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15 Judaism and Literature
Get accessIlan Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. His books include The Hispanic Condition (1995), On Borrowed Words (2001), Spanglish (2003), Love and Language (2007), and Gabriel García Márquez: The Early Years (2010). He is the editor of The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories (1998), The Poetry of Pablo Neruda (2003), the 3-volume set of Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories (2004), Becoming Americans (2009), The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature (2010), and The FSG Books of 20th-Century Latin American Poetry (2011). His play The Disappearance, performed by the theater troupe Double Edge, premiered at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles and has been shown around the world. His story “Morirse está en hebreo” was made into the award-winning movie My Mexican Shivah (2007), produced by John Sayles. Stavans has received numerous awards, among them a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Jewish Book Award, the Southwest Children Book of the Year Award, an Emmy nomination, the Latino Book Award, Chile’s Presidential Medal, the Rubén Darío Distinction, and the Cátedra Roberto Bolaño. He was the host of the syndicated PBS show Conversations with Ilan Stavans (2001-2006). His work has been translated into a dozen languages.
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Published:03 February 2014
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Abstract
The written word is central to Judaism, a prophetic religion in which the divine word is delivered to humankind in the Hebrew Bible (known as Torah). Text not only enables the divine word to be delivered in the Torah, but also serves as the medium through which the entire legalistic system on which Judaism is based is established. In addition, the written word serves as the depository of collective memory that comes in the form of storytelling. In biblical Judaism, this storytelling acquires two presentations: Torah She’Beal Peh, the oral law or tradition, and Torah She’Bemichtav, the written law or tradition. This article examines the role of literature—and text—in Judaism from the Hebrew Bible to the present. It considers how the idea of literature for Jews has evolved over time and how technology has made the written word ubiquitous. It also discusses changes in readership and how Jewish literature has become global through translation. Finally, it looks at the transition between the written word and the graphic image as literary agents.
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