Abel killed Cain and
Moses entered
the Promised Land
and the children of Israel stayed in the Wilderness.
I ride in Ezekiel’s
chariot,
and Ezekiel himself
dances like Miriam the prophetess
in the Valley of Dry
Bones.
Sodom and Gomorrah
are booming
and Lot’s wife has
turned into a pillar of sugar and honey
and David king of
Israel is alive and well.
I so want
to mix up the Bible.
Background and Intentions
Amidst the degrees
and the language preparation and the travel and the writing and reading of
poetry, the experience that grounds me most in this research is my general
practice (since childhood) of operating in the world as a contrarian. It is
mythic lore in my childhood home, the extent of my stubbornness, and an ongoing constructive friction in my professional life. At its heart, this doctoral study is a
contrarian project. It seeks to run counter to staid Christian perspectives on
the Hebrew Bible and Jewish devotion, as well as counter to the theopolitical
determinism of the State of Israel. It is intended to resist didactic methods
of constructing and disseminating biblical theology in favor of the more
sidelong efforts of poets and artists. Finally, it is aimed at resisting the
common scholarly view that non-statist Israeli poetry of the post-WWII period
is at the least antitheological and more commonly atheistic.
The
constructive goal of this project is to understand the theological implications
of the work of Biblical citation, allusion, and appropriation in some
representative poets of this era. It is my instinct that doing so will provide
new theological tools to counter the inherited supersessionism of even the most
progressive Christian churches. This outcome, I expect, will in part have to do
with demonstrating to Christian readers how the Bible is read, internalized,
and interpreted in Jewish community through the lens of sociopolitical history,
and in part with dislodging rigid Christian views of the theologies and
theodicies of the Hebrew Bible. As a cultural vehicle, poetry (and the literary
criticism that accompanies its study in the academy) offers expansive
opportunities for both transformations. It is my intention to engage in close
study of these materials as detailed below for their own sake, and use the
period following the completion of my dissertation to do the work of autotranslation—bringing
versions of this work into explicit practice in my denomination (Disciples of
Christ) and other faith communities, faith-rooted community organizing efforts,
and seminary education.
I
begin this study with six years of masters’ level work in theology, Christian
history, biblical languages, and ministry preparation. I have completed a
Master of Theological Studies degree at Harvard Divinity School, with a focus
on ancient Christianity, and will complete my Master of Divinity degree at
Pacific School of Religion this December. My language study has included Latin,
Greek, Hebrew, Coptic, Aramaic, and Spanish. I am a recently commissioned
minister in the Disciples of Christ and a member of the ministry team at
Tapestry Ministries in Berkeley. This congregation is unique in its focus on
the incorporation of the severely disabled into active and visible ministry,
its embrace of gender variance and racial diversity, and its commitment to
horizontal, team-based leadership. As I complete this degree, I will be
continuing in my weekly ministerial duties—preaching, teaching bible study,
providing pastoral care, organizing church events, and structuring and
scripting liturgy. I anticipate completing full ordination following doctoral
coursework in 2018.
I
am also a working poet, a social justice activist, a professional fundraiser
and executive director in the field of urban economics, and a single mother of
two. Each of these roles has informed my commitment to this area of study. My
love of poetry and translation will no doubt be the stoke that keeps the fire
of this work alight. My simultaneous work, for nearly 20 years, with grassroots
community organizing and with senior international real estate executives has
attuned me in a unique way to the dynamics of financial and social power. My
children, who have been raised observing in both Christian and Jewish religious
communities, provide a continual truing of the theological leaps we take in
interreligious dialogue. The fact that they are at once entirely comfortable as
loving agents in a multireligious world and uncertain of how to reconcile
theological realities in an interreligious context reminds me daily of the importance
of providing creative conceptual tools for cross-tradition theological
dialogue.
Research
Statement—Booth/Colomb Formulation
I am studying the appearance
of citations, allusions, and appropriations of Hebrew Bible scriptures in
post-Shoah poets in the statehood period of Israel because I want to find
out how these uses re-work the theological concepts of the Bible in light
of multinational trauma in order to help my reader understand new and
more liberating approaches to biblical hermeneutics, particularly for
progressive Christians in need of an alternative to inherited supersessionism.
The working title
for my project is “Mixing Up the Bible: New Theologies and Theodicies in
Post-Shoah Israeli Poetry.” A few choices made in constructing this title are
worth noting at the outset. First, the concept of “mixing up the Bible” comes
from the work of Yehuda Amichai, the poet whose work inspired this study. The
passage quoted at the start of this paper demonstrates one sense in which
Amichai intends to “mix up the Bible” with poetic voice, as he explores
alternative narratives that arise from engaging with the Bible as a living
text.
The
term “Shoah” has been chosen over the more common “Holocaust” to designate the
Jewish genocide. In the case of both terms, capitalization implies the
specificity of the event, separating it in common parlance from other genocidal
activities. The use of “Shoah” is a response to problematic theological
implications of “Holocaust.” As Zev Garber and Bruce Zuckerman have
demonstrated,
the concept of
holocaust originates from the narrative of the binding of
Isaac (
akedah) and suggests a
necessary near-total sacrifice and
compliance with the will of God. “Shoah” on the other hand indicates a
“darkness” or a “catastrophe,” which does not import sacrificial redemption
into a description of a yet-to-be-fully-understood historical event. It is also
meaningful to note that this term places Jewish historical memory in a more
mutually sympathetic relationship with the Palestinian “Nakba” (catastrophe) of
1948, which signals the largest single expulsion of Palestinians from the land
of what is now the state of Israel.
The
choice to confine my primary study to the works of poets within the state of
Israel has not come without internal conflict. I am deeply concerned about
engaging in an Israel-centric academic study given the current state of
Israeli-Palestinian relations and the likelihood of a dramatically more hawkish
American foreign policy in the Middle East near term. My spiritual and ethical
commitments remain with the dispossessed and vulnerable in the present tense,
even while I struggle to understand the formation and sustenance of the
militarized Israeli state in the wake of the near-extermination of the European
Jewish population. It has been, at various times, my intention to expand this
study into contemporaneous Arabic literature in Palestinian territories and
refugee communities. Increasingly, however, I am seeing the need to confine my
language and cultural studies to the Hebrew and Yiddish that are more proximate
language acquisition goals for me. It is my intention, however, to center on the
voices on a spectrum of dissent against the Israeli state as a colonial power,
incorporating Arabic works in translation as they emerge in the field of study.
Finally,
it is important to note that I am separating out the work of “theology” (which
the modifier “new” implies is largely constructive theology in this setting)
from the work of “theodicy” (which wrestles with God’s relationship to evil in
the created world). I intend to maintain these as separate fields of inquiry,
rather than seeing theodicy as a subset of theology. Using this approach leaves
room for poets who wish to engage one without the other—who, in the period
following genocide, must tread carefully in the acceptance or deconstruction of
religious belief. At any given moment, one can have a relatively well-formed
theology without a solid theodicy, and vice-versa. I want to honor these steps
of resistance and embrace of faith in the wake of the Shoah for what they have
to teach us about biblical stories.
Audience/Evidence/Theory
The primary
audience for this doctoral project will be academics and students in the fields
of biblical studies, Jewish studies, biblical theology, comparative literature,
and—to a much lesser extent and more aspirationally—homiletics. With the
exception of Jewish Studies, these fields are largely dominated by Christian
scholars, ministers, and students, and it is precisely into this echo chamber
that I hope the project will speak. While I intend my study to be deeply rooted
in the linguistic and cultural norms of Jewish studies, it will be my goal to
make the study relevant to Christian thinkers in a position to put its outcomes
to work.
The
primary “data” for the project will be the appearance of citations, allusions,
and appropriations of scripture in the subject body of literature. A
substantial part of the initial effort will be seeking out these “data” in the
original language texts, attending to the many subtleties of reference often
lost in translation and differences in biblical literacy. Having defined a
relatively limited but representative body of literature, I will gather these
extracted sources and investigate them with various interdisciplinary tools.
The
central evaluative tool will be comparative literature, which brings with it literary
criticism, translation theory, critical and postcolonial theory, queer and
feminist theory, and a variety of other approaches. It will be essential,
however, to maintain a focus on the biblical theology at play in literary
interpretation in this body of work—not a broadly accepted move. Using these
two strategies, I will attempt to activate and highlight the theological work
being done in these text, not necessarily to demand recognition from the
largely secular field of comparative literature, but to promote the value I
believe these texts have for contemporary progressive biblical theology.
Artists of Interest
My primary
interest in the statehood age of Israeli literature is to engage those poets
operating outside of the nationalist narrative, but whose work still enjoys
significant prominence in the literary historiography of the period. Statehood
in Israel presumes both nationalist narratives and a kind of appropriated
theological orthodoxy. Anti- or non-statist literature of the period then can
be seen to resist either or both, in varying degrees. At the same time, I hope
to become conversant in works that represent the significant influence of statist
lyric poetry. The following poets will form the initial body of literature for
study:
·
Yehuda Amichai
(1924-2000): Widely understood as Israel’s greatest and most prolific modern
poet. Immigrated to Mandate Palestine from Germany in the early 1930’s. First
published in 1955.
·
Esther Raab
(1894-1981): Born in Palestine, and lived in the emerging state with some brief
exceptions. First published in 1930. Generally viewed as a pastoral poet whose
engagement with the Jewish homeland implicitly supports the Israeli state.
·
Yona Wallach
(1944-1985): Born and died (at a young age, due to breast cancer) in and around
Tel Aviv. First published in the 1960s. Her poetry offers a strong feminist,
sex-positive voice and an ethic of resistance to Israeli state determinism.
·
Dahlia Ravitkovitch
(1936-2005): Born in Mandate Palestine to Russian immigrant parents. First
published in the 1950’s. Her work invokes ritual and scriptural elements of
Jewish life in the context of her commitment to peace activism and
reconciliation.
·
Natan Zach (1930- ): Immigrated from Berlin to Mandate
Palestine as a young child. Has exercised substantial impact on Hebrew
Modernist poetry as an editor, translator, writer, and critic. Controversial
figure who has theorized an arguably racist cultural rift between Ashkenazi and
Sephardic Jewry.
·
Natan Yonatan (1923-2004):
Born in Ukraine, but immigrated to Mandate Palestine as a young child.
Represents the lyric, state-promoting voice in this period. His poems have
often been set to music and used for national occasions.
Additional poets
will be incorporated as the study proceeds. I will not attempt to offer a
balance between voices of state-support and voices of resistance, but instead
to engage those poets whose approaches to scripture depart from the Bible and
religious experience as cultural artifacts and instead offer constructive
theological concepts. I do not exclude atheism, antitheology, or agnosticism
from this field of constructive theology, particularly in the experimental mode
of Modernist poetry.
Three particularly
helpful anthologies are:
·
Burnshaw, Stanley, et. al.,
eds. The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself, Second Edition (2003)
·
Glazer, Myra, ed. Burning
Air and Clear Mind: Contemporary Israeli Women Poets (1981)
·
Kaufman, Shirley, et. al.,
eds. The Defiant Muse: Hebrew Feminist Poems from Antiquity (1999).
Finally, the
study will also include seminal works of literary fiction in, or in reference
to, this period in the history of the Israeli state (particularly the works of
Amos Oz), and works of visual and performance art that further the analysis of
the artist’s relationship to statehood.
Disciplines Review
Biblical Theology
It is significant
that I have chosen to align with biblical theology as a central discipline
rather than biblical studies—which currently enjoys greater legitimacy in both
secular and seminary-based higher academics. While
contemporary scholars offer significant exceptions, biblical theology as a
discipline can be seen as antiquated based on the burdensome assumptions of
scriptural inerrancy, divine provenance, and the supersession of the Hebrew
scriptures in light of the New Testament. It is, however, precisely the
continuation of these practices that I plan to explore, with the aim of
challenging them through the lens of contemporary literary endeavors rather
than biblical studies methodologies.
Outdated
efforts to study and teach biblical theology remain largely inaccessible or
uninteresting to non-Christian readers, because the effort of the field is to
provide a foundation for homiletics, pastoral leadership, and seminary
education that presumes faith-rootedness. Its origins date back to the 2nd
and 3rd centuries, with the works of the early church fathers, so
that the field remains active primarily in orthodox communities.
The contemporary
historical critical project of biblical studies, however, often aims too far
toward the complete demystification of scripture and remains largely
inaccessible to Christian faith communities. While some of the resources of
contemporary biblical hermeneutics that have emerged from the field will be of
value in this project, the aims of my work are quite distinct from the field of
biblical criticism.
Comparative Literature
Comparative
literature is a well-established contemporary field of study that will provide
the essential components of my methodological approach to my doctoral study.
The practice of comparative literary study has its origins in transnational
literary community in 19th Century Europe. It remains a vital field
of study, though often considered too methodologically broad to provide a
critical mass of direct academic dialogue. Its natural concerns with sociology,
anthropology, history, literature, translation, religious studies,
international relations, etc. create a wide field for topical focus.
While many
contemporary comparatists focus on transnational literary criticism—and thus
the concern of intercultural communication, translation practices, power
relations, etc.—my focus will be primarily the comparison of literary culture
across time and political experience (particularly the Shoah, the Jewish
diaspora, and the creation of the state of Israel). There is, no doubt, a
comparative concern in the relationship between Israeli (Hebrew, Yiddish) and
Palestinian/Arabic sources in the post-war period in land increasingly being
claimed as Israeli territory. However, the central question of the project is
how the literary intent of the bible is renewed, reinterpreted, reappropriated,
and undone in later literary sources.
Additional Fields of
Inquiry/Sources of Methodology
The project will require
exploration of several other disciplinary fields, including:
·
translation studies
(biblical Hebrew, modern Hebrew, modern Arabic, Aramaic, Yiddish, and English)
·
critical theory (feminist,
postcolonial, queer, and literary theory)
·
border studies (diaspora
and the nature of modern-contemporary Israel/Palestine)
·
Jewish studies (hermeneutic
traditions, literature in society, Jewish mysticism, secularization and
post-secularism)
·
Middle Eastern studies
(modern and contemporary political concerns)
I will engage
these additional fields as sources of alternate perspectives and critique,
particularly for where they point to sites of marginalization and erasure, to
the political and social implications of my work, and to the translation of my
work into contemporary religious practice communities. Each of these fields is itself
by nature interdisciplinary, calling on a variety of methodologies. Most
notable are the foundations of linguistics, political theory, political
science, religious studies, history, psychology, gender studies, and textual
studies.
Translation studies
and critical theory are in large part embodied in the practice of comparative
literature, and will not represent a significant departure from that primary
field (though each is dramatically broad in its own bibliographic and
conceptual reach). Jewish studies and Middle Eastern studies are unavoidable as
fields of consultation/critique as I pursue study in this literary field.
I am particularly
interested in the work to be done with queer theory and queer theology in my
area of study. One of the foundational realities of the Israeli state is a
return, in the wake of the Shoah, to a cultural hyper-masculinity, an equation
of national sovereignty with virility. One sees the theme throughout the
statehood period (as well as in contemporary history and historiography),
understood by many Jewish studies scholars as a reaction against anti-Semitic
tropes that feminized Jewish men. Gender play and linguistic and theological
queering are used widely in the poetic works that comprise this study. Some
work has been done to explore secular queer theory in this context, but the
activation of queer theology remains to be done (again, largely due to the presumed
antitheology or secularism of this body of work.)
Border studies
has consolidated quite recently as an academic field focused on the formations
of physical and effective political boundaries in international power
relations. It simultaneously investigates both practical social and political
circumstances and the metaphorical significance of border-making and -breaking.
It is a particularly meaningful field for my work given the dramatic impact of
post-war nation-state delineation during the period of my study, as well as the
contemporary concern of the expansion of the Israeli state and Palestinian
sovereignty.
There is the
potential for my work to benefit the field of border studies with an
investigation of the theological and rhetorical effort at play in the
construction of boundaries. The theological foundations of the history of
Jewish sequestration in the West and contemporary practices of Palestinian
containment are explored more frequently in literary responses to social
circumstances than in political ones. This study has the potential to free some
of those underutilized literary resources.
Professional Goals
Multivocationality
has been the reigning logic of my entire working life, in part due to financial
necessity and in part due to the significant divergence of my interests. I have
embarked on this doctoral study with the intention to remain multivocational
for the foreseeable future, although it is my hope that the fields of my
interest will begin to converge more naturally over time. Ideally, I would like
to find a meaningful but not exclusive place in academic dialogue and teaching
in undergraduate or seminary settings. I have mostly ruled out the option of
seeking employment solely as an academic in a larger research institution, both
because I am much more committed to teaching than to academic production and
because I hope to continue to engage in other efforts, including active
part-time ministry and housing equity activism.
Terra Incognita
The most critical
area for my immediate growth as a scholar in this field is in the mastery of
Hebrew and Yiddish. This is not exactly “terra incognita” but rather a
recognition of the need for a near native-speaking mastery of the languages so as to be highly attuned to subtle biblical references and their cultural
implications.
