"Hidden transcripts" made public: Israeli Arab fiction and its reception

Critical Inquiry

Volumn 26, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 85-107

  Brenner, Rachel Feldhay ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 62549126031     PISSN: 00931896     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/448954     Document Type: Review

References (52)

1. I have decided to refer to Jews and Arabs who are citizens of Israel as Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs, just as one usually refers to American citizens of various ethnic groups as American Jews, American Arabs, and so forth. Despite the obvious political and social differences between minorities in the United States and in Israel, the American terminology offers an apt differentiation among citizens of various ethnic groups. For the constantly changing national self-definitions of Arab citizens of Israel, see Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal, Palestinians: The Making of a People (New York, 1993), p. 170
2. Quoted in Bernard Horn, Facing the Fires: Conversations with A. B. Yehoshua (Syracuse, N.Y., 1997), pp. 143-44, 153
3. Michael N. Barnett [Albany, N.Y., 1996], p. 212). As Rebecca Kook notes, the Law of Return is "one of the legal pillars of the state and its related institutions" and also "is most fundamental in determining the discriminatory nature of rights distribution within Israel" (pp. 212, 211)
4. Mahmud Darwish, "Ha-gahut kol-kahk hazakah b'tocki, vlai avi otah arzah" [The diaspora is so strong in me, maybe I'll bring it home], interview with Hilit Yeshurun, Rabat Amon, 7 Feb. 1996, Hadarim 12 (Spring 1996): 194-95
5. See Mishael Maswari Caspi and Jerome David Weltsch, From Slumber to Awakening: Culture and Identity of Arab Israeli Literati (Lanham, Md., 1998), p. 29; hereafter abbreviated FS. Though badly edited, this book offers some interesting interviews with Israeli Arab and Israeli Jewish writers
6. I am referring here to the Zionist motto "For a people without a land, a land without a people," which effectively rendered the Arab population of Palestine invisible. For the history of this slogan, see Adam M. Garfinkle, "On the Origin, Meaning, Use, and Abuse of a Phrase," Middle Eastern Studies 27 (Oct. 1991): 539-50
7. Edward W. Said, "An Ideology of Difference," Critical Inquiry 12 (Autumn 1985): 57
8. Anton Shammas, "Kitsch 22: On the Problems of the Relations Between Majority and Minority Cultures in Israel," Tikkun 2 (Sept.-Oct. 1987): 23
9. hereafter abbreviated K. On the discrimination facing Israeli Arabs, see, for instance, Kook, "Between Uniqueness and Exclusion," pp. 199-225
10. Homi K. Bhabha, "Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse," The Location of Culture (London, 1994), p. 86
11. James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, Conn., 1990), p. 55
12. Emile Habiby, Saraya bint al-gul: Khurafiyah (Haifa, 1991); trans. Shammas, under the title Saraya, bat hashed ha-ra': h'urafiyeh [Saraya, daughter of the ghoul: A story] (Tel Aviv, 1993), p. 144
13. See also the discussion of the "thematization of the translator" in Hannan Hever, "Ha-tslil ha-aher" [A different note], review of Saraya, bat hashed ha-ra', by Habiby, Ha-arelz, 13 Oct. 1993, p. 5
14. Habiby, "Emile v'ha-mashmitzim" [Emile and the slanderers], interview with Dalia Karfel, Kol ha-ir, 1 May 1992, p. 34
15. See, for instance, Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Anthology of Modem Palestinian Literature (New York, 1992)
16. See the brief note "B'ad v'neged" [For and against], Ha-ir, 1 May 1992, p. 29
17. See Habiby, "Yesh am Palestini v'yesh lo sifrut" [There is a Palestinian people and it has a literature], interview with Karfel, Ha-ir, 1 May 1992, pp. 26-29, in which Habiby does not hide his distress and hurt at the betrayal of his closest friends and his party. He explains the reaction in terms of the continuing antagonism between Israeli Arab citizens and Palestinian Arabs who left the country and refuse to recognize the state of Israel
18. Yuval Ne'man, a well-known scientist and a right-wing politician, returned his Israel Prize for physics and walked out of the ceremony in protest. See Yerach Tal, "Hapras magi'a l'Habiby: Al m'chaato shel Yuval Ne'man al ha'anakat Pras Israel l'Emile Habiby" [Habiby deserves the prize: On Yuval Ne'man's protest against awarding the Israel Prize to Emile Habiby], Ha-aretz, 10 May 1992, p. 10
19. and also Heda Boshas, "Yuval Ne'man v'mal'akhei ha-shalom" [Yuval Ne'man and the ministering angels], Ha-aretz, 10 May 1992, p. 10
20. Sami Michael, "T'ruma l'b'niyat ha-gesher ha-m'iuhal" [A contribution to the construction of the desired bridge], Yediot aharonot, 8 May 1992, p. 27
21. Quoted in Avner Bernheimer, "Mi ata Emile Habibi?" [Who are you, Emile Habiby?], Ha-shavua, 20 May 1992, p. 50
22. Quoted in Orly Toren, "Matzavo ha-ishi, matzavo ha-politi, matzavo ha-sifruti: Emile Habibi, sofer Arvi Palestini nehshav, b'avar haver Knesset komunist, humlatz l'Pras Israel l'sifrut. Ma omrim al kach anshei sifrut?" [His personal situation, his political situation, his literary situation: Emile Habibi, an important Arab Palestinian writer, a past Knesset member, was recommended for the Israel Prize for literature. What do literary experts say?], Yediot aharonot, 13 Mar. 1992, p. 24
23. Shulamith Hareven, "Absurd hu yir prazot" [Absurd is an open city], Yediot aharonot, 19 June 1992, p. 14
24. Steven Mailloux, Rhetorical Power (Ithaca, N.Y., 1989), pp. 15, 18
25. See, for instance, Habiby's interviews with Karfel in Ha-ir; with Yotam Reuveni, "Ha-kol over, Habiby" [Everything passes, Habiby], Yediot aharonot, 20 May 1993, p. 12; and with Michal Adam, Kol bo, 3 Sept. 1993, p. 77
26. Habiby, The Secret Life of Saeed, the Ill-Fated Pessoptimist, a Palestinian Who Became a Citizen of Israel, trans. Jayyusi and Trevor Le Gassick (1974; New York, 1982), p. 124
27. Habiby, Ahtyeh, trans. Shammas (1985; Tel Aviv, 1988), p. 21
28. Habiby, Saraya, bat hashed ha-ra', p. 13; trans, mod
29. Hans Robert Jauss, Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, trans. Timothy Bahti (Minneapolis, 1982), pp. 24, 25, 40
30. Hava Novak, "Ha-opsimism shel Habiby-v'ulayi shel Shalom Aleichem" [Habiby's pessoptimism-could it be Shalom Aleichem's?], Davar, 20 Oct. 1988, p. 15; emphasis mine
31. Aharon Megged, "El mul ha-opsimist" [Facing the optimist], Ha-aretz, 27 July 1987, p. 11
32. See Hever, '"The Refugee Women to the Refugees,'" pp. 108-14
33. Habiby, quoted in Gira Behor, "Natun l'hatzlafot ha-shot" [Subject to whipping], Ha-aretz, 14 Apr. 1992, p. 35
34. Yehoshua, quoted in Horn, Facing the Fires, p. 48
35. Shammas refers to the incident and the public argument between him and Yehoshua that followed with enormous bitterness in practically all the journalistic writings quoted here. For example, Shammas recalls: "Abraham B. Yehoshua for one told me two years ago, bluntly and publicly, that because he strongly supports the establishment of a Palestinian state beside Israel ⋯ he expects me, if I want to fulfill my national identity, to move to that state. ⋯ The hidden premise in Yehoshua's argument was that no Israeli Zionist would ⋯ accept that ⋯ there would be Palestinians who would be brazen enough to ask the Jews for their share in a narrow strip of land called the state of Israel" (Shammas, "The Morning After," New York Review of Books, 29 Sept. 1988, p. 49)
36. Shammas, "Itzu z'mani shel hafatzim nilvim" [A temporary export of accompanying items], Ha-aretz, 13 June 1989, p. 11; hereafter abbreviated TE
37. Shammas, "The Morning After," p. 48
38. Shammas, "Azivah: ha-shanah ha-mara m'khulan" [Leaving: The most bitter year], Ha-aretz, 15 Sept. 1993, p. 3
39. M. D., "Tsalash l'Shammas" [A Medal for Shammas], Ma'ariv, 9 Dec. 1988, p. 15
40. Shammas, Arabesques, trans. Vivian Eden (1986; New York, 1988), p. 228
41. See Rachel Feldhay Brenner, "In Search of Identity: The Israeli Arab Artist in Anton Shammas's Arabesques," PMLA 108 (May 1993): 444
42. Peter J. Rabinowitz, Before Reading: Narrative Conventions and the Politics of Interpretation (Ithaca, N. Y., 1987), pp. 21, 26, 27
43. Jean-Paul Sartre, "What Is Literature?" "What Is Literature?" and Other Essays (Cambridge, Mass., 1988), pp. 72, 73
44. Yael Lotan, "Likrat sifrut Israelit" [Toward an Israeli literature], Al ha-mishmar, 4 July 1986, pp. 15, 18
45. Boshas, "Al ma holmim ha-aravim?" p. 25
46. Dan Laor, "Ha-Fassutaim: ha-sipur she-lo nigmar" [The Fassutans: An unfinished story], Ha-aretz, 31 May 1986, pp. 6-7
47. Dan Miron, "La'ant ha-shanim she-adayin lo ukhla" [The years' long bitterness has not disappeared], Ha-olam ha-ze, 9 July 1986, p. 26
48. Attalah Mansour, Waiting for the Dawn: An Autobiography (London, 1975), pp. 1, 128; hereafter abbreviated WD
49. Mansour, In a New Light, trans. Abraham Birman (London, 1969), p. 172
50. Yona Bahir, "S'nunit" [A swallow], Ha-aretz, 18 Mar. 1966, p. 10
51. Ora Ardon, "Israel b'or hadash" [Israel in a new light], La'merhav, 22 Apr. 1966, p. 15
52. Iza Perlis, "Tzayir Aravi b'kibbutz" [A young Arab on a kibbutz], Ma'ariv, 25 Mar. 1966, p. 22