296 Yael S. Feldman
- Anthony D. Smith, Th e Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford, UK: Blackwell,
1986). - Anthony D. Smith, Ha’umah bahistoria [Th e Nation in History], trans. Aya
Broyer (Jerusalem: Historical Society of Israel, 2003), 84. - Ruth Kartun-Blum, Profane Scriptures: Refl ections on the Dialogue with the
Bible in Modern Hebrew Poetry (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1999). - “Recreating the Canon,” ed. Aschkenasy, special issue, AJS Review 28:1
(2004). - David Jacobson, Modern Midrash: Th e Retelling of Traditional Jewish Narra-
tives by Twentieth-Century Hebrew Writers (Albany: SUNY Press, 1986). - Gershon Shaked, “Modern Midrash: Th e Biblical Canon and Modern He-
brew Literature,” in “Recreating the Canon,” ed. Aschkenasy, special issue, AJS Re-
view 28:1 (2004): 61. - For more on these issues, see the introduction to my recent book, Glory and
Agony: Isaac’s Sacrifi ce and National Narrative (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
2010). - Malka Shaked, I Will Play You Forever: Th e Bible in Modern Hebrew Po-
etry, 2 vols. (Tel Aviv: Yediot Aharonot, 2005). Another example is the popularity
of Meir Shalev’s humorous contemporary spin-off s on the Bible: Tanakh Akhshav
[Th e Bible Now] (Tel Aviv: Schocken Books, 1985), erroneously touted as “the fi rst
secular midrash” on the Hebrew Bible, and his recent Bereshit: Beginnings in the
Bible (in Heb.) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2008). - See my No Room of Th eir Own: Gender and Nation in Israeli Women’s Fiction
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1999) and “ ‘A People Th at Dwells Alone?’
Toward Subversion of the Fathers’ Tongue in Israeli Women’s Fiction,” in “Recreat-
ing the Canon,” ed. Aschkenasy, special issue, AJS Review 28:1 (2004): 83 – 103. - Shalom Spiegel, Th e Last Trial: On the Legends and Lore of the Command to
Abraham to Off er Isaac as a Sacrifi ce: Th e Akedah, trans. Judah Goldin (New York:
Behrman House, 1967). - Paradigmatically, no diachronic order is necessarily intended here.
- For full details and a tracing of the Russian Orthodox roots of this expres-
sion, see Feldman, Glory and Agony, chap. 1. - Y. Lamdan, “Aqud ” (Bound), in In the Triple Harness (Berlin: Shtibel, 1930),
30 – 31. All translations from the Hebrew are mine, unless otherwise stated. - Ibid.; emphasis added.
21. “Al hamizbe’ah.” (On the Altar), in ibid, 30 – 31. Cf. Lamdan’s “nafshil eifo
dumam tzavar al hamizbe’ah” to the Aramaic Ta r g u m (translation) of Gen. 22. In
modern Hebrew poetry, these self-immolating gestures had become emblematic
of Jewish martyrdom: cf. Bialik’s famous lines, “to go joyfully to their death, / to
stretch out their necks / to every honed knife, / to every raised axe,” in his 1898
poem “If You Wish to Know,” in H. N. Bialik: Shirim 1890 – 1898, ed. Dan Miron (Tel
Aviv: Dvir, 1983), 405.