Anat Koplowitz-Breier
Bar-Ilan University, Comparative Literature, Faculty Member
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Research Interests: Art, Diaspora, Linguistics, Judaism, Irish, and 3 moreLiterary studies, Language Studies, and Modern Language
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ABSTRACT 2 Kings 1:1–5, 14 recounts how a young virgin, Abishag the Shunammite, was brought to old King David to warm his cold bones. After the king’s death, Abishag functions as a pawn in Adonijah’s attempt to usurp his brother.... more
ABSTRACT 2 Kings 1:1–5, 14 recounts how a young virgin, Abishag the Shunammite, was brought to old King David to warm his cold bones. After the king’s death, Abishag functions as a pawn in Adonijah’s attempt to usurp his brother. Throughout the narrative none of Abishag’s emotions are revealed. Although numerous twentieth-century poets have addressed this biblical theme, I shall focus on those by American Jewish women poets. This approach is based on Hélène Cixous observation that “woman must write woman”—in this case, women poets giving a female figure the voice she is denied in the biblical text. Demonstrating Cixous’ argument that women’s writing and freedom is bound up with their sexuality, they use Abishag to find their way from silence and passivity into independence and sexuality. From Glück’s submissive “Abishag” (1975), the little-known biblical figure develops into an independent woman in charge of her own destiny (B. Holender, 1991; E. A. Sussman-Socolow, 1999; D. Walders, 2005), working her way from a mere “warming device” into a sexy woman who uses her sexuality to tease the king (S. Kaufman, 1984) or dreams of different sexual relations (L. Barrett, 2007), her sexuality being bound up with her independence (S. Skolnik, 2011).
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: While numerous postbiblical authors consider the major figures in the Davidic dynasty, others have turned their attention to the more peripheral characters in the David cycle. The three Israeli novels discussed in this article—Yael... more
: While numerous postbiblical authors consider the major figures in the Davidic dynasty, others have turned their attention to the more peripheral characters in the David cycle. The three Israeli novels discussed in this article—Yael Lotan's Avishag (2002), Avraham Burg's Avishag (2011), and Eva Etzioni-Halevy's But the King Did Not Know Her (2014)—focus on Avishag the Shunammite. Although all draw on the same biblical text, each develops it in a particular direction. Lotan's Avishag embodies both political and feminist features, developing from a young maiden into a royal secret agent. Burg's reading is a political one: he remains loyal to the patriarchal point of view by choosing a male narrator; hence his Avishag is still a relatively minor character. Etzioni-Halevy's novel falls into the category of feminist historical/biblical romance. Her protagonist, Avishag, positioned as a romance heroine, develops from a passive maiden into a mature woman who seeks to determine her own fate. Moreover, since Avishag's character in the biblical narrative is mentioned in the middle of the inheritance struggle between David's sons Adonijah and Solomon, each of the novelists uses it as a springboard for rereading the Davidian story through a different prism. By choosing different narrators, different languages (English, pseudo-biblical Hebrew, and contemporary Hebrew), and slightly different genres, each of the authors adapts the biblical story to enhance a different reading of the Bible, making the ancient story accessible and fresh to contemporary readers as an "old vessel filled with new wine."
Research Interests: Literature, Narrative, Hebrew Bible, Politics, Hebrew, and 3 moreShofar, Romance, and Reading Process
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This article explores the ecopoetry written by three women poets who also identify themselves as Jewish poets: Alicia Ostriker, Marge Piercy and Naomi Ruth Lowinsky. It examines whether they employ any or some/all of the “emancipatory... more
This article explores the ecopoetry written by three women poets who also identify themselves as Jewish poets: Alicia Ostriker, Marge Piercy and Naomi Ruth Lowinsky. It examines whether they employ any or some/all of the “emancipatory strategies” characteristic of the ecofeminist re-imagination of nature and human relationships with the natural world, seeking to answer several questions: How far can these poems be considered part of eco-Judaism? Does the fact that their authors are women also make them ecofeminist works? Does the poets’ Jewish feminist identity contribute to their ecopoetic call for ecological change?
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Hartmut Vollmer (1993) and Barbara Wright (2005) argue that women Expressionist poets have been largely neglected and forgotten. The article seeks to make a modest contribution towards remedying this scholarly lacuna by examining Hedwig... more
Hartmut Vollmer (1993) and Barbara Wright (2005) argue that women Expressionist poets have been largely neglected and forgotten. The article seeks to make a modest contribution towards remedying this scholarly lacuna by examining Hedwig Caspari’s poetry, while focusing on the relationship between Poet and God as reflected in her poetry. Caspari (1882–1922) was a German-Jewish poet who lived and worked in Berlin. During her lifetime, she published two books—a play entitled Salomos Abfall (1920) and a volume of poetry entitled Elohim (1919). Like her play, most of her poetry deals with biblical themes. Caspari’s multifaceted relationship with God informs her poetry from the earliest to the latest poems. This article wishes to expose Caspari’s unique fe/male voice, showing her stance as a “prophet,” “lover,” and “Psalmist”, and attempts to explain why as a modernist poet she decided to write spiritual poetry.
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In 1935, Ludwig Strauss published a volume of poetry entitled
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Ora Shem-Ur’s detective series starring Ali Honigsberg established her as one of the early female pioneers in the new wave of Israeli detective fiction writers. In line with the current trend in post-feminist criticism towards analyzing... more
Ora Shem-Ur’s detective series starring Ali Honigsberg established her as one of the early female pioneers in the new wave of Israeli detective fiction writers. In line with the current trend in post-feminist criticism towards analyzing the place of women within popular culture by looking at fiction as an agent of social change, this article suggests that the series not only addresses gendered topics but also other tensions and social exploitations of power within Israeli society. Shem-Ur thus provides a fascinating portrait of Israeli society in the 1990s, reflecting the way in which female detective fiction developed from light reading material into a social mirror presenting and addressing social changes and shifts in gender conception. Reading the series through a post-feminist lens, the article seeks to demonstrate how its themes of the relations between men, women, and power, and of economic corruption and politics, shed light on contemporaneous Israeli social issues.
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This article explores the ecopoetry written by three women poets who also identify themselves as Jewish poets: Alicia Ostriker, Marge Piercy and Naomi Ruth Lowinsky. It examines whether they employ any or some/all of the “emancipatory... more
This article explores the ecopoetry written by three women poets who also identify themselves as Jewish poets: Alicia Ostriker, Marge Piercy and Naomi Ruth Lowinsky. It examines whether they employ any or some/all of the “emancipatory strategies” characteristic of the ecofeminist re-imagination of nature and human relationships with the natural world, seeking to answer several questions: How far can these poems be considered part of eco-Judaism? Does the fact that their authors are women also make them ecofeminist works? Does the poets’ Jewish feminist identity contribute to their ecopoetic call for ecological change?
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In the Hebrew Bible, Jephthah’s daughter has neither name nor heir. The biblical account (Judg. 11:30–40) is somber—a daughter due to be sacrificed because of her father’s rash vow. The theme has inspired numerous midrashim and over five... more
In the Hebrew Bible, Jephthah’s daughter has neither name nor heir. The biblical account (Judg. 11:30–40) is somber—a daughter due to be sacrificed because of her father’s rash vow. The theme has inspired numerous midrashim and over five hundred artistic works since the Renaissance. Traditionally barred from studying the Jewish canon as women, many Jewish feminists are now adopting the midrashicpoetry tradition as a way of vivifying the female characters in the Hebrew Bible. The five on which this article centers focus on Jephthah’s daughter, letting her tell her (side of the) story and imputing feelings and emotions to her. Although not giving her a name, they hereby commemorate her existence—and stake a claim for their own presence, autonomy, and active participation in tradition and society as Jewish women.
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A proper name individualizes a person, the lack of it making him or her less noticeable. This insight is apt in regard to the nameless women in the Hebrew Bible, a resolutely androcentric work. As Judaism traditionally barred women from... more
A proper name individualizes a person, the lack of it making him or her less noticeable. This insight is apt in regard to the nameless women in the Hebrew Bible, a resolutely androcentric work. As Judaism traditionally barred women from studying, many Jewish feminists have sought access to the Jewish canon. Much of American-Jewish women’s poetry can thus be viewed as belonging to the midrashic-poetry tradition, attempting to vivify the biblical women by “revisioning” the Bible. This article examines two nameless wives who, although barely noted in the biblical text, play a significant role in their husbands’ stories—Mrs. Noah and Mrs. Job. Although numerous exegetes have noted them across history, few have delved into their emotions and characters. Exploration of the way in which contemporary Jewish-American poets treat these women and connect them to their own world(s) is thus of great interest to both modern and biblical scholars. Herein I focus on five poets: Elaine Rose Glickman...
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Although mentioned only twice in Genesis (19:17, 26), Lot’s wife has been a topic of much discussion amongst both traditional and modern commentators and exegetes. However, as opposed to the androcentric traditional midrash, the Jewish... more
Although mentioned only twice in Genesis (19:17, 26), Lot’s wife has been a topic of much discussion amongst both traditional and modern commentators and exegetes. However, as opposed to the androcentric traditional midrash, the Jewish American women poets, who write midrashic-poetry, re-read the biblical story with a feminine/feminist lens, making what Alicia Ostriker calls ‘revisionist mythmaking.’ In this article, I shall focus on seven poems written from the 1980s through to 2014. I shall endeavor to evince the way(s) in which they make use of the biblical text, dealing with themes raised in the traditional midrash or re-reading the latter. I will show how by adducing to her emotions, longings and memories and even fear of the future, the poets portray Lot’s wife first and foremost as a woman.
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This article explores Shirley Kaufman’s reading of the Bible as an elaboration on/of its feminine characters via three devices: (a) Dramatic monologues, in which the woman speaks for herself (“Rebecca” and “Leah”); (b) description of... more
This article explores Shirley Kaufman’s reading of the Bible as an elaboration on/of its feminine characters via three devices: (a) Dramatic monologues, in which the woman speaks for herself (“Rebecca” and “Leah”); (b) description of specific scenes that gives us a glimpse into the character’s point of view (“His Wife”, “Michal”, “Abishag”, “The Wife of Moses”, “Yael”, and “Job’s Wife”); and (c) interweaving of the biblical context into contemporary reality (“Déjà Vu” and “The Death of Rachel”). Fleshing these figures out, Kaufman portrays the biblical women through contemporary lenses as a way of “coming to terms with the past” and the historical exclusion of “women’s bodies” from Jewish tradition, thereby giving them a voice and “afterlife”. Her treatment of the biblical texts can thus be viewed as belonging to the new midrashic-poetry tradition by Jewish-American women that has emerged as part of the Jewish feminist wave. Herein, Kaufman follows Adrienne Rich and Alicia Ostriker’...
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ABSTRACT The themes of dislocation, transition, and motion run like a scarlet thread throughout Shirley Kaufman’s poetry. Born in Seattle (1923-2016) to a family of immigrants, she subsequently moved to San Francisco, Jerusalem, and back... more
ABSTRACT The themes of dislocation, transition, and motion run like a scarlet thread throughout Shirley Kaufman’s poetry. Born in Seattle (1923-2016) to a family of immigrants, she subsequently moved to San Francisco, Jerusalem, and back to the US. As an American-Israeli poetess, she described herself as ‘hyphenated,’ adding in an interview with G. Levin: ‘I felt all along that I’m living between two cultures, two languages, two identities. … in the space between two worlds, which is what my poetry is about’ Framing her existential condition in terms of ‘running back and forth,’ in her essay ‘Roots in the Air,’ Kaufman positions herself in eternal movement – a stance that many of the themes, images, and metaphors she employs reflect. In this article, I focus on these two central aspects of Kaufman’s poetry – her thematic usage of spatiality and movement and the way in which this functions in her metaphorical world.
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2 Kings 1:1–5, 14 recounts how a young virgin, Abishag the Shunammite, was brought to old King David to warm his cold bones. After the king’s death, Abishag functions as a pawn in Adonijah’s attempt to usurp his brother. Throughout the... more
2 Kings 1:1–5, 14 recounts how a young virgin, Abishag the Shunammite, was brought to old King David to warm his cold bones. After the king’s death, Abishag functions as a pawn in Adonijah’s attempt to usurp his brother. Throughout the narrative none of Abishag’s emotions are revealed. Although numerous twentieth-century poets have addressed this biblical theme, I shall focus on those by American Jewish women poets. This approach is based on Hélène Cixous observation that “woman must write woman”—in this case, women poets giving a female figure the voice she is denied in the biblical text. Demonstrating Cixous’ argument that women’s writing and freedom is bound up with their sexuality, they use Abishag to find their way from silence and passivity into independence and sexuality. From Glück’s submissive “Abishag” (1975), the little-known biblical figure develops into an independent woman in charge of her own destiny (B. Holender, 1991; E. A. Sussman-Socolow, 1999; D. Walders, 2005),...
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Hartmut Vollmer (1993) and Barbara Wright (2005) argue that women Expressionist poets have been largely neglected and forgotten. The article seeks to make a modest contribution towards remedying this scholarly lacuna by examining Hedwig... more
Hartmut Vollmer (1993) and Barbara Wright (2005) argue that women Expressionist poets have been largely neglected and forgotten. The article seeks to make a modest contribution towards remedying this scholarly lacuna by examining Hedwig Caspari’s poetry, while focusing on the relationship between Poet and God as reflected in her poetry. Caspari (1882–1922) was a German-Jewish poet who lived and worked in Berlin. During her lifetime, she published two books—a play entitled Salomos Abfall (1920) and a volume of poetry entitled Elohim (1919). Like her play, most of her poetry deals with biblical themes. Caspari’s multifaceted relationship with God informs her poetry from the earliest to the latest poems. This article wishes to expose Caspari’s unique fe/male voice, showing her stance as a “prophet,” “lover,” and “Psalmist”, and attempts to explain why as a modernist poet she decided to write spiritual poetry.
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ABSTRACT: We have been accustomed to associating the detective novel with the “mean streets” of the city since the hard-boiled novels of Raymond Chandler. The detective writer serves as a cartographer of sorts, the protagonist of his... more
ABSTRACT: We have been accustomed to associating the detective novel with the “mean streets” of the city since the hard-boiled novels of Raymond Chandler. The detective writer serves as a cartographer of sorts, the protagonist of his works becoming a flâneur according Walter Benjamin’s definition—one who walks the urban streets of the city acknowledging its diverse forces and heterogenic population. In this article I examine how the city of Beersheba, the capital of the Negev, is depicted in Shulamit Lapid’s Lizzie Badiḥi series, following Lefebvre’s observation that “the spatial practice of a society is revealed through the deciphering of its space.” The fact that it is both the central city in its area and a periphery town, when compared to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, gives it a hybrid character, constituting it as Homi K. Bhabha’s “third space” that blurs the binary hierarchy between center and periphery. Over the period which the series spans (the first book was published in 1989 the latest in 2007), both Beersheba and Israeli society have changed and developed. I demonstrate how these changes are reflected in the series as I examine Lizzie as a figure that symbolizes Beersheba.
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In this article, I would like to focus on four poems written with almost the same background: the German world at the beginning of the twentieth century. An additional factor connecting the four poems is their biblical theme: Abisag of... more
In this article, I would like to focus on four poems written with almost the same background: the German world at the beginning of the twentieth century. An additional factor connecting the four poems is their biblical theme: Abisag of Sunem. The poems are ‘Abisag von Sunem’ (by Agnes Miegel); ‘David und Abisag’ (Erstes Buch der Ko¨nige, Kapitel 1.1–4)’ by Franz Theodor Csokor; ‘Abisag’ by R.M. Rilke; and ‘Abisag’ by Hedwig Caspari. Each poem presents a new reading of the biblical text. Furthermore, my interpretation will demonstrate that this group of poems can be read as referring to two subjects: the generation gap and the lack of communication as its consequence. The use of the biblical story of King David and Abisag and its end with Solomon’s murder of Adonijah is employed as a key that allows a variety of interpretations of the diverse approaches to the general themes which concerned the writers at the beginning of the twentieth century.
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In 1935, Ludwig Strauss published a volume of poetry entitled Land Israel, the contents of which relate to the two visits he had made to the country in 1924 and 1934. This article discusses the imprint of Yehuda Halevi's poetry – in... more
In 1935, Ludwig Strauss published a volume of poetry entitled Land Israel, the contents of which relate to the two visits he had made to the country in 1924 and 1934. This article discusses the imprint of Yehuda Halevi's poetry – in particular his Zion and journey poems – on Strauss's collection. Strauss's poems depict " Eretz Israel " not only via descriptions of the trials and tribulations of the nascent Zionist enterprise but also through cognitive ideals such as the prophetic utopian vision of Zion. Like Halevi, Strauss fuses pragmatism with a messianic vision in Land Israel. Strauss's " Die Verheissungen, " which exhibits close affinities with Halevi's " Ẓiyon halo tishʼali lishlom asirayikh " (" Zion Shall You Not Ask After the Welfare of Your Captives? "), is one of the most striking examples of Halevi's influence on Strauss. The imprint of Halevi's " On the Sea " cycle on Strauss's poems "...
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The fifteenth-century Le Morte Darthur 1 composed by Sir Thomas Malory, is perhaps the most influential Arthurian text written in English. Malory wrote his romance in prose at the end of the fifteenth-century (c. 1470) basing it on... more
The fifteenth-century Le Morte Darthur 1 composed by Sir Thomas Malory, is perhaps the most influential Arthurian text written in English. Malory wrote his romance in prose at the end of the fifteenth-century (c. 1470) basing it on several works in English and French. Since the only facts we know about Malory 2 is his name, his being a knight and his being in prison, at least part of the time while writing the Morte, we can only assume what sources he used. His work includes the story of King Arthur and the Round table from the birth of Arthur until his death and the collapse of the Round Table. It brings in, for the first time in English, the love story of Lancelot and Gwenyvere and combines within the work the Story of Trystram and La Beale Isode.
The article examines the manner in which the female characters are represented in the Nibelungenlied by dividing them into two groups: the traditional women, who keep their socially accepted positions and are supportive of the men, and... more
The article examines the manner in which the female characters are represented in the Nibelungenlied by dividing them into two groups: the traditional women, who keep their socially accepted positions and are supportive of the men, and the women rebelling against tradition, who try to be part of the male world, thereby exceeding the limits of tradition and rebelling against it. The article suggests that in the Nibelungenlied the two groups of women represent the Church and the men the Empire. The group of traditional women represents the Church before the breakout of the historical conflict with the Empire while the group of rebellious women represents the Church in the period of advanced conflict. Dieser Artikel überprüft die Art und Weise, wie die weiblichen Figuren im Nibelungenlied dargestellt sind. Sie sind in zwei Gruppen unterteilt: die traditionellen Frauen, welche ihre sozial festgelegte Stellung akzeptieren und die Manner unterstützen. und die Frauen, welche gegen diese Tr...
The New Testament parable of the “Prodigal Son” has many interpretations in literature and art. In this article I focus on two poetic examples: Rilke’s “Der Auszug des Verlorenen Sohnes” and Lea Goldberg’s “The Prodigal Son,” a cycle of... more
The New Testament parable of the “Prodigal Son” has many interpretations in literature and art. In this article I focus on two poetic examples: Rilke’s “Der Auszug des Verlorenen Sohnes” and Lea Goldberg’s “The Prodigal Son,” a cycle of three poems: “On the Road,” “In the House,” and “Repentance”. I will show the differences between the poets’ approaches to the parable. “The Parable of the Prodigal Son” is part of a series of parables in Luke 15–19. Most traditional Christian exegeses regard the prodigal son’s action as an act of sin and repentance. As we shall prove, Rilke and Goldberg employed the parable in different ways. Rilke used it as a springboard for his own ideas. He was interested in the moment of departure as a symbol of an infinite search for a new path. Goldberg remained closer to the biblical narrative, but she used the parable as a psychological platform to explore the prodigal son’s feelings on his return home, and his family’s reaction to his absence and homecoming.