The presentation by Allison Shachter focused on women’s internationalism and Jewish world literature, exploring the contributions and experiences of Jewish women writers in the 20th century. The speaker highlighted the exclusion of women writers from mainstream literary movements and the erasure of their complexities in the process. The speaker focused on modern short stories and novels because these genres are secular, important, and social and are considered to be the women’s greatest prose. The speaker then introduced several female Jewish writers, including Leah Goldberg, Elisheva Bikovdky, Dvora Baron, and Debora Vogel, who challenged the norms that defined the rules of art, artists, literature and new forms of Jewish collective attachments.

The presentation argued that these women writers responded to the political and social transformations of their time, challenging the norms and rules of art, literature, and Jewish collective attachments. They resisted the pull of national languages and interrogated the boundaries of Jewish and non-Jewish culture, offering a feminist critique of the economic crisis of their time and documenting the relationship between the artist and society.

One of the writers highlighted in the presentation is Debora Vogel, who was educated in German, Jewish, Yiddish and Hebrew and embraced Jewish ideologies. She was the editor of a modernist journal and expressed frustration with the conservative circles of the time. In 1935, she published her only collection of montages, offering a revolutionary space for feminist critique and representing the struggle of the artist to survive and maintain value. The presentation also mentioned Lorraine Hansberry and Tillie Olsen, who faced FBI scrutiny, and recognized their shared struggle as minority women writers. The author argued that it is important to push against the boundaries of world Jewish literature and to recognize the contributions of these writers.

From this presentation, I learned about the experiences and contributions of Jewish women writers in the 20th century and the challenges they faced in the literary world. I was struck by the author’s argument that these writers offered a feminist critique of the economic crisis of their time and documented the relationship between the artist and society.

In conclusion, the presentation provides valuable insights into the experiences and contributions of Jewish women writers in the 20th century. It highlights the challenges they faced in the literary world and the ways in which they responded to the political and social transformations of their time. It is a reminder of the importance of recognizing the contributions of minority writers and the role that literature plays in documenting and critiquing the conditions of our time.

The presentation by Shai Ginsberg explored the intersection of world literature, Jewish literature, and the question of the law. It started by examining the idea of inclusion and exclusion in the category of Jewish literature, and how this affects its standing in the literary world. The speaker noted that the secularisation of Jewish literature emerged as early as the 18th century, but it was not until later that scholars began to relate it to the European notion of literature, leading to a more expansive definition of Jewish literature. However, the speaker also raises questions about the role of religion in Jewish literature and whether it should be included in the definition.

The speaker discussed the economic and political context behind the emergence of Jewish literature as a world literature. He noted that Jewish literature’s circulation was heavily reliant on the circulation of religious texts and raised questions about the endpoint of Jewish literature. The presentation also explored the ambiguities of Jewish literature in the literature of the Haskalah in the Russian Empire. Some texts may have been written on behalf of the state as part of its Jewish policies, raising questions about how such texts can be considered world literature. The speaker then shifted focus to the function of reading and thinking about Jewish literature, emphasising the centrality of questions about who reads, under what circumstances, and how texts are translated and disseminated. The current reception of a text is what matters, and the speaker questioned the alignment of our literary vision with that of a historical text and what to do when the world defies our vision.

Finally, the speaker turns to the example of S. Y. Agnon’s novella “In the Heart of the Seas,” to illustrate some of the complexities involved in reading and interpreting Hebrew literature. He noted that at the time Jehoshua was writing his novella, Hebrew literature was in the midst of a sea change, as many Jews were immigrating from Eastern Europe to Mandatory Palestine, which was emerging as the centre of Hebrew letters. However, the political context was complicated, as the British denied the Jewish collective presence in the territory, even though Jews made up 30% of the overall population of Palestine. The speaker suggested that the prospects for Hebrew literature were very much on the way to becoming a major literature, both politically and literary, even though it was still the literature of a persecuted minority dispersed around the globe.

In conclusion, the presentation highlighted the complexities involved in defining Jewish literature, the political and economic context surrounding its emergence, and the function of reading and thinking about Jewish literature. By examining the example of S. Y. Agnon’s novella “In the Heart of the Seas,” the speaker provided a concrete example of the challenges involved in reading and interpreting Hebrew literature. This presentation is a valuable contribution to the study of world literature and Jewish literature, and provides a nuanced and thoughtful approach to the question of the law in relation to these fields.