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The first full-length Hebrew novel written by a woman in Eretz Israel, available for the first time in English.
This remarkable novel, the first modern Hebrew novel by a woman who was moreover not Jewish and never converted. It is set in the bohemian Moscow of 1922-1923 during Lenin’s NEP (New Economic Policy), a short-lived period of freedom before Stalin’s mass collectivization. It describes the lives and loves of a group of Jewish and non-Jewish men and women in the poor, threadbare, bohemian Moscow of the immediate post-revolutionary period. There is great poverty, accommodation is scarce and cramped, and the same clothes are worn for weeks. But the characters aspire to life, love, poetry, literature, and music.
"Alleyways" by the Christian-Russian Elisheva (Bikhovsky), first published in Tel Aviv in 1929, was the first Hebrew novel written by a woman in Palestine. It is a wide-ranging and bold novel, centered on bohemian liberated women in Moscow, in a revolutionary climate of sexual permissiveness. It unfolds the attraction of the non-Jewish women to Jewish men, or the non-Jewish men's fantasies about the sensual vitality of the Jewish women. Indeed, most of the characters in the novel, both men and women, are in split relationships, and in each relationship triangle there is at least one Jewish character and at least one non-Jewish character.
The plot embraces a year in the lives of men and women from the literary and artistic circles in Soviet Moscow (1923), but its two centers of consciousness are the Russian poet Lyudmila, and her Hebrew teacher, the frustrated writer Daniel. The main question of the book is how far the two will go to follow their hearts. The strength of the story derives first from the quality of its heroes, from their spiritual depth and breadth of mind, from their pursuit of the truth and their desire to fall in love wholeheartedly.
Through Peter Appelbaum's translation the English reader can enter the unique world of young Jews and non-Jews, striving to shape their intimate environment in a turbulent historical era.
—Professor Avner Holtzman, Tel-Aviv University
Peter Appelbaum continues his extraordinary translation project with another forgotten gem, this time a novel by Elisheva Bichovsky, Alleyways, from 1929. Bichovsky, or Elisheva as she was known by her first name, enjoyed brief fame in the small Hebrew community of 1920s Palestine, though more for her biography than for her art. As a non-Jewish Russian who converted to Zionism and moved to Tel-Aviv, she was seen as proof of the attractiveness and promise of Zionism by the struggling supporters of the movement. But when Elisheva added a novel to her popular lyrical poems, it was largely ignored. While Alleyways was the first Hebrew novel published by a woman in Palestine, its focus on women, especially sexually liberated women, seemed trivial to a community that was preoccupied with national rather than personal suffrage. Peter Appelbaum has now translated this lost work and added it to the shelf of Hebrew literature in English translation, which continues to grow and expand.
—Yaron Peleg, Kennedy-Leigh Professor of Modern Hebrew Studies, University of Cambridge
Simtaot is a novel of historical importance, the first Hebrew novel ever written by a woman, Elisheva Bikhovski. The story is captivating bringing us back to the world of Russian poets and writers, pretenders and professors, Jews and Gentiles whose pretense often, but not always, exceeded their talents, transporting us to a world that is no longer there yet one that so deeply shaped the 20th century literary scene. Beautifully translated by Peter Applebaum, who offers a brilliant scholarly annotation making the work easily accessible to those of its readers who do not have an encyclopedic knowledge of European literature and its many languages. It is a work well worth reading, one that encapsulates the birth of cultural Zionism and the rebirth of the Hebrew language.
—Michael Berenbaum, Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies. American Jewish University, Los Angeles, California
Elisheva's novel, Alleyways, is a truly exceptional novel, unlike anything published in Modern Hebrew before its publication in 1929, or since. The first Hebrew novel to be published in Israel by a female author, it follows the passions and the aspirations of numerous characters, both male and female, Jewish and non-Jewish in bohemian Moscow of the 1920s. Unlike contemporary Hebrew fiction which focused on Jewish nationalism and state-building, Elisheva offers her readers a modernist tale of individualism, celebrating the Hebrew language and culture as an artistic creation. Elisheva, a celebrated poet and writer of short stories, builds in the novel a world of intricate love triangles, interfaith relationships and heartaches. Alongside the main road of the literary canon, the fictional world of this novel is multi-layered, winding, changing and always surprising, like walking through the alleyways of history.
The novel was reprinted in Hebrew in 2008 to critical acclaim, and after almost a century it is finally made available in English, in a faithful and clear translation with rich and detailed annotations.
—Dr. Tamar Drukker, Cambridge University Library
Peter C. Appelbaum is Emeritus Professor of Pathology at Pennsylvania State University. During his retirement years he has produced sixteen books and translations, including six translations from the original Hebrew. He was awarded the (London) Times Literary Supplement – Risa Domb Porjes Prize in 2019 for his translation of Avigdor Hameiri’s Hell on Earth.
Benton Arnovitz is a long-time professional book acquisition editor and executive with major publishing houses including MacMillan, Free Press, Collier Books, and Stein and Day and has published works by Isaiah Trunk, Meir Kahane, the Shah of Iran, Solomon Perel, and H.G. Adler. He served as Director of Academic Publications at the United States Holocaust Museum.
Introduction, by Dana Olmert
Translator’s Introduction
Chapter 1. In Dark of Night
Chapter 2. Small Talk
Chapter 3. Narkompros. Someone’s room.
Chapter 4. Literature and Poverty
Chapter 5. Harem
Chapter 6. By Torchlight
Chapter 7. Pancakes
Chapter 8. Expectations
Chapter 9. A Late Guest
Chapter 10. After the Feast
Chapter 11. Husband and wife
Chapter 12. Several
Chapter 13. One
Chapter 14. Hebrew Lessons
Chapter 15. Morning
Chapter 16. Beginning
Chapter 17. Under the Seagull’s Wings
Chapter 18. Without the Devil
Chapter 19. Confessions
Chapter 20. Feelings
Chapter 21. The Female Spy
Chapter 22. Pyrrhic Victory
Chapter 23. Intermezzo
Chapter 24. Nina
Chapter 25. The Crisis
Chapter 26. Meeting Versus Meeting
Chapter 27. A Tale of One Grandmother
Chapter 28. Destinies
Chapter 29. Stormy Night 1
Chapter 30. Stormy Night 2
Chapter 31, The Visit
Chapter 32. Wanderings
Chapter 33. Developments
Chapter 34. Personal Lives
Chapter 35. Meanwhile
Chapter 36. A Practical Interview
Chapter 37. A Dramatic Interview
Chapter 38. A Funeral and a Wedding
Chapter 39. Cold Shivers
Chapter 40. Mr. Fear Is Alive and Well
Chapter 41. Sunset Lights
Chapter 42. Nina Berg Married
Chapter 43. Untitled