Zali Gurevitz

A Hundred Years Later

1. Reading Bialik

Reading through a poem and/or an essay of H. N. Bialik (there is a book of essays in English + an afterword I wrote), and a discussion of his concept of Judaism and of Hebrew as maintaining a double stance - of place and exile.

2. The Place - Between Israelis and Jews

Discussion of the notion of Place - following my essay on Place - perhaps as an introduction for a conversation on the different perspectives of Israelis and American Jews.

3. The Israeli Present

Exploring the sense of the present in Israeli life - distinguishing between the pressing "now," which is the most familiar pace, and the lacking present as a structure of routine without historical moments and connection to Jewish time.

4. Identity, Otherness and Plurality

Discussing Identity and Otherness as a basic problematic of culture, and the current changes that Israeli society and culture are going through in recent years.

5. Dialogue in Conflict

Exploring and discussing the already customary group encounters between Arabs and Jewish Israelis, which present crucial problems for dialogue in a state of conflict.

6. The Hebrew Revolution

The turn of Hebrew at the turn of the 20th century, and to this moment, from a father tongue, employed principally for study and prayer to a revived and newly developed mother tongue, spoken and reenacted in poetry and prose.

7. Reading Contemporary Hebrew Poetry

Reading a few poems from modern Hebrew poetry (which have good translations to English), illustration the range and depth of the new poetic Hebrew, and its own changes in the last hundred years.

8. Three Surprising Hebrew Children Songs

Reading through three known and easy children songs (nad-ned, yesh lanu taish, uga uga) and discovering very surprising in-depth meaning of these poems which reflect on the culture they are both writing and are written by.

9. Reading Genesis

Reading the first eleven chapters of Genesis to reveal its intricate notion of place, expulsion, exile and wandering, from the very beginning - with emphasis on the garden of Eden, Cain's land of wandering, Noah's arc and the tower of Babel.