Contents: ARITCLES Reuven Kiperwasser - The Bitter Fate of Elihoref and Ahiya: The Metamorphosis of a Story from the Land of Israel that Went to Babylonia Tamar Kadari - Song and Meaning:A new Look on Rabbinic Exegesis of the Song of Songs Hanan Mazeh - ' 'עיקר עיבורה של דינה זכר היה (The original conception of Dinah was as a male): The Origin and Development of an Aggadic Tradition in Rabbinic Literature Itay Marienberg-Milikowsky - ‘Bekibbutz galuyot u behikabetz betulot ’: On the Identification of the Forbidden Piyyutim in a Responsa by Rav Natronai Gaon Ophir Münz-Manor - The Payytanic Epithet and its Relations to Figurative Language in Pre-Classical Piyyut Yotam Poplker - ‘Yam Acharon’ on the Way to America: ‘Immigrants’ as a Key Story to the Work of L. A. Arieli-Orlof Itamar Drori - Return of the Author – ‘Bell and Pomegranate’ by Hayim Hazaz Dvir Tzur - The Birth of the New Jew in the New Land: On Pioneer–Native Relations in S. Yizhar's Stories, or on the Face(s) of the Native Home. Ilana Szobel - The Girl with the Billy-Goat’s Hoof: Parental Abuse, Metamorphosis and Poetics in the Poetry of Tsvia Litevsk Nancy Ezer - Bursting Out of the Center and Breaking into it in Two Literary Autobiographies: Yoram Kaniuk’s Post Mortem and Leah Aini’s Rose of Lebanon

The articles in this volume: Jonatan Feintuch – The History of R. Ada b. Abba – Multiple Contexts and Multiple Messages in a Babylonian Talmudic Sugya. Shulamit Elizur – Exile on Native Soil. Avital Davidovich-Eshed – Sanetified God, Desecrated Woman: The Female Body as a Site of Cultural Conflict. Rereading the Story of the Murder of Sarit from a Hebrew Chronicle of 1096 . Tsippi Kauffman – Birth in Hasidic Literature: Gendered Readings. Yakir Englander – Tension Regarding the Status of the Zaddik's Body: The Stories about the Ba'al 'Ahavat Israel' from Viznitz. Yaniv Goldberg – 'You Are Not My Groom' – A Feminist Reading in S. An-sky's Between Two Worlds (The Dybbuk). Omri Ben-Yehuda – Between Bialik and Himslef: Acting Hyperbole Out. David Heyd – 'The House which Householders Attend': Agnon on the Theater. Zahava Caspi – Apocalypse, Territory and Identity in Joseph Mundi's The Ruler of Jericho and The Messiah. Shimrit Peled – Construction of Female Sexual Subjectivity in Victoria by Sami Michael in Comparison to other Hebrew and Israeli Writers. List of Contributors. English Abstracts.

Moshe Simon-Shoshan: The Story of Honi Hame'agel in Mishnah Ta'anit 3:8: A Case Study in the Art of Mishnaic Narrative The articles in this volume: Gilad Sasson: The Expanded Biblical Story about Abigail Who Prevents David from Shedding Blood Uriah Kfir: On Poetry and Potency: En Ron Becha – A Muwashshah by Abraham haBedersi Nicham Ross: The Tale if Not Higher and its Hasidic Source Ariel Levinson: The Riddle of Berdichevsky's Miriam Mimi Haskin: Dancing Amidst Flames of Fire: The Hora Dance in the Hebrew Culture and Literature Dror Eydar: 'Sometimes the Holy May Erupt Out of the Ghostly Shame of our Language': On the Subconscious Materials in the Hebrew Language and Literature Eran Tzelgov: Ha-makom ve-shivro: Desire, Place and Myth in Moshe Smilansky's Khawadja Nazar Dana Keren-Yaar: Modernism of Her Own: Miriam Yalan-Stekelis and Trips Boys Take to where Dolls Grow Roni Miron: Historiography and the Problem of Historical Continuity: A Hermeneutical View of Baruch Kurzweill's Thinking Hadas Shabat-Nadir: The 'Yeshurun Effect' in the Poetry of the Seventies: Avot Yeshurun, Dan Pagis and Erez Biton Miriam Neiger: 'And I didn't say, "A vision for the end of days"': Eschatology in the Poetry of Yehuda Amichai Anat Danziger: Four Exercises in Visual Poetrics: On the Poetry Album of Dalia Rabikovitch

Articles in this volume: Ophir Minz-Manor – Figurative Language in Pre-Classical Piyyut: Between Biblical Models and Poetic Innovations Tali Artman-Partock - Literary Event and Historical Narrative: Between Rabbinic and Patristic Literature Gila Vachman – Poets' Language and Hints of Piyyutim in 'Midrash Chadash Al-Hatorah' Dina Stein – Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer and Seder Eliyahu: Preliminary Notes on Poetics and Imaginary Landscapes Gali Drucker Bar-Am – A Voyage between Voyages: Three Versions of The Travels of Benjamin the Third by Mendele Mokher Sforim David Fishelov – Frishman's Translation of Byron's Cain and its Significance Ariel Hirshfeld – Chaim Nahman Bialik's The Pool (Ha-Brekhah) – the Self as the World Aminadav Dykman – The Idea of Nativism in the Poetry of Esther Raab Tamar Yacobi – The Continuing Enigmatic Quality in the Late Poetry of Dan Pagis Doli Benhabib – Not Being a Shark – On the Fate of What was Abandoned in 1948 according to Yonim Betrafalgar by Sami Michael

There are abstracts of all the articles in English.

There are abstracts of all the articles in English For contents and article abstracts please press " Sample pages " by the cover photo.

This Festschrifft for Prof. Yona Fraenel includes 23 articles on various aspects of the literary study of Rabbinic literature. The studies relate to the poetics of genre and the relationship of literature to history, including cultural dialogues with Christianity and questions of transmission and composition of the various rabbinic genres.

This book presents a descriptive and historical poetics of the re-written bible, or the exegetical narrative in rabbinic literature of Late Antiquity. The exegetical narrative is composed of a story which simultaneously represents and interprets its biblical counterpart. As a hermeneutical reading of the biblical story presented in narrative form, its defining characteristic lies precisely in this synergy of narrative and exegesis. This genre is but one historical manifestation of the general cultural phenomenon of re-writing canonical texts which begins already in the Bible itself and could be said to reach the modern era in works by Thomas Mann, Joseph Heller, and even “Moses the Prince of Egypt.” Paradoxically, it is precisely the canonical status of the text – that which acts as the foundation for its cultural legitimacy – that invites its constant transformation, violation, and appropriation by succeeding generations of readers. Within this general perspective, this book concentrates on one specific historical moment – rabbinic culture in Late Antiquity. Why, in what circumstances, and through which means does rabbinic culture transfigure itself by re-imagining its past? How does this genre exert its hegemony over the sacred text, its power and meanings? What are the cultural paradigms of coherence that both enable and restrain its reception? These are some of the questions the book addresses in an attempt to provide a new perspective on the cultural imagination of the rabbinic period.