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Welcome to the new books network. Hello, welcome to the new books and Jewish Studies podcast. I am your host, Ari Barbellat. Today, I am humbled to be in dialogue with Dr.
Hanan Hever. He is the Jacob and Hilda Blousstein Professor of Heber Language and Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Yale University. Today, we will be discussing his recently published book, Hebrew Literature and the 1948 War. Essays on Phylology and Responsibility.
Published in Leiden, Netherlands, my Grille, 2019. Dr. Hever is the Jacob and Hilda Blousstein Professor of Heber Language and Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Yale University, Hanan. It's an honor to be in your presence.
My honor. To begin, please tell us about yourself. Where did you grow up? What formative events inspired the scholar you would later become?
In front of specify to the collection we became my biography in this book. I was born in Israel to a family, basically, survivor of the Holocaust, the Russian Gulags. We were raised on the idea that the 1948 War was justified and necessary. Israel is a reason why the Israeli common definition of the war, what the War of Independence or the War of Liberation.
The idea was that after 2000 years, we succeeded to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. A lot of information was provided to us as a school in the U.S. movement about terrorism, about the very high price, the Jewish state paid many so many dead soldiers. It was like a miracle.
This way it was represented. I was in the powerful office in school in U.S. movement. I was a member of the white elitist, the U.S.
movement and the Mahalo-Paulian. I was influenced very much. The movement and later I served the Israeli army for World of Three Years and something crucial happened. The young people were, the young people were not only from me, I'm talking about the majority.
We were in our, basically, 19 years old. It was a shark and basically the message we received is that the idea that Israel is a strong country, is the best army of the world. I'm sure it would be surprised that the image that the analogy of the Holocaust came up because I'm sure about it. We were ready to sacrifice our life as dozens of soldiers in my battalion killed in the war.
Our country, it was under real threat. It's existed. It's a state. The real crisis in our being and my generation.
For us, politically, this is very important to explain. I myself, immediately after 6-7 war, was involved in political activism with Rome for the occupied territories. We don't have to rule another nation, meaning the Palestinians, but to press them. We should get out of the occupied territories, set up, and even before the war, before the war, I published in the general of the Communist Party in Israel, an article in which I criticized Golden Hill, our Prime Minister, and then, I mean, for the majority, she destroyed our life.
I'm a little bit proud that I wrote against her before the war, but culturally and emotionally, this is not the main issue. The main issue was the trauma, the post-trauma, that basically I, I think many people in the majority, we carry until today, just an example of the situation. The protests in Israel, against the government, now against the billionaire, we're losing, we're losing, we're losing, the hostage week, our generation was defined ourselves as a specific power of protest. It is a group.
One of them is by commander, and the other one is also by commander, and then it became a general, later, it became a general, but my commander, the Red Commandant in the war, they say, we carry with us, the post-rauma, so the cemetery, not again, we should go to peace, we should be, keep our commitment to reality, to normal, to normal behavioral state of the regime, and we cannot accept it, because, because, and this is very important thing for me, one of the reasons I wrote this, this is my perspective for the cemetery, and it's like telling my guys back and say, and then the trauma you went through is a soldier in the cemetery, where it came from, and then later on I started to realize that the threat, the conflict, and the violence and bloodshed of the 75th world, it came from somewhere, and we are involved in the war, no history, no philosophy, but after the war, after the shock, the shock, and I started to ask myself a question about the demonic narrative, the justice, the existence of the state of Israel, and what happened is, because I was so critical on the Israeli government, Israeli, how they, you know, it was a surprise and a shock, that one of the reasons why so many soldiers, in my generation, they lost their lives, because Israel was not ready for the war, and I started to feel what, and then I returned to 48, and 48, the idea was, let us unpack the image, the myth of 48, that's what really happened, and more than this, the war of 73, I would say, built me or make my Jewish identity stronger, and we say Jewish identity is very important to make the distinction between Jewish identity and Israel, until the war, I, in my generation, approximately, if you ask them, what is the first priority, Jewish or Israeli? Of course we say Israeli, who cares about Jews, we even more than this, if you are humanly, say the Palestinian in Israel, which was like 20%, the population, I feel closer to them, then the Jews in the US or Russia, it was changed, in your people war, I, myself became more Jewish than Israel, and to be Jewish, I don't need to explain so clearly, first of all, you ask yourself, how did Jews in history react to the violence, the conductive against them, and for me, it's now I, them, I'm not sure about that, but we, in whatever it is the Jewish question, and I want to say something about it, which is, I think, available, unlike most of the people, I mean Jewish people, in the left, I think in the left, they see the Jewish question is a legal issue, emancipation, and the Jews are a man, they have the country, so you know, everything is fine, and now see what happens with the Jewish people, they become the cruel, the persecuting, the boosting, so shame on the Jewish people, I agree, but, but there's a huge problem, which can help me to explain why I wrote this, for me, Jewish question is more than legal issue, is the existential identity of Jews in history, and first of all, we are in a legal field, in a legal field, the ruling meanality, we should understood it so big, and a liminal, as a liminal figure, we should, we should be aware to, or to be, to the pressure of morality, we are never ever integrated in a collective, collective identities of the dentures. So if you take arm, this is the rabbi's late 80th century in the study and Mendelmo's falling of the study, weapons in the hands of Jews, the liminal Jew is very, very dangerous. And because never, never does the control of a state of sovereignty that will control the way you are using the weapon.
So because of your liminality. So what I'm saying that this came up very vividly after young people were, I defend my country, but it's a Jewish. And if you defend your country, it's a Jewish, you should be so careful about using weapons and productive violence because the control of your violence is not so clear. It's not so stable.
Not because people are bad people. We are limited. We have identities. So this concept, this understanding, through me back with the history of the Jewish people.
And the moment when Zionism came up with the idea to solve the Jewish question, solving it meaning normalization, meaning, raise or remove, raise the liminality of the Jewish identity. I think it failed. It was failed. And then, I remember I started on the same, we defended our country, but we are not sure.
We're not sure. Who is the real sovereign? And this is what happened in young people. The sovereign failed.
What happened recently, October 7th. So you don't have back. And whether we have back, you could do many things, many things. And also your leaders can do many things which are not according to basic rules of man.
So I will turn back to 48. And in 48, now it's very clear, the establishment, the establishing of the state of Israel, as normal democracy, normal democracy, was a product of expulsion of 750, 50 Palestinians from the, maybe the Green Land, or idea of normalization, how you normalize Jewish sovereignty, democracy, universalism. But you still keep the definition of the state of Israel, a Jewish democracy. It's not Jewish democracy.
It's a sub-slimeral. Jewish is an issue of religion, of ethnicity. Democracy is the very opposite. It's a universalistic citizenship.
And this, I started with experience very intensive this contradiction. And I returned to 48 war. Then I made sure that I continue to use not only 48 war or the veterans. I use it.
But also then Palestinian, the destroyed the life of the Palestinian within the border of the government. And then I started to ask myself, what does it mean for me, a silly touch of press? How might it be from this infantic of normalization, of, you know, normalization, which is based on contradiction, Jewish democracy, which kind of literature we wrote about. And what I found is denial, self- contradiction, and empathy.
And if you map it, you want to map this three, basically three options. You see different decisions or choosing different politics, different more rhetorics. And I tried, one, the chapter of my book, to map it. Who did what empathy, denial, even celebrating the cruelty of the Israeli army, massacre, support, etc.
It became very important for me as a little scholar to understand, to see what happened when the Zionism came up with the solution of the Jewish question by establishing a democracy in Israel. And my conclusion is, the general conclusion that it was based following the Walter Benjamin, who said that every document of culture is based on barbarism. And establishing Jewish democracy or democracy was established on barbarism. Expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Jews of, you know, for example, the Hamidawish, the writer, the National Poetry, and he said, of course, you know, I know exactly what happened.
You know, the Holocaust, the Jewish people, I cannot ignore my, my, my, my heart is, I was all by heart, I have empathy. It's catastrophe. The only question is why we, the Palestinian should pay the price. Europe should pay the price on her, on her, its responsibility for the Holocaust, not us, the Palestinian, and I think it's right.
This is a reason why it repeats. I don't see any nation or the world is so generous, of course, there is there is, but basically, after so many years, they said, you know, be our guest, let us stay together with the same land, but you know, don't go too far. This is what happens now. It never, it never, it never has to leave to continue our normal life and your expere, expere, we are expelled and we suffer right now, if you just can.
So this is a denial, but on the very opposite side, I should bring, for me, it's the greatest, most important response, there's two different, one of them, I call it fascist and racist response. I'm talking about U.S. government, maybe the most important point, more in Hebrew modernism. I think it is the greatest one.
It is racist, it's fascist. It is a response to the Holocaust, it is, was, and you couldn't believe when you read this poetry. Basically, internalized the Nazis perspective with a video, this is the way how he represented the Gentiles, from an idea to say, from Nazi point to view, racism, fascism, and basically ignoring the fact that there are still U.B. Not only Nazi, you know, German, German, the opposite, I can name my, I think a great poet who was a good friend of mine, was a survivor of the Holocaust.
I mean, Dan Paggis, Dan Paggis, you know, very famous, he's a poet really Holocaust, but despite the way, you know, I remember how much he keeps insisting, Hana, don't call me, the Holocaust, please, please, don't do that. And his agenda was, you know, what happened to my people, I myself survived himself. It's under his survivors, beyond any imagination what happened to him. But then there's still U.B.
And we should, and we should continue, despite what happened to represent the Nazis as human beings. And it's very important because it's an issue of a possibility. If your enemy, if your mother, mother, mother, is not a human being, there's no case to ask him for taking responsibility. He's an enemy, you don't ask any to take responsibility.
This was Spanish, and this was also in between, I can mention a couple of them, the most important was a vote issue. He wrote about the Holocaust and he wrote about the Nakba in the same poem, not a poem of the Nakba and a poem of the Holocaust. He did it because it's for him, first of all, he was Jewish before he defined, he defined the Renaissance, he's great. And we, and Jewish people, he used the word Yandas in Ydish.
We see we have empathy, very particular risk. I can, I can look, I can see the misery of the Palestinian, and I don't need to compare it to the Holocaust. And vice-versa-versa, why, why, why? This day suffer and they suffer.
You don't compare two kinds of evil from the point of view of the victim. It doesn't matter. And if you do that, it's denial of the Holocaust, a denial of the Nakba. Think about analogies.
If you look straight ahead on one side and then you say, okay, it's also easy to accept it. It's also easy to analyze. The analogy gives you the easiest way to approach it because you look at the doctor, I say, but I feel very bad about you jump to the other side, to the analogy of the analogy. And vice-versa-versa, this is the reason why Muhammad al-Wish said what he said.
There are two ivers. It's issue of price. It's not issue of empathy. Price is not the elitistic issue.
We can solve it this way. This is our issue. Ultra, ultra-particle reason, Jewish part of liminality. We are not integral part of anything.
We are Jewish. And this is where the Yandas. I see what happened to the Palestinian, and I do not stop crying. What happened to them in 48.
But on the same token, and without any analogy or comparison, this is much better. I look straight ahead to the heart. This is the reason why in many cases he speaks about, he writes about the Palestinian lack of a fight referring to specific materialistic aspect. And when he speaks about, wrote about, writes about the Holocaust, and there's a very famous woman when he is arriving in Palestine, by a boat, a ship, and then the boat.
There was a Palestinian woman, Patma, before the volcano. And she gave him perfect of the rain and he says, she's like my mother. She's my mother, and she's my mother. She makes something good, and my mother took care of.
I don't compare her. This is great, and this is great. And then this is bad, and this is bad. But I don't represent the suffrage of the Palestinian by using a metaphor, using a metaphor, the Holocaust.
And this is the reason why, you know, I'm sure you know, the famous book, The Yellow Wind, the Grossman, the Grossman. When it was published, I attacked the Alex Yostrepam. Since then, we're not, we're like friends and non-specced in turn for decades. And I said, I wrote, you opened the book, and the first page, second page, you tell us about a Palestinian in a refugee camp, very famous Disha refugee, of course, she was expelled in Israel, and he said, you know, I look at her, and she reminds me, my grandmother, she reminds me, reminding, reminding memory.
How are you there to do that? Can you make a symmetrical representation? It's an asymmetrical situation. And when you show up, you know that she reminds me, this is my mother, this is my mother, no comparison.
She gave me a week to drink, and my mother is to do, but no comparison. And he said, I, the Israeli, I come, I'm coming, I entered the refugee camp, I see a Palestinian, a victim, a survivor, and said, she is my, she reminds me, my grandmother. What questions are raised in this study about responsibility? Very complicated question.
I cannot, I'm not sure I can answer these questions by generalizing. You should ask questions, you don't ask a question. And I like it, because it is a question, because issue of solidarity and issue being responsible, what happened in 48, well, interesting, it's very complicated because it is based on contradiction, is something that we learned from the data. One hand, it's a suffercoo-versa, you killed some of Jewish responsibility.
On the other hand, there was a specific moment, and it is not clear what happened. The binaryism is not so clear. And you know, it's similar to Isaac and Abrahamian, Isaac, and God, actually, no, promised Abraham. You'll see it will be all of the world.
I take care of it. The dissent will be, you know, so many. But the other hand, God tells him you should kill, murder, your son. So how come it's a contradiction?
And this is supposed to be always a contradiction. And I think that every case should be analyzed, specifically. In many cases, it's not so difficult. But if you say, okay, it's very clear, or we have a solution going to be, it's a shame, it's a thing.
Okay, but by this, you raise the responsibility, you raise the fact that the subject, basically did it or conducted it, the right activity, we should stay with him. We cannot say, okay, he did it. Now let us speak, reducing the responsibility. If we reduce it, reduce it to very specific and confined identity, as well as respect.
I ask, the responsibility is a response, the ability to respond, and it will respond, someone, subject respond. So by definition, there's a tense, there's a contradiction, because you cannot do it, you cannot define it with him without contradiction. And you cannot define it without him, because no one could take responsibility. So this is a great question.
And I think, and again, I've also covered an abacomene, which I wrote about it. Comne, he actually wrote, as I said before, it's a Jew. But the only way he could take us with any democracy is by reducing his identity, to a point, very clippant of particularity. So if his attitude is a very particularistic attitude, he doesn't represent a Jew script when he expresses his empathy.
He he, privatey, humters. At this moment, he said, this is my responsibility. I can take it, but the price is not talking or reducing as far as I can. The fact that I'm speaking, I'm doing something, I respond on behalf of my nation, on behalf of my people.
This way, because say what happened, being an express your empathy to the destiny of the Palestinian and my point of view. This could be, I could take a society in my point, is an act of responsibility because I'm talking about it, I'm writing this as a particular reason. I'm Jewish, it's not religion, ethnicity, nationality, your name. But behind all this, this is why deep and strong identity is Jewish.
And if you are, this is your identity is Jewish, there's no contradiction because this is, the universalism is reduced to something very particularistic. As I said before, no comparison. I do not compare it. I take responsibility, something very specific to it.
I did as part of the nation, but I take it, I participate personally and particularly, from a extremely practical, but again, it's a problem. One, that's a give you one more example of denial or escape it, of refraining, for taking Christmas to me. There's a very famous point by who was perceived as an essential poet, not an outcome, I'm writing about it in my book. Also, and it tells a story about the J.F.
who murdered Palestinian lackless and without any reason, reasonable reason of security, what they're thinking about against him, a very, very harsh point. And what happened, the big boy on the Prime Minister commanding the despot would be duplicate or molded to be scared to make thousands of thousands of copies and would be disseminated to the soldier. And there comes the problem, the issue of social stability. The good in the service, the Prime Minister said, this is our responsibility.
We did it. And thank you so much, Alteman. You, on behalf of us, took us to this event of this. Okay.
If you read it carefully, this boy includes a denial. Why? Because it doesn't say this is our people, responsibility for our people. It doesn't matter.
Small group or big group or even one soldier. This is the people responsibility, the Israeli, the Israeli of the Israelis. Now, he said, it's exceptional. It's something which is so different from our regular behavior, humanistic behavior, as a soldier.
And by this he wiped out so many cases that we know for sure he, he knew for sure. He knew everything he knew was very close to the army, Alteman, very close to this, I said quite sophisticated in asking about responsibility. This is one of them. The most common strategy to take responsibility, but the same token, escaping or refraining for taking responsibility.
And you elaborate on the work of female Israeli and Hebrew writers who commented on the NACPA? Yes, it's quite complicated issue because as we know, the metaphor, we're women or mother, all of the world, every nation is presented as the source of the nation, the base. So you can find a couple of options. They are collected with the fact that they write at the point.
It's a woman, the female. But generally speaking, I don't see their specific or exceptional representation. It's very different from the official woman or part of a woman that writes about the dead soldiers. Israeli, they're so ready.
Who did you write this book for? Who did you have in mind? Is your ideal reader or readers? Who do you have in mind as your imagined audience or audiences?
No, I asked this question right now. It became very difficult. Before October 7, the situation was quite clear. The Israeli culture and politics, they deny, deny the NACPA for the king.
We don't do that. There's no amount, the exposure, the acceleration, but how many people seen where it's spelled? No massacre, of course. This book is cited in my field, literature, what the historians who did it in their field, Elon Papen, many books, very important stories.
They did a great job. They checked archives. They and they portrayed the very clear picture that the NACPA book plays. And hundreds of Palestinian villages were destroyed.
Families were destroyed. But these very discolks kept and kept, kept denying. Every single change in October 7, there's no denying the control, celebration, the revenge, celebration of how many palisades were killed. And we know for sure that most of them are not Hamas soldiers, we know this.
Everybody knows this. So even more, the occupation, non-wrest until the world, so many October 7, there are voices inside the center, even inside left center. They said we should solve this problem. It's against any basic concept of a body.
It's done even what we call, called themselves left or zenislay. They don't say anything about the occupation in you. It's because of natural phenomena and not issue of immorality or shame, not anymore because, I'm sure it's right. The Palestinians became the ultimate enemy.
It's a threat of our life. It's the modernization of the Palestine. It happened. It's kind of tradition of the modernization of the Palestine of God.
But now it became very clear. So the denying, was and is being transformed into celebration, from grounding. There's no shame. There's no any ambitions.
We killed and it's very important to the difference between killing and murdering was blaring in the Hebrew language. Clearly, it's a subject that you are conducted, be powerful, and authorized by the sovereign. You kill, you kill your enemy. Metering is about sovereignty.
It's a tribal, the actual violence. And now this decision is day after day, but it's very clear. Blaring, there's no distinction. And people can on TV, so it's relatively, we're extremely, extremely, extremely, like the administration, not human beings anymore.
So I think it's a turning point in the mode of representation in what we call Marx's theory. It's a crisis of representation. What is your studies contribution to the history of literary criticism in Israel? Again, as of right now, it's a very, very complicated question.
My thread, my really, my assumptions, theoretical, my job is to try to create a text that will as an opposition, what I'm calling the blind spots of designing literature and scholarship. Blind spots. And this book was my example. How to do something about how to say people see.
You don't, you deny, because you don't want to see, and it creates these blind spots. And my job, as a scholar, is to convince you, expose by exposing the blind spots. And when I say blind spots, I'm sure it's very clear of morality. I don't want to see something which will undermine my perception about the Jewish people, about Jewish literature, about Hebrew literature.
I want to see it. So I create a great blind spots. It's a issue of anxiety, by the way. It's a, there are many people, not only literature, but it's very clear.
It's based on anxiety and the phrase. But something will come up and destroy the way I look, I'm organizing the reality around me, this literature. I think it could be summarized in the world. It's if you expose the blind spots, you defeat the efforts of normalization.
You say the fact that for establishing the state of Israel and democracy, the condition of this was expulsion. It's a threat because you prefer to stay with the idea that Israel is a regular and democracy. So now we come to literature, think about, for example, take Yudah before. Yudah, the high poet is represented as a civic poet.
Civic has to do with citizenship. Cenship has to do, you know, the long run for this show, things like my alignment, South African universalistic. I have my rights, not because I'm Jewish, not because I'm not because I'm religious, not because my family is Jewish, etc. No, I'm being, I live in this country and I like basically like the US, we know that many problems the US, but at least the front, you don't, this is what you, that's better, you're black, who Latino, you're, and since she means protecting yourself, first of all protect the, the, the sovereign should protect, should protect the city.
It's actually what I'm saying, let us, I'm trying, I wrote about it, but this thing, what kind of citizenship amifying is a civic poet, tries to stop it. And by conclusion, it's a real citizenship because it is based on exclusion of Palestinians, I mean citizens of the city of Israel, the world is a, maybe the greatest poet, the world about the world is a foreign poet. So, but if you ask her who, who, and who is the fighting, who fight, who fight, you see, you can see that it's not a citizen and it works very clear because it's state of emergency. So it could be only Jewish, but when you connect the fighter with love, it's not universalistic love, it's a Jewish love and who translates it to politics or human rights in the public arena, it's not a citizen.
How does your research advance or understanding of revenge? We've been, let's summarize it one set, it'll be provocative, but I think it's how this is a project of revenge. And one of the reasons of our justification of my statement is that the first Hebrew novel, the first one from 1883 by Perz Swolensky, it is the title is The Revenge of the Covenant. And this is Swolensky basically portrayed the option, how the Jews who suffered or victims of the problems in Russia, how they should behave, how they should work.
And he said, revenge, and now come the second stage. Why is that? He said it's, it was a the pre-order for the called the Bileuim, the first Alian. And he said, the real event is you guys, the young Jew, go to Palestine and build the country, cut the heat of the land, etc.
This is the revenge. We take a revenge to an acting violence, again, the genders and the option, the solution is not violent against gentites, but go to Palestine, go to the system. This is the basic narrative of Zionist revenge. And this is very, very dangerous because revenge is a structure.
It's a psyche. It's a moment when, which, uh, Benjamin, Walter Benjamin, critical violence in this piece, a long lesson. So it's a lawmaking and law preserving the violence. If violence, you preserve the law and you make the law.
When they go together, violence becomes the law. You invent it and you preserve. And it's very connected to another terrorist, an NGO who said every act of violence, but they also desire is a mimetic act. I have a desire to this woman because you, and it's I by said, I, it's a mimicist of your desire.
It's taking revenge is a mimicist, is a mimetic violence. You, conducted violence against me, I'll, I'll, I'll take revenge by as mimetic violence. I follow you and like this for a bit. It's like, and what happens is instead of using violence to achieve something, which is outside the cycle to build something, you are trapped in this cycle.
You lose your agency, you are supporting yourself to the structure, to the, to the mimetic violence and cycle. One more, one more, me, darker nigga, me, darker nigga, forever. Like, you know, I have a mission, I have, in my knowledge, that me, darker nigga, me. And this is the end of you because if you continue forever, you take revenge, you stop it only in one point.
Politics is when you see, it's a nothing happens. I want to achieve something, but I go care less about it's not important for me to get to achieve something which is outside the set. What, what I really want is to respond with mimetic, mimetic violence. So it is the option anymore outside.
And I see I cannot continue, I cannot go further. This is the only way. And in many cases, it happens. For example, the famous story about survival of Auschwitz, he was released from Auschwitz and came to Palestine, enjoyed the Palmach, the elite, uh, uh, well, they especially, especially, especially of the Argonne.
And he joined, and he wrote a book with the title from Auschwitz to our El Brigitte of the Palmach, and he represents himself as a person who take revenge, who takes revenge for the German and then for the Arab, there's a great piece that was written on it by Abba's Goldberg, a very important skull of the Holocaust. And there is what happened later, he committed suicide because they understood this though, no, in, in nothing from his revenge. Nothing. I mean, nothing outside in reality.
There's no, no, there's no purpose to go that violence as revenge, which has to do with what exists outside the site. It's very self-destructive. And I worry, I worry so much when, uh, Israeli IVF defines its violence as an event. It happened during the 50s when there were, uh, infinitiated, this is a euphemism.
A Christian was, uh, infinitiated into the border of Israel. The, the term was of, it was, basically was revenge, action of regal polo tagumu, action of revenge. And now it's very clear what happened. And it will, I'm afraid to say that it will destroy Israel because what the violence as a mean, as a means to get something to achieve some is replaced by violence, which its purpose, basically without any purpose outside, meaning pure violence, it's pure violence.
Nothing to do with reality. We don't want to achieve anything. We don't need to achieve anything because we are trapped in psych and this, may I say this is the way that Israeli army right now, uh, that's in violence. The army, military violence, it doesn't, no purpose, so clear what Israel want to achieve every day.
We hear about something different. Uh, what is your books contribution to literary theory? What debates and contemporary literary theory were most relevant to you in preparing this study? I think I see it as a part of the field of postcolonial and, uh, postcolonial reading, postcolonial theory.
And I see it as a contribution to the way that, uh, that countries after they receive their independence are still continue to live with internal contradiction, contradictions, oppressions. And in this case, the Jewish case, I think, is very very, uh, because it's quite difficult, uh, to locate the Jewish, uh, perspective, the Jewish structure, the Jewish victim to locate it in such a long long history, long long narrative that includes persecution, violent, victimhood, et cetera. Very difficult. The Jewish question is very, very complicated.
And I, I hope that my book contributes to the theory, the theory of the, of the Jewish question and the role of literature, in this case, Hebrew literature, in this project, project of trying, trying to solve the Jewish question. And I want to emphasize something which is connected to postcolonial theory. The turning point, uh, that, uh, the history of the Jewish people and the design is, uh, establishing itself as a moment, as a moment, is turning point from, specifically, for example, in the Jewish field of Jewish light men, it's essentially related to the basic idea was acculturation. Let us do something about our culture, adopt the cultures that we see around us.
And hopefully this will be a vehicle that will bring us to a situation when we should, should be granted, emissivity. It's specifically, let us wait, values and, and Pinscale is a, I think, a great example. Here's, by the way, uh, trust of all, it didn't recommend Israel, not Cion, as they, as the only choice. Only later, this different story.
He says, enough in enough, this is specific and for granting emancipation. Let us move to autonomous, self liberation, self-definity. And I think this is a very critical moment that I'm trying to write in it this pattern shift and trying to read from postcolonialist, colonial, using postcolonial theory to read this specific turning point in Jewish history. And of course, the outcome, the results, and in this book, the Nagmat, the Jewish, the Nagmat, it was conducted by the Jewish people, the Jewish army.
It's an action. It's part of self liberation. It's, it's part of independence, which really, this was really happened. You have the Nagmat, so I think postcolonial reading could be through.
How does your research shed new light on the built more plan of 1942? Can you explain the build more plan to those who are unfamiliar? First of all, we talked about the hotel, New York City, May 11, there was a gathering of leaders, service leaders, in the hotel, and the decision they made, the conclusion for the discussion was very simple. Now, 42, May, 42 Holocaust, but you should keep in mind the idea, the fact that the Germans, the Nazi, that the genocide of the Jewish people was revealed in public, break clearly November, 42, it's before, it's a long time before, it was clear that there's a genocide in Europe.
There's the decision or the conclusion of the statement was quite clear. The Jewish people, the general, the Jewish people, the target of Zionism was established, a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine, Jewish government, and if translated to service of it, Jewish sovereignty, and the reaction, a very famous reaction of Hannah Allen was, now if you're about to establish Jewish governments, commonwealth, it will not, by definition, it will create a situation of expulsion, of exclusion of the policy. The question is, in some way, it's theoretical. Okay, if we're speaking about 48 against the night, writing an ethnicity, it's as a very important thesis by Yudhoshan Ha, very important, he wrote that by concentrating on 67 war, the occupation, and luckily as the ultimate evil, we make a big mistake, is it the denial of 48, because this is the 10 point, not 48, the violence of 48, that's not, or as I said before, establishing the state of Israel as democracy by expansion.
So this, Yudhoshan Ha, says, 67 is not the real teleport, 48, I gave up with the idea, it's, I think it's interesting, but it's though, it's, I don't think it's so essential, but I think if you want to establish or to understand the narrative of the Zionist project and the violence of the Zionist project, I think that Bill, Bill 14, May 42 is much better to be signified as a 10 point, because then after many years, we should remember, we should remember during the period of the issue, most of the Jews or the political camps in the issue, they didn't declare that the, their target is establishing a Jewish state, Japotinsky did, Labbatius, but the label Zionism, of course, it was they had in their mind, the question, but there's a difference between declaration and planning. So only 42, May 42, people like the Guru came up with declaration, this is our agenda, a Jewish state, a Jewish government. So, Bill for my point of view is, this is from my point of view, more reported, or the most important, 10 important, in the Jewish history, the Zionist narrative and with the point and following Khanna Anne, we can explain, explain what happened to the Nakabayil, 48, by referring to to Mismore conference. What is your research, Teach us about collective memory?
How you fight the denial of, which is so typical to collective memory, basically such project, like many other, as I said, very good, very particular historian, by historian, not only so, if you try to change the collective memory and expose, as I said, blind spots, as I said, denial of the violence and undermining the homogeneity, which is very common perception of the collective memory, the Zionist collective memory, trying to find the cracks, find the alternatives, create this stabilizing, the stabilizing, the homogeneity, the clear cut for the cult of the Israeli collective. Can you tell us about Mahmoud Darwish's poem, Identity Card, from 1964? This is a response to what I said so far about Israeli citizens, which presents his political condition, political identity, as dependent on a product of this oximal contradiction of Jewish democracy. The poem he wrote during the period of Bilsai Gabuwe in Israel, in Shoutes way, that basically divided the public sphere in young Israel, two parts, one, Jewish and the second one was Palestinian.
The idea was that a Palestinian cannot move into the Jewish public, and stay with them. And if they stay under restrictions, oppression, so basically, when he speaks, he wrote about identity card, he spoke about his status, as it sits, and it's very clear, because he will not get it, or it's very difficult to get it, despite the fact that most of them had called it identical, but his himself was what happened to him in return from Lebanon after the war, and he was his identity, according to his vulnerabilities, was a present absentee. The present absentee is like some of his present, but basically, after this, we can, it's not clear that it's a legitimation of not wanting him, Israeli identity card. It became later many of them, totalization, this in some way, this bureaucratic problem in some way was so.
But he was oppressed, and trying to do something with identical. It's very clear that it is a meeting, the day, in confrontation, between Israeli soldier, policeman, and now, it's himself. And what is the mistake is the military government, an identity card, and since, because if you're not allowed to cross the line, and move from your village, Palestinian village, in the Galilee, for example, across the line, go, in a hyper, for example, or tell of it, if you don't, you cannot do that, because you're not a regular citizen. So you'll see that, but you're on Arab, and you have an ID card, but in your ID card, you have the line that says, what is your nationality.
So this is a moment of quotation, we call it Palestinian 48, and the Israeli struggle. And now, let us go into the point for a couple of minutes. Basically, it's a dead end. He sees that you're very difficult to get this ID card, and then he says, okay, you are not a regular anti-discrimination and a clothes man, effective.
I'm a worker, my father was a regular, we take our part, we're natives in this country, but by the way, it's connected to his membership, the company's part. If you will start us, then starring, this will be the end of the conversation. I'll pick you like an animal, because the only way I can make something about my political situation, there's no negotiation anymore, only blood, flesh and blood, all it is. And since I don't have any weapon, what I have is my teeth.
Can you say more about how votes yes you're ruling in the context of your research? I think I mentioned it quite a lot, but the only thing I would look to add is that he really gave us an alternative, political alternative to the common, to the regular discourse, public and literary discourse. And it's very interesting that when he published Passover of Gave in 1952, the point that I referred to, he was attacked harshly, he published in Allettes, people attacked him like crazy, like this. And again, then this alternative was unacceptable, because he exposed the blind spots of the literary discourse in Israel and in the like four years after the last four, three years after the last.
So then his position was very much, and when he said something like this, he was attacked, couched. Every 70s, then there was a very important and radical change in his status in Israel. The 72, it was a new journal, Sima Karyan, it was edited, it was two editors, but they made a very clear decision. They said, okay, he's basically on the verge of the canon, almost outside the Israel literary canon.
We shall change this radically. And he put his portrait to the first page of the journal, of the first issue, the journal, the literary section starts with his poetry. It is a very radical change. He took some time, not so, it was not immediate response, but it took some time.
And he became, I don't say for it, it's right as if you say popular, but it was well established in Israel, in Israel. You tell us about how in Gory's work in the context of your research? This is very complicated, I should say, and also, I do go with the conversation, we met, and he wrote the very famous poem, He Lies Arro Baddis, and Gory was then in Budapest, involved in illegal immigration of Holocaust survivors, into impulsive. It was January 14, and in some strange way, you see this information Budapest, I wrote the, it became very popular, but after many years, very popular, in the royal days, after many years, I myself, it's a very good connection, a very good connection with Gory, not always 75, I published a house critique on his portrait, long story, but not so very much right.
And there is a, we, we know, betray, and it will be crazy to be honest. How you do, I ask you, how did they write such a line about soul, would kill in the battlefield? We don't betray apology, I was very angry, and of course, I'm sure it's very clear that he referred to the Holocaust, the Jews that would perish in the Holocaust, they betray, from a Zionist Israeli point of view, was a betray, they should fight, they want to slaughter like the lambs, this was the expression, it was slaughtered like lambs. I was very angry, and I told him, I'm very angry with you, with you, it took three, it was fantastic person, by the way, it took three meetings in a coffee shop, three, and the last one he said, you know, it was a mistake, I wrote this, so young, you know, it was very young, I made a mistake, and then he asked me a question, and I think it's very relevant to your question, and it could be my answer to your question, he said, he asked me, okay, I agree, mistake, but what do you think about the future of this point, could it be removed from the head of the Hebrew poetry, don't worry, because it's so popular, I think going on for 2000 years, it will remain in the Hebrew, the kind of thing, I think this is the status, because it was involved in political issues, always kind of a bivolucy, people trusted, people trusted, even if you may think that from my point of view, it was a mistake, in polity, in relation between Prime Minister and the settlers, there are many sub-stories like this, but it was very sincere, it was very person with integrity, it could trust it, even if you say something you don't accept, amen, so I think this is the way his poetry will remain in the history of the Jewish culture, because of many, many changes, you ask me about, about it, he, it changes his mind and his politics, all the duties carried, it was very flexible, very sensitive, what do you know, how I should react to this, in some way, he basically after Alteban became the national poet, the Israeli New content work of Alexander Pang in the context of your research, Pang was a member in the Communist Party, and was the editor of the supplement of the parties, he was a great poet, very talented, but because of his political views, he was excluded from the literary arena in Israel, but now if you read his poetry, having very important, he is the tea, he came up bluntly, accusing Israel, the idea of destroying villages from, but then a very house critic, but something that I should add is, I spoke about Google, Khang Gui's point, about 35, he was also a poet, about this tragic event, and he says, now it sounds real, he says, the reason is not the Palestine, they killed the soldiers, the convo, because the British, the imperialism creates, creates, created this violent conflict, it is there, there is also a political response, it's now, it looks, we're the strange, but it's important, if you ask me about Pang, I see it very important to mention, something in the margin, but still very strong, what does your research teach us about aesthetics?
I'm sure it's quite clear that for me, aesthetics is a political so I follow very strong tradition, very long tradition, basically it seems Marx and Engels, let's connect the politics, literary phenomenon, literary devices, and ask about its politics, basically it's based on the concept of rhetoric, it's not only the text itself, and not only the destruction, not only the language of the literary text, but also, and more importantly, what he does, was the effect, and through my point of view, in most of the cases, the effect is political, it's issue power relationship, it's your fear, confrontation, conflict, and aesthetics, itself always, I think is materialized, as a matter of. As we end today, I'm signing office, Ari Bartlett, your host on the new books and Jewish Studies podcast. Today, it has been my honor to be in dialogue with Dr. Hanan Hever, he is the Jacob and Hilda Blousding Professor of Hebrew Language and Literature, and Professor of Comparative Literature at Yale University.
We have been discussing his recently published book, Hebrew Literature and the 1948 War, Essays on Phylology and Responsibility, published in Leiden, Nethervin's by Brill, 2019.