Place in Muhammad ‘Ali Taha’s Short Story Collection the Leaning Date Palm. The Role of Place in the Literature of the Arab Minority in Israel (Published)
The present study deals with the function of place in the short-story collection The Leaning Date Palm by the Palestinian writer Muhammad ‘All Taha, published in 1995. The study begins with a definition of the concept of place in the context of narrative fiction, and the important artistic, sensory and semantic functions it has as an artistic component in the story. This is followed by a discussion of the writer’s background and his literary output, after which we provide a survey of the main topics and ideas, as well as the prominent other features, of the story collection The Leaning Date Palm. Our study leads to the conclusion that place plays an important role in this story collection, especially due to the author’s focus on national issues in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Place, after all, constitutes a fundamental element in that conflict. The author, our study has found, deals with the concept of place from a number of different perspectives: Longing for the past, the traditional place, the importance of returning to one’s homeland, and protecting one’s land.
Keywords: Arab minority, Israel, Literature, Muhammad ‘Ali, Taha’s short story, leaning date palm
Integrating Arab and Jewish Students in Colleges in Israel: Ohalo College as a Case Study (Published)
The present article attempts to check the possibility of integrating Arab and Jewish students in colleges in the state, the current integration at Ohalo College is used as a case study. Participants comprised thirty Jewish and Arab, male and female students at Ohalo College in Katzrin, Israel. The current study investigated whether such integration can promote peace between Jews and Arabs. Aspiration for peace is a significant value of life in Israel, and it appears in various contexts and in political discussions. Peace promotes tolerance, prevents violence, and creates dialogue among the parties. Education for peace, which is expressed in integrating Jewish and Arab students, increases the value of higher education in general and the value of education for the Arab community, in particular, due to the inferior status Arabs in the state.The current study discusses the existing types of integration besides the integration possibilities in various academic institutions along with the hardships and obstacles that prevent Arab students from integrating as equals in the Jewish community.
Keywords: Arab Student, Israel, Jewish Student, Peace
Women as a Symbol of Israel in Nathan Shaham’s “Hand of Fate” (“Yad ha-Goral”) (Published)
Nathan Shaham (נתן שחם) – a biographical sketch[1].Shaham is an Israeli writer who was born in Tel-Aviv in 1925. He was a member of the youth movements Mahanot Ha-Olim and Ha-Shomer Ha-Tsa’ir and in 1945 joined the kibbutz of Beit Alpha.In the years 1942-1945 he served with the Palmach and rejoined it in 1947. Subsequently he worked in the Israel Broadcasting Service and wrote for the press. Shaham comes from a family with literary connections. Both his father and his brother were writers, although neither attained his fame. Initially he tried his hand at writing poetry, but his most prominent and important works are in prose, among them the story collections Grain and Lead (Dagan Ve-Oferet), The Gods Are Lazy (Ha-Elim Atzelim) and Veterans’ Housing (Shikun Vatikim), the latter containing the story “Hand of Fate” that is the subject of the present study. In addition, Shaham wrote novels and plays, for example the novel Always Us (Tamid Anahnu) and the plays A Field beyond the Border (Sade Me-Ever La-Gvul) and They’ll Arrive Tomorrow (Hem Yagi’u Mahar), originally written as a story entitled “Seven of Them” F(Shiv’a Mehem”) and later turned into a play.
[1] For more information on the writer see The Hebrew Encyclopedia, Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, 1965, vol. 13, p. 701.
Keywords: Hand of Fate, Israel, Nathan Shaman, Women, Yad ha-Goral, symbol
The Sociolinguistic and Pragmatic Factors that Influence Arabs in Israel to Speak Hebrew (Published)
In 1948, after the Jews became the sovereign majority in the state, they wanted the dominant if not the exclusive identity of this state to be Jewish, and that Hebrew would be the predominant language. Even though Arabic would be considered as an official language of the State of Israel, it has not acquired this status in the final count. The Jewish majority does not speak Arabic and does not know its culture (Shohamy & Donitsa-Schmidt, 1998; Kraemer, 1990). In effect, Hebrew is the language of the state, and as Smooha claims, the dominant language in Israel is Hebrew (Smooha, 1996: 282). The declared policy of the state is to strengthen the Hebrew language, and this conception is not exclusively for the Jews, both the veterans and the newcomers, but also applies to the Arab citizens of the state.The Arab public is not detached from the linguistic environment in the country. Contact with Hebrew speakers, mass media communication, especially the press, radio and television, are an inseparable part of the daily cultural and linguistic culture among the Arabs (Jammal, 2006). Hebrew has become, in the course of time, an integral part of the linguistic repertoire of the Arabs in Israel.The aim of this article is to determine the pragmatic and sociolinguistic facts that influence Arabs to speak Hebrew and to master it well. We shall deal with the degree of influence of Jewish culture and values on the Arabs in the educational system and outside it which has caused Arab youth to live in a divided world between Arab culture and Jewish culture. We shall relate to the creation of a mixed language that is detrimental to the use of Arabic as a mother tongue and tot he reactions against this phenomenon.
Keywords: Arabs, Hebrew, Israel, Pragmatic Factors, The Sociolinguistic