The Reflection of the Ethnic Ethos in the Shaping of Mizrahi Female Characters, in the Light of the Literary Criticism of Yaakov Churgin’s Books – Sipurim (1928), Alumot (1957), and Yalkut Sipurim (1981)

Abstract

This article suggests taking a close look at the stories of Eretz-Israel author Yaakov Churgin (1899 – 1990) as a hybrid system of identities, that is ambivalent and unclassified, that can also fit stories about Jews of Ashkenazic origin as they were portrayed in the stories of the Jewish shtetls by authors such as Shalom Aleichem, Dvora Baron, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Shay Agnon, while identifying the similarity between secular or enlightened Orientalism’s attitude to traditional or religious society, and Ashkenazic Orientalism’s attitude to the Mizrahi Jews in Eretz-Israel. The article will also suggest a new diachronic examination of the literary criticism regarding Churgin’s writing in its ethnic context, that will review the primary criticism over the years and address the characteristics of this criticism in light of the changes over the years.