Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T09:03:21.910Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The End of Exile: Jewish Identity and Its Diasporic Poetics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Maeera Y. Shreiber
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

What is the location of Jewish identity? Cultural studies has provoked reexaminations of many long-standing tropes of ethnic and religious identity, including that of exile. Such inquiries have potentially explosive consequences for the already vexed notion of Jewish identity, especially in the context of an American experience. This essay means to trouble the relation between Jewish identity and the problematic marker of exile, within the contexts of cultural and postcolonial theory, drawing on the work of Jewish and non-Jewish thinkers, including Alain Finkielkraut, Daniel Boyarín, and Edward Said. This analysis allows for a sustained consideration of a diasporic poetics—an alternative aesthetic model for imagining community and the attendant terms of belonging. The experimental Yiddish-English bilingual verse of the contemporary poet Irena Klepfisz serves as a paradigmatic example of such a vision that challenges the familiar opposition between home and exile. Yiddish, a notoriously inclusive language and a by-product of the Diaspora, is central to her inquiries into the relation between individual and collective identities and into the role gender plays in the construction of such entities.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 113 , Issue 2 , March 1998 , pp. 273 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Adler, Rachel “A Question of Boundaries: Toward a Jewish Feminist Theology of Self and Others.” Tikkun: An Anthology. Ed. Lerner, Michael. Oakland: Tikkun, 1992. 465–46.Google Scholar
Antin, David “Writing and Exile.” New Directions: An International Anthology of Prose and Poetry. New York: New Directions, 1991. 95–106.Google Scholar
Anzaldúa, Gloria Borderlands / La frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Spinsters / Aunt Lute, 1987.Google Scholar
Bell, Daniel “A Parable of Alienation.” Mid-Century: An Anthology of Jewish Life and Culture in Our Times. Ed. Harold U. Ribalow. New York: Beechhurst. 1955. 133–13.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Charles A Poetics. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1992.Google Scholar
Bhabha, Homi K “The Third Space: Interview with Homi Bhabha.” Identity: Community. Culture. Difference. Ed. Rutherford, Jonathan. London: Lawrence, 1990. 207–20.Google Scholar
Boyarín, Daniel A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity. Berkeley: U of California P, 1994.Google Scholar
Boyarin, Daniel, and Boyarín, Jonathan “Diaspora: Generation and the Ground of Jewish Identity.” Critical Inquiry 19 (1993): 691–725.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braidotti, Rosi Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory. New York: Columbia UP, 1994.Google Scholar
Clifford, James “Traveling Cultures.” Cultural Studies. Ed. Grossberg, Lawrence, Nelson, Cary, and Treichler, Paula A. New York: Routledge, 1992. 96–116.Google Scholar
Cutter, William “Ghostly Hebrew, Ghastly Speech: Scholem to Rosenzweig, 1926.” Prooftexts 3 (1981): 413–41.Google Scholar
Doane, Janice, and Hodges, Devon Nostalgia and Sexual Difference: The Resistance to Contemporary Feminism. New York: Methuen. 1987.Google Scholar
Eisen, Arnold Galut: Modern Reflections on Jewish Homelessness and Homecoming. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Finkelstein, Norman The Ritual of New Creation: Jewish Tradition and Contemporary Literature. Albany: State U of New York P, 1992.Google Scholar
Finkielkraut, Alain The Imaginary Jew. Trans. O'Neill, Kevin and Suchoff, David. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1994.Google Scholar
Friedman, Susan Stanford “Craving Stories: Narrative and Lyric in Contemporary Theory and Women's Poems.” Feminist Measures: Soundings in Poetry and Theory. Ed. Keller, Lynn and Miller, Cristanne. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1994. 15–42.Google Scholar
Di froyen: Women and Yiddish. Tribute to the Past, Directions for the Future. New York: Jewish Women's Resource Center. 1997.Google Scholar
Hall, Stuart “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” Identity: Community, Culture, Difference. Ed. Jonathan Rutherford. London: Lawrence. 1990. 222–22.Google Scholar
Harshav, Benjamin The Meaning of Yiddish. Berkeley: U of California P, 1990.Google Scholar
Harshav, Benjamin “The Semiotics of Yiddish Communication.” What Is Jewish Literature? Ed. Wirth-Nesher, Hana. Philadelphia: Jewish Pub. Soc., 1994. 143–14.Google Scholar
Hellerstein, Kathryn “In Exile in the Mother Tongue: Yiddish and the Woman Poet.” Borders. Boundaries, and Frames: Essays in Cultural Criticism and Cultural Studies. Ed. Henderson, Mae G. New York: Routledge, 1995. 64–105.Google Scholar
Henderson, Mae G. Introduction “Borders, Boundaries, and Frame(works).” Borders, Boundaries, and Frames: Essays in Cultural Criticism and Cultural Studies. Ed. Henderson. New York: Routledge, 1995. 1–28.Google Scholar
Hever, Hannan “Hebrew in an Israeli Arab Hand: Six Miniatures on Anton Shammas's Arabesques.” The Nature and Context of Minority Discourse. Ed. JanMohamed, Abdul R. and Lloyd, David. New York: Oxford UP, 1990. 264–26.Google Scholar
Hirsh, Marianne, and Keller, Evelyn Fox Conflicts in Feminism. New York: Routledge. 1990.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric. Introduction “Inventing Traditions.” The Invention of Tradition. Ed. Hobsbawm and Ranger, Terence. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1983. 1–14.Google Scholar
JanMohamed, Abdul R “Workdliness-without-World. Home-Iessness-as-Home: Toward a Definition of the Specular Border Intellectual.” Edward Said: A Critical Reader. Ed. Michael Sprinker. Oxford: Blackwell. 1992. 96–120.Google Scholar
The Jerusalem Bible. Ed. Harold Fisch. Jerusalem: Koren. 1989.Google Scholar
Josipovici, Gabriel “Going and Resting.” Jewish Identity. Ed. Goldberg, David Theo and Krausz, Michael. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1993. 309–30.Google Scholar
Klepfisz, Irena Dreams of an Insomniac: Jewish Feminist Essays, Speeches, and Diatribes. Portland: Eighth Mountain. 1990.Google Scholar
Klepfisz, Irena A Lew Words in the Mother Tongue: Poems Selected and New (1971-1990). Portland: Eighth Mountain, 1990.Google Scholar
Klepfisz, Irena “Di mames, dos Ioshn / The Mothers, the Language: Feminism, Yidishkayt, and the Politics of Memory.” Bridges (Winter-Spring 1994): 12–47.Google Scholar
Klepfisz, Irena “Queens of Contradiction: A Feminist Introduction to Yiddish Women Writers.” Found Treasures: Stories by Yiddish Women Writers. Ed. Forman, Freída, Raieus, Ethel, Swartz, Sarah Silberstein, and Wolfe, Margie. Toronto: Second Story, 1994. 21–58.Google Scholar
Klepfisz, Irena Telephone interview. Summer 1995.Google Scholar
Levitt, Laura S “Jewish Feminist Identity/ies: ‘What's Home Got to Do with It?‘” Amer. Jewish Studies Conf., Boston. Dec. 1992.Google Scholar
Mankekar, Purnima “Reflection of Diasporic Identity: A Prolegomenon to an Analysis of Political Bifocality.” Diaspora 3.3 (1994): 360–36.Google Scholar
Mendes-Flohr, Paul “Hebrew as a Holy Tongue: Franz. Rosenzweig and the Renewal of Hebrew.” Hebrew in Ashkenaz: A Language in Exile. Ed. Glinert, Lewis. New York: Oxford UP, 1993. 222–22.Google Scholar
Oz, Amos “After the Sound and the Fury: An Interview.” Prooftexts 2 (1982): 305–30.Google Scholar
Prell, Riv-Ellen “Rage and Representation: Jewish Gender Stereotypes in American Culture.” Uncertain Terms: Negotiating Gender in American Culture. Ed. Faye Ginsburg and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing. Boston: Beacon. 1990. 248–24.Google Scholar
Rich, Adrienne Introduction. Klepfisz, Few Words 13–25.Google Scholar
Rosenzweig, Franz Franz. Rosenzweig: Life and Thought. Ed. Nahum N. Glatzer. New York: Schocken. 1953.Google Scholar
Said, Edward “The Mind in Winter: Reflections on Life in Exile.” Harper's Sept. 1984: 49–55.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Regina M “Nations and Nationalism: Adultery in the House of David.” Critical Inquiry 19 (1992): 131–13.Google Scholar
Sharpe, Jenny Allegories of Empire: The Figure of Woman in the Colonial Text. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1993.Google Scholar
Shohat, Ella “Antinomies of Exile: Said at the Frontiers of National Narrations.” Edward Said: A Critical Reader. Ed. Sprinker, Michael. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992. 121–12.Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Ed. Nelson, Cary and Grossberg, Lawrence. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1988. 271–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steiner, George “Our Homeland, the Text.” Salmagundi 66 (1985): 4–25.Google Scholar
Weinreich, Max History of the Yiddish Language. Trans. Noble, Shlomo and Fishman, Joshua. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1980.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William “The Solitary Reaper.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1993. 195–19.Google Scholar
Yaeger, Patricia Honey-Mad Women: Emancipatory Strategies in Women's Writing. New York: Columbia UP, 1988.Google Scholar