Review - American Jewish Archives

242 American Jewish Archives
also took part, as per Victor Green's observation about journals' audi-
ences (57). Another observation in this regard is a need to consider the
force exerted by this core of dedicated nationalists on the public,
something which emerges, for example, in the post-World War One
formation of the American Jewish Congress.
Though begun in Europe, modem Hebrew literature "emigrated"
to the New World, flourishing for decades before its waning in the
second half of the twentieth century. Any serious engagement with
Hebrew literature presents the scholar with a wealth of evidence not
only as to the national aspirations of Jews but also, their ambivalence
in light of the American experience with its freedoms and threats
of assimilation. Early in the 19oos, the Hebrew poet B. Silkiner became
one of the first to set the thematic and stylistic tone followed by other
U. S. American-educated and newly immigrated writers-Efros, Lisitzky,
Bavli, Halkin, and Silberschlag, to name but a few. Silkiner's work,
bearing significant traces of Haskalah values and style, not only toed
the Zionist agenda but turned an eye to the American experience as
well.
Hebrew writers in the United States not only felt obliged to voice
their vision about America, to which many fled from more hostile lo-
cales in the European diaspora, but they also found themselves in the
precarious position of expressing the nationalist sentiments of Amer-
ican Jews. Moreover, many of them were instrumental in contribut-
ing thematically to the Hebrew literary scene by presenting the
potential fate of Jews in the New World against that of other minori-
ties who have been beset by those who brought European culture to
the Western Hemisphere. Perhaps more than literature in any other
language, Hebrew literature Americanizes itseIf in creating a vast
corpus bemoaning the fate of black people and the decimation of
Native Americans by the hands of European intruders, be they
Spanish or EngIish. So while writing so well of the anti-German
sentiments of Polish writers setting their works in the guise of the fate
of the American Indian, such as of Z. Brodowski (122-23), Mickiewicz,
and Sienkiewicz GSg-86), Jacobson misses the hundreds of pages in
Hebrew about the subject. Jews' diseovery of oppressed people other
than themselves, Na€ive Americans and African Americans, drew
Hebrew writers to inelude the lot of these people into the American-
ized corpusof Hebrew letters as a warning to their readers who were