1. Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Only Yesterday, trans. by Barbara Harshav (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).

2. The Second Aliyah was the second wave of immigration of Jews from eastern Europe to Palestine, which took place between 1904 and 1914. It is considered highly influential in the development of Jewish land settlement.

3. These studies appear in Hebrew books and journals. Below is a list of selected studies listed chronologically: Band, Avraham, “Ha-ḥet ve-ʿonsho be-Temol shilshom,” Molad 1, no. 1 (1967): 75–80Google Scholar; Meshulam Tukhner, “Giboro shel Temol shilshom,” in Pesher ‘Agnon, ed. Israel Cohen (Ramat Gan: 'Agudat Hasofrim, 1968), 62–72; Nitza Ben-Dov, “‘Lo Yaʿakov shimkha?,’ Kelev meshuga‘a ve-shigo‘on ha-bikkoret,” in 'Ahavot lo me'usharot (Tel Aviv: ‘Am ‘Oved, 1997), 355–376, 377–380; Boaz Arpaly, Rav-roman: Ḥamishah ma'amarim ‘al Temol shilshom shel S. Y. Agnon (Tel Aviv: Ha-kibbutz Ha-me'uḥad, 1988); Hirschfeld, Ariel, “‘Ivut ha-merḥav be-groteskah be-Temol shilshom le-Shai ‘Agnon,” Meḥkarei Yerushalayim be-sifrut ‘Ivrit 1 (1981): 49–5Google Scholar; Gershon Shaked, “Temol shilshom—Diyokano shel ha-ḥaluẓ ke-korban,” in Ha-siporet ha-'Ivrit 1880–1890 (Jerusalem and Tel Aviv: Keter and Ha-kibbutz Ha-me'uḥad, 1983), 206–209; Amos Oz, “Shtikah ve-yatmut goral,” in Shtikat ha-shamayim (Jerusalem: Keter, 1993), 73–219; Michal Arbel, “Temol shilshom: Ha-ktav ‘al ‘oro shel ha-kelev,” in Katuv ‘al ‘oro shel ha-kelev (Jerusalem: Keter, 2006), 154–198; Dan Miron, “Bein shtei neshamot: Ha-'analogiyah ha-Fa'ustit be-Temol shilshom le-Shai ‘Agnon,” in Me-Vilna le-Yerushalayim, ed. Asaf David and Shmuel Verses (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2006), 549–608; Adia Mendelson Maoz, “‘Akedato shel Yiẓḥak,” in Ha-sifrut ke-ma‘abadah musarit (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2010), 187–201.

4. For example: Miron, “Bein shtei neshamot,” 604; Adi Ẓemach, “Ha-regel ha-metukah,” in Kri'ah tamah ba-sifrut ha-‘Ivrit ba-me'ah ha-‘esrim (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1990), 25–39.

5. Galicia is a historical region in eastern Europe containing numerous Jewish communities. Currently it is divided between the Ukraine and Poland.

6. A moshavah is a farming community of private farms developed by the pioneers of the First Aliyah (1882–1903).

7. Me'ah She‘arim is an old neighborhood in Jerusalem. It is an insular society composed of various ultra-Orthodox groups, some of whom are well known for their opposition to Zionism. They speak Yiddish in their daily lives and shun exposure to many aspects of contemporary society. The reason the neighborhood is named Me'ah She‘arim, which means “one hundred gates” in Hebrew, is that it has hundreds of houses and courtyards, but the name also derives from the weekly biblical passage read when the neighborhood was founded. The particular biblical verse describes Isaac's success and his agricultural yields: “Isaac sowed in that land, and in that year he reaped a hundredfold; God had blessed him” (Genesis 26:12). Meaning he is blessed in all he does.

8. I follow Hasak-Lowy, Todd (“A Mad Dog's Attack on Secularized Hebrew: Rethinking Agnon's Temol shilshom,” Prooftexts 24, no. 2 [2004]: 167–198)CrossRefGoogle Scholar who prefers using the term “mad dog” for kelev meshuga‘a and not “crazy dog” as Barbara Harshav uses in her translation of the novel into the English.

9. Following is a list of selected studies listed chronologically: Schweid, Eliezer, “Kelev ḥuẓot ve-’adam—‘iyyun be-Temol shilshom,” Molad 16, no. 1 (1958): 381–388Google Scholar; Band, “Ha-ḥet ve-‘onsho”; Shaked, “Diyokano shel ha-ḥaluẓ ke-korban”; Oz, “Shtikah ve-yatmut goral”; Arbel, “Ha-ktav ‘al ‘oro shel ha-kelev”; Maoz, “‘Akedato shel Yiẓḥak”; Yigal Schwartz, “Mah she-ro'im mi-kan lo ro'im mi-sham, ’aval gam le-heifekḥ: Siporet ha-‘aliyah ha-shniyah mi-shtei perspektivot historiyot,” in Mah she-ro'im mi-kan (Or Yehuda: Kinneret, Zmora-Bitan, 2005).

10. Arpaly, Rav-roman, chapter 2; Miron, “Bein shtei neshamot.”

11. Gabriel Zoran, Tekst, ‘olam, merḥav (Tel Aviv: Ha-kibbutz Ha-me'uḥad, 1997).

12. Zoran, Tekst, ‘olam, merḥav, 310–313.

13. According to the Babylonian Talmud (Ta‘anit 5a), there are two Jerusalems—the heavenly Jerusalem and the earthly Jerusalem, also named the terrestrial Jerusalem and celestial Jerusalem. The concept refers to Jerusalem's twofold character—the heavenly city that God built for himself and the earthly Jerusalem for the people of Israel. The earthly Jerusalem represents human existence, while the heavenly Jerusalem is the Divine Presence.

14. From a different perspective than is brought in this article, Dan Miron and Ariel Hirschfeld also pointed out the vertical nature of space in Only Yesterday, each from another angle. Miron argues that in many ways Goethe's Faust influenced Agnon's novel. He finds an analogy between Kumer's dream and Faust's famous monologue of the two souls within him—one who loves the world and clings to it with lust, while the other longs to soar above to the realm of the ancestors. This analogy, Miron believes, intended to stress Agnon's philosophy that the error of the Second Aliyah is manifested in Kumer's fiasco of trying to combine the two souls of the nation—Zionism and religion (Miron: “Bein shtei neshamot,” 604). Hirschfeld is more specific about geographic space and its psychological effect. As Kumer approaches Jerusalem, the narrator's language becomes more figurative and dark, as if it is not only a transition of location but a strategic point in the plot. The space is not only horizontal anymore, it is also vertical and its measurements are huge. The earth is seen as a monster while the space above and the sky are sublime. Hirschfeld also finds a polyphonic Jerusalem sung in three voices (Hirschfeld, “‘Ivut ha-merḥav be-groteskah,” 51–52).

15. “The Mines of Falun” was first published in Die Serapionsbrüder, a four-volume collection of Hoffmann's novellas and fairytales that appeared in 1819, 1820, and 1821. Citation here refers to E. T. A. Hoffman, Selected Works, ed. and trans. L. J. Kent and E. C. Knight, vol. 1 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1969), 189–212.

16. Zoran, Tekst, ‘olam, merḥav, 310–316.

17. Smith, Albert B., “Variations on a Mythical Theme: Hoffmann, Gautier, Queneau and the Imagery of Mining,” Neophilologus 63, no. 2 (1979): 179–186CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. A niggun is a vocal Jewish folk song. It sometimes has lyrics and sometimes only a melody, and is especially typical in the hasidic movement.

19. The Old Yishuv is the ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities that existed in Palestine before the first wave of Zionist immigration started in 1882. This is called so in contrast to the New Yishuv, the community based on Zionism and pioneering values. The Old Yishuv was religious and relied economically on donations from the Jewish Diaspora (called ḥalukah).

20. Arpaly, Rav-roman, 130.

21. Zemach, “Ha-regel ha-metukah,” 34.

22. Miron, “Bein shtei neshamot,” 604.

23. Agnon, Only Yesterday, 209.

24. Arbel, Katuv ‘al ‘oro, 202.

25. Ben-Dov, 'Ahavot lo me'usharot, 382.

26. Agnon, Only Yesterday, 287.

27. The significance and role of Balak in the novel have various interpretations in the study of Only Yesterday. For a comprehensive review of the various interpretations and discussion, see Arpaly, Rav-roman, 224–267.

28. Hoffman added a note to the description of the mine in Falun and its entrance, saying: “See the description of the great pinge at Falun in Hausmamann's Journey through Scandinavia, part 5, p. 96.”

29. Yossi Katz, “Jerusalem in S. Y. Agnon's Yesterday before Yesterday,” in Writing the City, ed. Peter Preston and Paul Simpson-Housley (New York: Routledge, 1994), 205–218.

30. Katz, “Jerusalem,” 209–215.

31. Agnon started Only Yesterday in 1930, but completed it in 1945. He wrote most of it during the years of the Second World War with awareness of the tragic fate of European Jewry.

32. There are a few examples of stories in which the rootless protagonist dies at the end, but they are few and far between. Two that come to mind are: Yiẓḥak Shenhar's protagonist in his story, “Israel-Ẓvi” (1940), published a few years before Only Yesterday, and Ya‘akov Shabtai's protagonist, Goldman, in his novel Past Continuous (Zikhron dvarim, 1977). In Shenhar's tale the rootless protagonist is killed in an accident, a random death he did not deserve. Shabtai's protagonist commits suicide.

33. Yehudah Ya‘ari, When the Candle Was Burning, trans. Menachem Hurwitz (London: V. Gollancz, 1947).

34. Yosef Ḥayim Brenner, a Hebrew-language author, was born in Russia and immigrated to Palestine in 1909. In his writing he criticizes the Jewish Old Yishuv for its schnorrer (economically dependent) way of life, and the Jewish First Aliyah landlords, for becoming greedy and giving up so easily on the early pioneering ideology. Brenner believed that the Land of Israel was just another diaspora and no different from other diasporas. Still he was convinced that the Jewish people should remain in one place and take root, and therefore despite his misgivings, he supported Zionism.

35. The first person to compare Only Yesterday with Brenner's “Mi-kan u-mi-kan” was Maletz, David (“Bein ‘Mi-kan u-mi-kan’ le-vein Temol shilsom,” Molad 4, no. 23 (1972): 524–531)Google Scholar. In his examination he illuminates especially the differences in the descriptions of Jerusalem. In both texts, the protagonists go from Jaffa to Jerusalem, but while Brenner's protagonist sees only the negative aspects and the ugly sides of the city, Agnon's protagonist also sees the city's beautiful sublimity.

36. Schwartz, “Mah she-ro’im mi-kan lo ro’im mi-sham,” 137. The term “period novel” combines, according to Schwartz, a “novel of a period” reflecting the era through its own eyes and with its characteristic forms of expression, and a “novel on a period,” which examines the period from a distance and with from a critical point of view, even in parody (ibid., 122).

37. Agnon, Only Yesterday, 642.

38. Schwartz, “Mah she-ro'im mi-kan,” 137.

39. It is not for nothing that Agnon planted in the plot an author character named Brenner who is described as “a great writer, brother of the oppressed.” Agnon, Only Yesterday, 402.

40. An interview with Galia Yardeni, 1962. Yardeni, Teit zayin siḥot ‘im sofrim (ʿEin Ḥarod: Ha-kibbutz Ha-me'uḥad, 1962).

41. In his famous 1911 article, “Ha-janer ha-'ereẓ yisra'eli ve-'avizarayhu” (Kol kitvei Brenner, [Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1960], 2: 270–268), Brenner argues that descriptions of the new life and settlement in Palestine cannot be linear and coherent, but fragmentary like life itself. He also mentions Agnon as a writer who does not use this kind of fragmentary poetics—a citation that might have inspired Agnon to respond and enter into a more direct literary dialogue with Brenner.

42. Yaakov Katz, “Agnon mul ha-mevukhah ha-datit,” in Shai ʿAgnon ba-bikoret ha-‘Ivrit, ed. Avinoam Barshay, vol. 2 (Tel Aviv: Open University Press, 1992), 293–299.

43. Keeping the commandments in the Diaspora was meant to save the Jews from assimilation, but also to protect them physically. Jewish history shows otherwise. The covenant between the people of Israel and God—that if they keep the faith he will protect them from foes—was not exactly borne out in centuries of expulsions, pogroms, and other atrocities. When the pioneers, like Kumer, came to the Land of Israel they were not aware of the conflict with the Arabs until they were here. The naive thought that in the Promised Land there would no danger for Jews was very quickly proven false.

44. Katz, “Agnon mul ha-mevukhah ha-datit,” 296, 299.

45. Dan Laor, Ḥayei ‘Agnon: Biografyah (Jerusalem and Tel Aviv: Schoken, 1998), 372.