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המוצא; עוולה
המוצא - רשימה מן העבר הכי - קרוב עוולה - מסיפורי פועל
31 pages, Unknown Binding
Published January 1, 2002
1 person want to read
About the author
Joseph Hayyim Brenner
15 books7 followersBrenner was born to a poor Jewish family in Novi Mlini, Russian Empire. He studied at a yeshiva in Pochep, and published his first story, Pat Lechem ("A Loaf of Bread") in HaMelitz, a Hebrew language newspaper, in 1900, followed by a collection of short stories in 1901.
In 1902, Brenner was drafted into the Russian army. Two years later, when the Russo-Japanese War broke out, he deserted. He was initially captured, but escaped to London with the help of the General Jewish Labor Bund, which he had joined as a youth.
In 1905, he met the Yiddish writer Lamed Shapiro. Brenner lived in an apartment in Whitechapel, which doubled as an office for HaMe'orer, a Hebrew periodical that he edited and published in 1906–07. In 1922, Asher Beilin published Brenner in London about this period in Brenner's life.
Brenner married Chaya, with whom he had a son, Uri.
Brenner immigrated to Palestine (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in 1909. He worked as a farmer, eager to put his Zionist ideology into practice. Unlike A. D. Gordon, however, he could not take the strain of manual labor, and soon left to devote himself to literature and teaching at the Gymnasia Herzliya in Tel Aviv. According to biographer Anita Shapira, he suffered from depression and problems of sexual identity. He was murdered in Jaffa on May 1921 during the Jaffa riots.
In 1902, Brenner was drafted into the Russian army. Two years later, when the Russo-Japanese War broke out, he deserted. He was initially captured, but escaped to London with the help of the General Jewish Labor Bund, which he had joined as a youth.
In 1905, he met the Yiddish writer Lamed Shapiro. Brenner lived in an apartment in Whitechapel, which doubled as an office for HaMe'orer, a Hebrew periodical that he edited and published in 1906–07. In 1922, Asher Beilin published Brenner in London about this period in Brenner's life.
Brenner married Chaya, with whom he had a son, Uri.
Brenner immigrated to Palestine (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in 1909. He worked as a farmer, eager to put his Zionist ideology into practice. Unlike A. D. Gordon, however, he could not take the strain of manual labor, and soon left to devote himself to literature and teaching at the Gymnasia Herzliya in Tel Aviv. According to biographer Anita Shapira, he suffered from depression and problems of sexual identity. He was murdered in Jaffa on May 1921 during the Jaffa riots.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 28, 2024
A collection of four novellas/short stories by Brenner. What stuck out to me - apart from odd words like תאבדע (is that curious?) that have not survived in Hebrew - is the theme of people who have made aliya and regret it, the vicissitudes of life in Palestine in the early twentieth century not really easier than the lives they have left behind. As one character in עצבים (Nerves) puts it:
In this way all of these stories are existentialist, asking what one does after being failed by the usual reasons for existing. Brenner is a fan of dramatic punctuation and pretty much every paragraph is in this style:
המוצא (The Way Out) portrays a miserable situation, where more and more poor immigrants keep arriving, and the community doesn't want to let them in because there are so few resources anyway. A woman has a thin, mosquito-bitten baby, which dies and the narrator volunteers to buries her. In the process he hurts his foot, getting him into a sick bed and exempted from work duties - he has found the titular way out. In עוולה (Injustice), a WWI British officer knocks on the door, fleeing Turkish captivity. The group debates what to do and one of them runs out to rat him out to the Turks. They see him being led away, filled with guilt, until they hear him falsely accuse them of stealing his watch - satisfied that now they are victims of injustice.
Among the great Hebrew writers, Brenner is perhaps the most conflicted. He was unhappy here, and failed as a farm-worker (eventually getting a job as a Hebrew teacher at the Herzliya Gymnasium). He had questions, but no real answers, before he was tragically murdered in 1921. Israel today would be familiar to him, for as much as things have changed, the same questions are still being asked.
It's a pity that there, in all those places, they talk so much about "our desirable land"…maybe that's why the pain is so great when one comes here…waking from the dreamIn בין מים למים (Between the Waters), a poet, Shaul, has made up his mind to leave, and is trying to flirt with two women. Leaving is controversial, but the Jewish community is economically precarious and physically insecure. As the funeral of a watchman looms, a teacher contemplates getting hired as his replacement: the relatively attractive pay is worth the danger. In response to a plague, the residents of Jerusalem plan a "Black Hupa": a wedding between two orphans, held in a cemetery, a custom arousing disgust from the more radical secularists (one of whom calls to tear down the Western Wall). It is a situation where cynical, hardened businesspeople can get by, intellectuals flee to Vienna, and everyone else is trapped in grinding poverty. Shaul compares the situation of those coming to the Land of Israel hoping to remake themselves as farm-labourers to that of a failed poet, all of whose poems are rejected, who is unable to do anything else: the society fundamentally lacks the ability to make it as a self-sustaining farm community. They have bet it all on something they simply have no aptitude for.
In this way all of these stories are existentialist, asking what one does after being failed by the usual reasons for existing. Brenner is a fan of dramatic punctuation and pretty much every paragraph is in this style:
- But why would you…you couldn't…a shame! A disgrace!In the second story a man hears a friend tell his story of coming to the Holy Land and encountering a widow and her daughters. The journey is tough (they are fleeced by a scammer in Alexandria) and the arrival is tough. Yet, they seem to feel, the rest of the world is also bad for Jews - what else is there to do? When on a train in Berlin the man hears a Litvish letter Shin (pronounced Seen) out of the mouth of one of the young orphans, he just wants to hug her. The story ends with the travellers arriving and meeting their people, sitting down to eat and chat in an ambient glow of landsleit, unzere. They sit around a table and talk, drink coffee, and eat salted fish. With my people, one feels, it will be OK.
- And why shouldn't I…
Aharon fumed and cried out loudly, his eyes full of blood:
- Your homeland is here, not Russia!
המוצא (The Way Out) portrays a miserable situation, where more and more poor immigrants keep arriving, and the community doesn't want to let them in because there are so few resources anyway. A woman has a thin, mosquito-bitten baby, which dies and the narrator volunteers to buries her. In the process he hurts his foot, getting him into a sick bed and exempted from work duties - he has found the titular way out. In עוולה (Injustice), a WWI British officer knocks on the door, fleeing Turkish captivity. The group debates what to do and one of them runs out to rat him out to the Turks. They see him being led away, filled with guilt, until they hear him falsely accuse them of stealing his watch - satisfied that now they are victims of injustice.
Among the great Hebrew writers, Brenner is perhaps the most conflicted. He was unhappy here, and failed as a farm-worker (eventually getting a job as a Hebrew teacher at the Herzliya Gymnasium). He had questions, but no real answers, before he was tragically murdered in 1921. Israel today would be familiar to him, for as much as things have changed, the same questions are still being asked.
Displaying 1 of 1 review