Yosef Haim Brenner

Yosef Haim Brenner

Yosef Haim Brenner (Hebrew: יוסף חיים ברנר) (also Yosef Chaim Brenner) (1881 - 1921) was a Ukrainian-born Hebrew-language author, one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew literature.

Biography

Brenner was born to a poor Jewish family in Novi Mlini, Ukraine. He studied at a yeshiva in Pochep and published his first story, Pat Lechem ("A Loaf of Bread") in HaMelitz, a Hebrew language newspaper, in 1900, followed by a collection of short stories in 1901. In 1902, Brenner was drafted into the Russian army. Two years later, when the Russo-Japanese War broke out, he deserted. He was initially captured, but escaped to London with the help of the General Jewish Labor Union which he had joined as a youth. He lived in an apartment in Whitechapel which doubled as an office for HaMe'orer, a Hebrew periodical that he edited and published in 1906-1907. In 1922, Asher Beilin published Brenner in London about this period in Brenner's life.

Brenner married Chaya, with whom he had a son, Uri.

Brenner immigrated to Palestine (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in 1909. He worked as a farmer, eager to put his Zionist ideology into practice. Unlike A. D. Gordon, however, he could not take the strain of manual labor, and soon left to devote himself to literature and teaching at the Gymnasia Herzliya in Tel Aviv.

According to biographer Anita Shapira, he suffered from depression and problems of sexual identity.

Brenner was murdered in Jaffa in May 1921 in the course of the anti-Jewish Arab riots known as the "massacres of 1921".

Zionist views

In his writing, Brenner praised the Zionist endeavor, but also contradicted himself, contending that the Land of Israel was just another diaspora and no different from other diasporas.

Commemoration

The site of his murder is now marked by Brenner House, a center for the youth organization of the Histadrut, Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed. Kibbutz Givat Brenner was also named for him, whilst kibbutz Revivim was named in honour of his magazine.

Writing style

Brenner was very much an "experimental" writer, both in his use of language and in literary form. With Modern Hebrew still in its infancy, Brenner improvised with an intriguing mixture of Hebrew, Aramaic, Yiddish, English and Arabic. In his attempt to portray life realistically, his work is full of emotive punctuation and ellipses.

Published works

• In Winter (novel), Hashiloah, 1904 [Ba-Horef]
• Around the Point (novel), Hashiloah, 1904 [Misaviv La-Nekudah]
• Min Hametzar (novel), 1908
• Nerves (novella), Shalekhet, 1910 [Atzabim]
  • English: In Eight Great Hebrew Short Novels, New York, New American Library, 1983
  • Spanish: In Ocho Obras Maestras de la Narrativa Hebrea, Barcelona, Riopiedras, 1989
  • French: Paris, Intertextes, 1989; Paris, Noel Blandin, 1991
• From Here and There (novel), Sifrut, 1911 [Mi-Kan U-Mi-Kan]
• Breakdown and Bereavement (novel), Shtiebel, 1920 [Shchol Ve-Kishalon]
  • English: London, Cornell Univ. Press, 1971; Philadelphia, JPS, 1971; London, The Toby Press, 2004
  • Chinese: Hefei, Anhui Literature and Art Publishing House, 1998
• Collected Works (four volumes), Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1978-1985 [Ketavim]
• Out of the Depths or "Out Of A Gloomy Valley", Brenner's first book is a collection of 6 short stories about Jewish life in the diaspora. It was published in Warsaw 1900.
  • English: Colorado, Westview Press, 1992
• Around the Point
  • Yiddish: Berlin, Yiddisher Literarisher Ferlag, 1923
• In the Winter
  • Yiddish: Warsaw, Literarisher Bleter, 1936

External sources

• Entry on the site of the Institute for Translation of Hebrew Literature
• “Yosef Haim Brenner” Background written by David Patterson, publishe in Ariel: A Quarterly Review of Arts and Letters in Israel #33/34, 1973

Bibliography

• Yosef Haim Brenner: A Biography (Brenner: Sippur hayim), Anita Shapira, Am Oved (in Hebrew)