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The Entire Community
For A Happy, Healthy
New Year!

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Cultural Life
Pervades Israel

ASHER WEILL SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

H

ad one to name the single
most fundamental contri-
bution made by the Jewish
people to mankind, obvi-
ously the immediate answer
would be the Bible. And the Book
of Books, through all its five mil-
lenia or so, remains the most im-
portant source and inspiration
for much of Israel's cultural cre-
ativity. Other great literary cre-
ations include the Mishna, the
first writen compilation of the
Oral Law, and the Talmud, the
body of Jewish law and lore.
Literature: If the heartbeat of
a natin's culture lies in the writ-
ten word, then here already is Is-
rael's single most basic problem:
its language. Hebrew, the lan-
guage of the Prophets and the
Old Testament, ceased to exist as
a vehicle for everyday speech dur-
ing the Exile and was replaced
by the tongues of the nations
among whom the Jews found
refuge in their dispersion.
The revival of modern Hebrew,
restricted for centuries to liturgy
and literature, began in the late
19th century. Today, while there
are no more than 3 to 4 million
people in the world who can read
Hebrew comfortably, a lively, ar-
ticulate and robust body of liter-
ature has evolved, nevertheless.
While the giants of modern He-
brew — Bialik, Tchernikhovsky,
Brenner, Agnon (who won Is-
rael's only Nobel Prize, that for
literature, in 1966) — and others
are still required reading in
schools, they are supplemented
by indigenous, incresingly local-
born writers whose work can
stand comparison with the best
of the world's contemporary au-
thors.
One of Israel's best writers
(and certainly best-known
abroad) is Amos Oz. Many writ-
ers who maintain a prolific liter-
ary output belong to the
"Palmach Generation" (the Pal-
mach was the pre-state elite
fighting force drawn mostly from
the kibbutzim). Among them are
Haim Gouri, Moshe Shamir, S.
Yizhar, Benjamin Tammuz and
Hanoch Bar Tov. An important
phenomenon of the last 15 years
or so has been the maturation of
a group of writers of Sephardic
origin for whom Arabic was a for-
mative influence. Such writers
include Samy Michael, Amnon
Shamosh and Dan Benaya.
Literature, too, cannot evade
the influence of the decimation of
European Jewry in the Holo-
caust. It is that theme which is
the all-pervasive leitmotif in the
writings of Aharon Appelfeld,
Abba Kovner, "Ka-Tsetnik" (the

pseudonym of Bension Dinur)
and others.
The center ground in Israeli
writing today is held by those
who came to literary maturity af-
ter the War of Independence, and
whose literary vision was tem-
pered through the fires of aus-
terity, of absorption of
immigrants and of four wars of
survival. Such writers include A.
B. Yehoshua, Yitzhak Ben Ner,
Amalia Kahana-Carmon, Shu-
lamit Lapid, Meir Shalev, Daivd
Grossman, Shulamith Hareven,
the late Ya'akov Shabtai, Yaram
Kniuk and many others. A
younger generation of writers, in-
cluding many women such as
Yehudit Katzir and Orly Castel-
Bloom are exploring more uni-
versal literary themes.
Poetry holds a special place in
Israel's literary life. New works
by Yehuda Amichai, Natan Zach,
David Avidan, Dahlia Ravikovich
or T. Carmi, among others, are
always avidly awaited.
Music: The musical life of Is-
rael is a quintessential example
of bipolarity. There is a constant
influx of immigrant musicians
and an outflow of performers who
have reached the highest inter-
naitonal peaks. Yitzhak Perlman,
Phinhas Zukerman, Shlomo
Mintz, and Daniel Barenboim all

In the space of 90
years, an Israeli
visual art has been
created.

received their training in Israel
and went on to glittering careers
on the world's concert stages. Is-
rael's ordchestra, including the
Isrel Philharmonic, the
Jerusalem Symphony, the Beer-
sheba Sinfonietta and many
chamber groupings, many of
them made up from the recent in-
flux of musicians fro the former
Soviet Union, have provided a
home for hundreds of players.
Israel hosts a series of inter-
national music events, including
the Artur Rubenstein Piano Com-
petition, the Pablo Casals Cello
Competition, a triennial in-
teranitonal harp contest, the Zim-
riya Choirs festival, and annual
music festivals in Jerusalem, Kib-
butz Ein Hashofet and, notably,
at Kibbutz Ein Gev on the shores
of the Sea of Galilee.
For all this wealth of musical
life, it is not only the highbrow
that is catered to. Rockers, pop-