Only Yesterday: A NovelPrinceton University Press, 2019 M02 26 - 696 pages When Israeli Nobel Laureate S. Y. Agnon published the novel Only Yesterday in 1945, it quickly became recognized as a major work of world literature, not only for its vivid historical reconstruction of Israel's founding society. The book tells a seemingly simple tale about a man who immigrates to Palestine with the Second Aliya--the several hundred idealists who returned between 1904 and 1914 to work the Hebrew soil as in Biblical times and revive Hebrew culture. This epic novel also engages the reader in a fascinating network of meanings, contradictions, and paradoxes all leading to the question, what, if anything, controls human existence? |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 71
... Sabbath, and gives up regular prayer. At first he hopes to get a job on an agricultural settlement, working the land, in accordance with the Zionist slogan that Agnon quotes: “to build and to be built.” But Isaac finds, to his ...
... the army commanders, and serving in the army meant profaning the Sabbath and eating forbidden foods. In spite of himself, Simon went back to pondering the journey. Thus he went to the pawn shop and borrowed money 6 Prologue.
... Sabbath when we bless the consoling month of Av, he sat amid his Hasids before the prayer and maligned the Zionists as was his wont. And when he passed before the Ark with the blessings for the new month and for impending salvation, he ...
... Sabbath Queen on long winter days, and sometimes they get up from the meal and still haven't finished telling the events that happened to Reb Yudel Hasid. 14 Isaac strolled about, up and down, and looked hither Prologue 27.
... Sabbath blessing, say that and we shall answer Amen, but on all other days it's hard to make it without a relative, especially in a new place you don't know. Isaac asked the old man, And you, who do you have in the Land of Israel? The ...