LITERATURE AND NATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

hannah amit-kochaviof which was easily available to readers, Israeli Hebrew culture has by and largeremained ignorant of Arabic culture and literature. The most current reactionto the translations expressed in reviews has therefore consistently been surprise,almost always at the very existence of Arabic literature, and sometimes also atits unexpected high quality. It should be noted that critics had obviouslyinternalised the preliminary norm stating that translations of Arabic literatureinto Hebrew ought to be made for political and ideological reasons. Reactionnorms therefore include a seeming contradiction – requiring high quality of thetranslations and waiving this demand. The latter was justified by the claim thatthe introduction of Arabic literary works into Hebrew culture was notnecessarily a beneficial reading experience but should be seen as a moral duty. Itwas meant to relieve Israeli Jewish conscience of its guilt of ignorance of theArabs, in the naive belief that literature directly reflected real life and that socalledArab nature and ways of life could be learnt through reading translatedliterature.The contradiction between the call for quality and its rejection representsthe opposition between two Israeli Jewish cultural points of view – seeing Arabsand their culture as equal to other nations’ and fit to compete with Hebrewreaders’ time and money, or seeing them as an inferior oriental culture. Thelatter view was often expressed in well-intentioned but condescending terms.The quality requirement was made mostly by those personally active in the fieldof Arabic-Hebrew translation as translators, initiators and editors, while thecondescending view was mostly expressed by critics unfamiliar with Arabic,who also invariably wrote reviews of original Hebrew literary works as well astranslations from other languages. A typical example is Heda Boshes, a minorHebrew writer and journalist, who repeatedly admitted her total ignorance ofArabic language and literature in her reviews, all the while heartily apologisingfor it. Thus in a review of a short story anthology translated from Arabic (1971)she commented:Reading this collection is extremely disappointing from the literary point of view.This is literature in the most superficial sense of the word. And yet it is a collectionworth reading, despite the limitations demonstrated by its writers and its unexcitinglevel, in order to at least partially understand Arab writers’ mentality. (Haaretz, 16January 1972)Surprise and admiration were expressed at the few cases judged to be goodliterary texts and/or translations. Hebrew translations made by Israeli Arabs(most notably Anton Shammas’ translations of Imil Habibi’s novels in generaland The Pessoptimist in particular) met with special acclaim. This too revealscovert prejudice, as wonder was expressed at an (Israeli) Arab’s perfect masteryof Hebrew style, as if this were some sort of extraordinary miracle.Finally, an overtly political parameter was used in reviews of translations— 106 —www.taq.ir