The Literature of Second Generation Hungarian Immigrants to Israel

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In recent decades, the Israeli scene of literary, artistic and cultural creation is laden with the memory of the by-gone world of (or of the parents of) the contemporary generation of approximately middle-aged people who have reached prominent posts in Israeli intellectual, cultural, and artistic circles. A forceful example of this phenomenon is the work of people of Oriental or mizrahi origin, which is greatly inspired by African and Indian post-colonial doctrines. Another, just as prolific yet not that sounded in political terms, is the work of children of immigrants of European origin, mostly Holocaust survivors, depicting the early period of their families in the young, centralist and socialist State of Israel of the 1950s and 1960s. Interestingly, quite a few of these writers have Austro-Hungarian roots, whether as Hungarian- or Romanian- or Slovakian- or Carpatho-Rusyn-born, or as offspring to people coming from these places. In the proposed presentation, I will introduce the following writers and their central works: Judith Rotem, Yoel Hoffmann, Suzanne Adam, Esti G. Haim, Yael Neeman, and others. My presentation will strive to create a group portrait of these Israeli writers of Hungarian origin through their biography, identity and ideology (e.g., as Orthodox people or kibbutz dwellers, though mostly formerly), familial setting, Holocaust memory or legacy, literary devises with stress on language(s) issues, and last - their clinging to literary creation as an alternative, virtual space for entrusting their complex worlds.

Required equipment: over-head projector.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Ilana Rosen is Associate Professor of Hebrew Literature at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev at Beer Sheva, Israel. She studies the documentary literature of Jews of Central-Eastern Europe as well as the multi-ethnic narrative of emigration to and foundation of the south of Israel. Her publications include: Sister in Sorrow – Life Histories of Female Holocaust Survivors from Hungary (Detroit, MI: Wayne State UP, 2008), winner of the 2009 American Folklore Society (AFS) Elli Köngäs-Maranda Women Studies Prize; Soul of Saul – the Life, Narrative, and Proverbs of a Transylvanian-Israeli Grandfather (Burlington, VT: Vermont University, 2011).