3 - Social Tensions and Cultural Encounters in Contemporary Israeli Midrash

Summary

A NEW JEWISH–ISRAELI DISCOURSE has evolved on multiple fronts since the last decades of the twentieth century. The establishment of pluralistic batei midrash (houses of study) in Israel, dedicated to the study of Jewish literature, to the practice of Jewish rituals, and to the formation of local communities, has been part and parcel of this development (see Sheleg 2010; Katz 2011: 195–264; Werczberger 2011: 203–25; Jacobson 2017). Another aspect of this discursive landscape has been the renewal of the ‘Jewish bookshelf’ as a modern term, referring not merely to traditional Jewish writings but also to modern works echoing earlier ones. This renewal is reflected first and foremost in the resurgence of particular ancient stories, turning up as popular legends in different Jewish study groups.

One example of such a modern rereading involves Rabbi Hiya bar Ashi and his struggle with the yetser hara, the evil inclination (BT Kid. 81b). This story, probably set down in writing around the fifth century CE, has recently sprung to new life as part of an emerging discussion on the relationship between femininity, sexuality, Jewishness, and Zionism. In what follows I will try to account for its growing popularity among contemporary Israeli readers, and elaborate on its adaptation in and contribution to a modern Jewish discourse. I will show that contemporary readings of this story both infused it with new substance (mainly involving feminist interpretations) and set it within modern genres such as poetry, popular music, and emails. From a functional point of view, contemporary commentators on the Rabbi Hiya bar Ashi story not only created new ideological (feminist) horizons for the newly read text, but also used it to establish a ‘challenging’ local discourse, to use Bruner and Gorfain's words (1984). This discourse or narration act resists, as a whole, a single definitive interpretation (Bruner and Gorfain 1984: 60), both by employing different genres from various cultural contexts, and by metaphorically marking the conflict between competing groups within Israeli society.

The renewed textual traditions under discussion are usually called by their authors ‘readings’, ‘interpretations’ or ‘exegeses’ (in Hebrew, keriah, peirush, midrash, or derashah).