Cover of: The Tunnels and Chains in the Hebrew and Yiddish Works of Ayalti
Adi Mahalel

The Tunnels and Chains in the Hebrew and Yiddish Works of Ayalti

Section: Articles
Volume 32 (2025) / Issue 2, pp. 164-184 (21)
Published 26.03.2025
DOI 10.1628/jsq-2025-0010
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Summary
Bilingual writer Hanan Klenbort (1910-1992), known by his penname Ayalti, authored his first Yiddish novel »Bum« un keytn (»Boom« and Chains) in 1936. The novel sketched a blueprint for understanding the violence that erupted in Palestine just months after he finished writing. It framed the Labor Zionist settlements as anti-utopias, including in the sexual realm. Through examination of Ayalti's debut novels in Hebrew and Yiddish, this article shows the author's unusual linguistic transformation relative to his contemporaries. I will demonstrate how this linguistic shift was caused by the author's disillusionment by Zionism, causing him to turn away from its official language. Instead, he chose to create in Yiddish, a language spoken and simultaneously rejected by most Zionist settlers, but officially embraced by various circles of Jewish diaspora leftists. That shift freed him to represent the situation in Palestine through a uniquely critical and yet highly authentic lens.