Aharon Reuveni

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Aharon Reuveni ( Hebrew אהרן ראובני; born August 2, 1886 in Poltava ; died December 12, 1971 in Jerusalem ) was an Israeli writer .

life and work

Aharon Reuveni was born in 1886 in the central Ukrainian city ​​of Poltava, which was then part of the Russian Empire . His original surname was Shimshelevitz. He was the son of Zvi Ben Reuven Shimshelevitz (later shortened to Shimshi), who actively supported Zionism in Russia . In 1904 Aharon Reuveni emigrated to the United States , but returned to Russia in 1906 in response to the 1905 Russian Revolution . He and his family were exiled to Siberia in 1908 on charges of hiding weapons . He escaped in 1909 and reached Eretz Israel , which at that time belonged to the Ottoman Empire , via China, Japan and Egypt .

He has published novels, short stories and poems, as well as essays on Hebrew literature and research on early Jewish history . His most important work is his trilogy of Jerusalem novels, which were published individually in the 1920s, and which appeared in a volume in 1954 under the title ad Jeruschalajim (Until Jerusalem). Most of the works appeared in Hebrew ( Ivrit ), but he also published in Yiddish . An anthology of his Yiddish stories was published in 1991 under the title Gezamelte Derzeylungen . He also worked as a translator from English and French.

According to Gershon Shaked , contemporary critics respected Reuveni as a straightforward, sober poet who described things as they were. He was thus close to the European literary current of naturalism at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. In the early 1930s, the literary and political elite passed him over with silence, and in 1935 Reuveni switched from fiction to non-fiction. In the 1960s, his literary work found new attention when literary critics such as Dan Meron and Gershon Shaked paid tribute to him. Reuveni also spoke out on political issues; in 1947, in the run-up to the Israeli declaration of independence, which took place in 1948 , he campaigned for the future state to be called "Israel".

Reuveni was awarded the Bialik Prize in 1969.

His brother Yitzchak Ben Zwi served as the second President of Israel.

Individual works

The Jerusalem Trilogy describes the life of Eastern European immigrants in the city of Jerusalem, which is characterized as a mountainous small provincial town. The immigrants ended up there voluntarily or involuntarily, their hopes are dashed, and many of them want to emigrate again. The plot of the first two parts is rather monotonous and takes a back seat to overarching themes such as the First World War and the bureaucracy of the Ottoman Empire.

Gershon Shaked rates the third part, entitled shamot (rubble), as the most interesting. The life of Meir Funk, who is portrayed as a tragic and at the same time positive figure, is linked to the story of the Wattstein family in Jerusalem, where he initially sublet and later marries. The descent of the Wattstein family in the course of the First World War is described. While readers at the time expected Jerusalem to be portrayed as religiously transfigured , Reuveni portrayed Jerusalem as an earthly city with dirty sides. Meir Funk is eventually drafted as a soldier and dies in the war; but the impression arises as if its downfall contained a new beginning.

literature

Web links

  • Aharon Reuveni at ITHL (Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature) (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Aharon Reuveni (1886-1971). In: Catalog of the Bibliothèque nationale de France . Retrieved November 30, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Zvi Shimshi, Father of Israel's President, this in Jerusalem. In: www.jta.org. November 5, 1953. Retrieved November 30, 2019 . (archived article)
  3. ↑ a b Getzel Kressel: REUVENI, AHARON. In: www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved November 30, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b c Aharon Reuveni at ITHL
  5. ↑ a b c Gershon Shaked: History of Modern Hebrew Literature p. 124
  6. ^ Gershon Shaked: History of Modern Hebrew Literature, p. 123
  7. ↑ Why Not Judea? Zion? State of the Hebrews? In: www.haaretz.com. May 7, 2008, accessed November 30, 2019 .
  8. ^ Gershon Shaked: History of Modern Hebrew Literature, p. 125
personal data
SURNAME Reuveni, Aharon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES אהרן ראובני (Hebrew)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 2, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Poltava
DATE OF DEATH December 12, 1971
Place of death Jerusalem