The New Past and Future

Short summary of articles
The theme of this issue emerged from a special confluence of circumstances. The Spring 2010 Budapest International Book Festival, an event for which we always publish our first of our four issues of the year, has Israel as its honorary guest, and in May of this year will also be the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of Theodor Herzl’s birth. Every opportunity provides new dimensions, new discoveries, and new contexts. For example, the appearance of this issue is important not only because of the occassion of Israel’s honorary role in the Book Fair, but it also appears at the time of the second round of voting of the Hungarian elections, when in all probability a political party with an openly antisemitic attitude will become a meaningful Parliamentary force (an example without equal in Europe today). This is a development which makes one reflect whether, given the Hungarian Jewish historical experience, it is still possible for us to maintain that we should deal only with the pure culture and scholarship. It is possible that the time has arrived when the present historical situation occasions a fissure in our twenty years of cultural commitment. Such a development enriches the importance of Zionism and of present-day Israel alike.

The two central protagonists of this issue are Theodor Herzl and Avigdor Hameiri. When Israel and Zionism are discussed it is virtually always only Herzl’s name that is mentioned, eventhough there is another name that richly personifies both Zionist and Israeli and Hungarian culture and history: Avigdor Hameiri. As we are endeavoring to prove here and elsewhere in the world (and particularly in Israel), Hameri, with his origins in the heartland of greater Hungary, is a classic figure in modern Israeli literature and culture.

This newest issue illustrates this connection, primarily with the first publication of original texts by Hameiri, who has reappared in an adventureous matter, with his five-hundred page Hungarian-language The Singing Pyre, which first appeared in 1953. We publish here two chapters of this work. (In an earlier publication we featured only a fragment.) János Kőbányai’s study, Manuscript from Atlantis, from Avigdor Hameiri’s Autobiography, describes the adventure of the appearance of the Hungarian manuscript, along with the Hebrew-language autobiographical documents by Hameiri. In another article Itamar Jaoz-Keszt, who has inherited the mantle of representing Hungarian literature in Israeli culture from Hameiri, paints a bittersweet portrait of the aged and disappointed Hameiri.

No less sensational is the publication by the classical Hungarian writer, Dezső Kosztolányi, who was a good friend of Hameiri, of his „Jewish Republic“, dealing with the Balfour Declaration.

Personalities who represent the cream of Israeli scholarship today are the authors of our article grouping on Theodor Herzl: Slomo Avineri (Herzl’s Zionism: Historical Analysis and Political Vision), Steven E. Aschheim (Zionism and Europeanness), as well as Michael K. Silber, an expert on religious Zionism before Herzl (Alliance of the Hebrews, 1863–1875: The Diaspora Roots of an Ultra-Orthodox Proto-Zionist Utopia in Palestine).

These articles are complemented by Ágnes Heller’s portrait of Herzl (Tivadar Herzl is One Hundred and Fifty).

A. B. Jehosua, one of the major representatives of contemporary Israeli culture, wrote The Israeli State, a deep essay which analyzes complex present-day problems surrounding this term. Szilvia Peremiczky, in her study – From Dreaming to Half Waking. An Outline of Modern Hebrew Literature from Herzl to Oz, pays particular attention to Hebrew works available in Hungarian translation. Peremiczky is also the author of the critique The Translator’s Solitude. Contemporary Hungarian Poets in Israel, which deals with Itamar Jaoz-Keszt’s new anthology presenting contemporary Hungarian poets. Vilmos Ágoston wrote a portrait of Amos Oz, this year’s recepient of Budapest’s Grand Prize – If We Live in Such Times. Amos Oz’s Reception of the Budapest Grand Prize – where he pays particular attention to Oz’s new novel, which appeared on the occasion of the Book Festival.

András Forgách reports on the film Adzsami, nominated this year for an Oscar, and he also discusses more broadly the fantastic development of Israeli filmproduction in recent years (Adzsami. Anthropology or Art?).

We illustrate this issue with the creations of Miriam Neiger, the Israeli graphic artists and poet who was born in Komárom (with an introduction by Alfréd Schőner: Sky Blue and Bordeaux. The Opening of Miriam Neiger Fleischmann’s Exhibition in Budapest).

The poems in this issue are the work of Israeli Itamar Jaoz-Keszt, who writes in Hebrew, as well as by Imre Goldstein, who also lives in Israel but writes in Hungarian, and by Géza Röhrig, who writes in Hungarian, lives in New York but maintains strong ties with Israel. Our column Family Life (Sára Zorándy – Dániel Sipos) reports on the life of Israelis residing in Budapest.

We also want to express here our sadness at the loss of Tamás Raj, the outstanding figure of post-holocaust Hungarian Jewry (János Kőbányai’s picture report on the „Jewish Renaissance“ and the farewell by Ferenc Raj, the brother of the deceased). Ágnes Heller for her part bids farewell to Zádor Tordai, our journal’s ‚saint‘ friend (The Life and Death of Zádor Tordai).

CONTENTS

Géza Röhrig: Homesickness (poem)

Avigdor Hameiri: This is the Land (poem)

A. B. Jehosua: The Israeli State (essay)

Avigdor Hameiri: The Phoenix (Autobiographical excerpt)

Dezső Kosztolányi: „Jewish Republic” (article about the Balfour Declaration)

Dezső Kosztolányi: The Poet of the Faded Language; The Goblet; Yellow Dusk; A Drop of Ink (translation by Hebrew poets)

Avigdor Hameiri: Lajos Blau in the dressing room of the primadonna (Autobiographical excerpt)

Ágnes Heller: Tivadar Herzl is One Hundred and Fifty (essay)

Slomo Avineri: Herzl’s Zionism: Historical Analysis and Political Vision (essay)

Michael K. Silber: Alliance of the Hebrews, 1863–1875: The Diaspora Roots of an Ultra-Orthodox Proto-Zionist Utopia in Palestine (study)

Steven E. Aschheim: Zionism and Europeanness (study)

Itamar Jaoz-Keszt: Signs of Faith; Two Candles (poems, translated by Ágnes Gergely)

Szilvia Peremiczky: From Dreaming to Half Waking. Outline of Modern Hebrew Literature from Herzl to Oz (study)

Vilmos Ágoston: If We Live in Such Times. Amos Oz’s Reception of the Budapest Grand Prize (book review)

János Kőbányai: Manuscript from Atlantis. Avigdor Hameiri’s Autobiographical Works (study)

Avigdor Hameiri: My Meeting with Bialik (article)

Itamar Jaoz-Keszt: The Exceptional Dossier – Encounter with Avigdor Hameiri (recollections)
Szilvia Peremiczky: The Solitude of the Translator. Contemporary Hungarian Poets in Israel (review)

András Forgách: Adzsami – Anthropology or Art? (film criticism)

Géza Röhrig: Moses; God to Jonas, suffering in the hot sun (poems)

Imre Goldstein: I Don’t Write About Death Today Either; Mental Infirmity (poems)

János Kőbányai: Photo Essay about Tamás Raj

Farewell to Ferenc Raj from his brother

Ágnes Heller: Zádor Tordai’s Life and Death

Alfréd Schőner: Sky Blue and Bordeaux. Introduction to Miriam Neiger-Fleischmann’s Budapest Exhibition

Szilvia Peremiczky: The Artistry of Miriam Neiger-Fleischmann (article)

Sára Zorándy – Dániel Sipos: Family Portrait I. II. III.

The Observer
Table of Contents of the 2009 Issue

Qty

Content

Ágnes Heller: Tivadar Herzl is One Hundred and Fifty

Avigdor Hameiri: My Meeting with Bialik

Peremiczky, Szilvia: Szilvia Peremiczky: The Artistry of Miriam Neiger-Fleischmann

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