill). Merkhaviya: Sifriyat Poalim, Ktavim, 1960: 46-50.

S. Shalom. "Pasternak's Advice (An Open Letter of Sorts)." Davar

(December 19, 1958): 5.

Yaffe, Avraham B. "Boris Pasternak: Neeman ve-kofer" (The Devout and

Heretic). Sifrut ve-omanut (Literature and Art). Tel-Aviv: Le-dori,

1965: 107-117.

Zmura, Israel. "Doctor Zhivago." Moznayim 8:2 (1959): 105-110.

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Bialik, Hayim Nahman. "A.L. Pasternak" (1922). Kol kitvey H.N. Bialik

(The Complete Works by H.N. Bialik). Tel-Aviv: Dvir, 1959: 272-278.

—. "Ha-omanut ha-tehora " [The Pure Art] (1919). Kol kitvey H.N. Bialik

(The Complete Works by H.N. Bialik). Tel-Aviv: Dvir, 1959: 270-271.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Pierre Félix Guattari. Kafka: Toward a Minor

Literature. Trans. Dana Polan. Minneapolis: The University of

Minnesota Press, 1986.

Epstein, Mikhail. " Khasid i Talmudist: Sravnitelny opyt o Pasternake i

Mandelstame" (Hassid and Talmudist: An Attempt at Comparison

between Pasternak and Mandelstam). Zvezda 4 (2004).

http://magazines.russ.ru/zvezda/2000/4/epsht.html

Fleishman, Lazar. Vstrecha russkoy emigratzii s 'Doktorom Zhivago':

Boris Pasternak i 'kholodnaya voyna'" (The Encounter of the Russian

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Gans, Eric. A New Way of Thinking: Generative Anthropology in Religion,

Philosophy, Art. Aurora: The Davies Group, 2011.

Roman Katsman

Gogol, Nikolai. "A Terrible Vengeance." The Complete Tales of Nikolai

Gogol. Vol. 1. Trans. Constance Garnett. Chicago: The University of

Chicago Press, 1985: 135-172.

"Ha-khoveret shel mediniyut Russiya neged Israel sholelet zkhut hagdara

'atzmit mi-'am reaktziyoni. Ha-motza – hitbolelut " (The Booklet of

Russian Politics against Israel Denies the 'Reactionary People' the

Right of Self-Definition. The Solution Is Assimilation). Haaretz

(November 17, 1958): 2.

Hetényi, Zsuzsa. In a Maelstrom: The History of Russian-Jewish Prose

(1860-1940). Budapest and New York: Central European University

Press, 2008.

Ivanov, Konstantin, and Zinovy Sheynis. Gosudarstvo Izrail – ego

polozhenie i politika (State of Israel – Its Condition and Politics).

Moscow: Izdatelstvo politicheskoy literatury, 1958.

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romana B. Pasternaka v evreyskoy pechati" (Doctor Zhivago Meets

YiddiS. The Response to the Novel by B. Pasternak in Yiddish

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literature (Avoti: Studies in the Baltic-Russian Relations and Russian

Literature). Part 1. Stanford: Stanford Slavic Studies (vol. 42), 2012:

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—. Smena paradigm i smena paradigmy. Ocherki russkoy literatury,

iskusstva i nauki XX veka. Moscow: RGGU, 2012.

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Cornelia Ichin, Elena Tolstoy, Zeev Bar-Sela, eds. Judaica Rossica –

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Influences on Hebrew Literature in 1870-1970). Moscow: IMLI RAN,

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Mazeh, Yakov. " Le-zekher Hermann Cohen" (In the Memory of Hermann

Cohen). Ha-tkufa 2 (1918): 401-405.

Miron, Dan. Arba panim ba-sifrut ha-'ivrit bat -yameynu (Four Facets of

Recent Hebrew Literature). Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv: Schocken, 1962.

—. From Continuity to Contiguity: Toward a New Jewish Literary

Thinking. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010.

Murav, Harriet. Music from a Speeding Train: Jewish Literature in Post-

Revolution Russia. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 2011.

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Pasternak, Evgeny, and Elena Pasternak, Zhizn Borisa Pasternaka (The

Life of Boris Pasternak). St. Petersburg: Zvezda, 2004.

Perepiska Borisa Pasternaka (The Correspondence of Boris Pasternak). Ed.

by E.V. Pasternak and E.B. Pasternak. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya

literature, 1990.

Sadan-Loebenstein, Nili. Aharon Reuveni . Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim, 1994.

Schwartz, Yigal. Likhyot kedey likhyot. Aharon Reuveni -- Monografia

(Vivre Pour Vivre. Aaron Reuveni – A Monograph). Jerusalem:

Yitzhak Ben-Tzvi and Magnes Press, 1993.

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Centuries of Dual Identity in Prose and Poetry. Vol. 1: 1801-1953.

Armonk, London: M.E. Sharpe, 2007.

Sicher, Efraim. Babel, in Context. A Study in Cultural Identity . Boston:

Academic Studies Press, 2012.

Shalom, S. Mikhtavim (Letters). Tel-Aviv: 'Eked, 1993.

Valdman, Batia. "Peterburg (Leningrad) v zhizni i poezii Yocheved Bat-

Miriam (Zhelezniak)" (Petersburg (Leningrad) in the Life and Poetry

of Yocheved Bat-Miriam (Zhelezniak)). In press.

Zach, Nathan. "Hirhurim 'al shirat Alterman" (Thoughts on Alterman's

Poetry). Akhshaw 3-4 (1959): 109-122.

... 34 Shrayer-Petrov also socialized with foreign diplomats; participated in the screenings of films in the British 28 Ibid., 103. See also Vodka s pirozhnymi,[64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][167][168][169][170][171][172][173][174][175][176]249. 30 Ibid.,259,268. ...

• Roman Katsman

Some critics note that there are no more lacunae on the map of late Soviet unofficial or nonconformist literature. In this extensively developed field of study, however, too little attention has been devoted to the work of the Leningrad and Moscow—and since 1987 American—poet, prose writer, and translator David Shrayer-Petrov. This has partly to do with the fact that nonconformist literature has long since developed its own unofficial but fully hegemonic canon. On the other hand, this is related to the question of how the national, particularly the Jewish, component should be related to the discourse on Soviet nonconformism. The theoretical interpretation of the latter is far from completed, nor is the interpretation of the cultural-anthropological motifs at the foundation of nonconformist literature. This essay focuses on the writings of David Shrayer-Petrov, mostly those created while he was a refusenik. I will attempt to show that the arena of the conflict lying at the root of the nonconformist imagination, represented symbolically and aimed at mobilizing a Jewish identity, can be described in terms of the generative anthropology of Eric Gans as the scene of blocking the gesture of appropriation directed at the victim. Jewish nonconformism thereby assimilates and overcomes the victimary state of mind characteristic of the post-Holocaust period and possibly of modern times in general.

• Roman Katsman
• Vladimir Khazan

http://litfact.ru/ru/nomera-zhurnala/104-2020-15 The published materials are the correspondence of Maxim Gorky and Abraham Leibovich Vysotsky, which had been awaiting publication for many years. Publishers raise the question of A.L. Vysotsky's place in Jewish literature in Russian and in Russian literature. It is noted that Vysotsky's works, appreciated by M. Gorky, who published a number of them in the journals "Letopis'" and "Beseda", were not included in the canon of both Russian literature as well as its Russian-Jewish branch, and Israeli literature in Russian . The writer's biography, genesis and poetics of his works have so far remained beyond the attention of researchers, and one of the objectives of this publication is to try to fill this gap. In the introductory article, relying on archival materials, Vysotsky's biography is reconstructed, a number of important facts are clarified, including his date of birth, information about his education, literary activity and connection with the Zionist movement is presented, the most significant periods of his life in Russia and Eretz Israel, where he repatriated in 1920, are described, and information on translations of his works into other languages and experiments on their staging is reported. Particular attention of the publishers is focused on the history of interaction between Vysotsky and Gorky who never met personally. This interaction developed exclusively in correspondence, which initially concerned Vysotsky's attempts to offer his short stories to Gorky for publication in his journals. Letters are published according to autographs from the Gorky Archive (Institute of World Literature). The publication is supplemented by two appendixes containing Vysotsky's essay "Maxim Gorky and Zionism" and his drama "Blood of the Maccabees".

• Roman Katsman

The article proposes a model for analyzing the utterances of Jewish nonconformism in the late-Soviet Russian literature, based on Michel Foucault's theory of fearless speech and Eric Gans' theory of the origins of culture. The utterances of nonconformism transform an asymmetrical conflict into symmetrical nonvictimary relations, in which a new, supposedly real identity of a figure is revealed and mobilized for protest. These new relations are based on mutual recodification of different discursive configurations – political, moral, social, aesthetical, metaphysical, or mystical. The discussion will focus on the selected novels of Fridrikh Gorenshtein, Felix Roziner, and, in greater detail, David Shrayer-Petrov.

Khivley yahadut " (The Torments of Judaism) Davar

• Leo Koenig

Koenig, Leo. " Khivley yahadut " (The Torments of Judaism). Davar (April 22, 1959): 6, 9.

Boris Pasternak – metziut ve-semel " ( " Boris Pasternak – Reality and Symbol " ) Omer

• Dan Pinnes

Pinnes, Dan. " Boris Pasternak – metziut ve-semel " ( " Boris Pasternak – Reality and Symbol " ). Omer (October 31, 1958): 3.

Arba panim ba-sifrut ha-'ivrit bat-yameynu (Four Facets of Recent Hebrew Literature)

• Dan Miron

Miron, Dan. Arba panim ba-sifrut ha-'ivrit bat-yameynu (Four Facets of Recent Hebrew Literature). Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv: Schocken, 1962. -. From Continuity to Contiguity: Toward a New Jewish Literary Thinking. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010.

• Nikolai Gogol

Gogol, Nikolai. "A Terrible Vengeance." The Complete Tales of Nikolai Gogol. Vol. 1. Trans. Constance Garnett. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1985: 135-172.

Gosudarstvo Izrail -ego polozhenie i politika (State of Israel -Its Condition and Politics)

• Konstantin Ivanov
• Zinovy Sheynis

Ivanov, Konstantin, and Zinovy Sheynis. Gosudarstvo Izrail -ego polozhenie i politika (State of Israel -Its Condition and Politics). Moscow: Izdatelstvo politicheskoy literatury, 1958.

Russkie vliyaniya na ivritskuyu literaturu (Russian Influences on Hebrew Literature in 1870-1970) Moscow: IMLI RAN

• Rina Lapidus

Lapidus, Rina. Russkie vliyaniya na ivritskuyu literaturu (Russian Influences on Hebrew Literature in 1870-1970). Moscow: IMLI RAN, 2004.

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311844673_Boris_Pasternak%27s_Doctor_Zhivago_in_the_Eyes_of_the_Israeli_Writers_and_Intellectuals_A_Minimal_Foundation_of_Multilingual_Jewish_Philology

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