Draft:Those Were the Days (novel by Agnon)

• Comment: Please trim back the plot summary and add sufficient secondary coverage about the book's impact (rather than citing the book itself) to meet notability requirements. lizthegrey (talk) 01:12, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

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For other uses, see Draft:Those Were the Days (novel by Agnon) (disambiguation).

Those Were the Days

Author	Shmuel Yosef Agnon
Country	Pre-state Israel
Language	Hebrew
Genre	Novel
Set in	Mostly in Israel, includes a trip from Ukraine by train and boat
Publication date	1945

Those Were the Days (some translations Only Yesterday) is a novel by Shmuel Yosef Agnon, published in 1945. The novel centers around the life of the protagonist of the book, Yitzhak Komar, beginning with his immigration to the Land of Israel during the Second Aliyah period until his death (the exact years are not specified in the novel, but according to its content its plot takes place in the years 1908-1911) The novel is one of Agnon's most highly regarded, and some even say it is his most important work written in Hebrew. The book is considered Agnon's 'masterpiece', and some believe it is the 'Great Israeli Novel. Robert Alter, in the New York Review of Books, describes the novel as "Agnon’s modernist masterpiece, a wrenching and richly inventive novel..." His third novel, Those Were the Days takes a deep look at the difficulties encountered by westernized Jews who immigrate to Israel during the early part of the 20th century. The story is told in neither a realistic style, nor as a symbolic autobiography, but it can be interpreted only in the context of Agnon's own personal and spiritual experience.

Benjamin Harshav commented that "...Only Yesterday...can and should stand beyond its ostensibly parochial landscape as one of the great literary myths of the twentieth century."

In the novel, Agnon describes a host of characters from the population of Israel: the old settlement, farmers from the first aliyah, pioneers from the second aliyah, ultra-Orthodox who immigrated in their old age, and more. Some of the characters are described briefly and some are described in considerable detail. From these descriptions it is possible to learn a lot about the life of the Jewish community in the Land of Israel during the second immigration period. Throughout the novel, the difficulties of Yitzhak Komar, the hero, to find work, love, and a place to live are explored. Komar, the protagonist, moved between Jaffa and Jerusalem several times, and on one occasion the founding of the city of Tel Aviv is mentioned. These wanderings symbolize Komar's feelings between the old world and the new; between religion and secularism; and between life in exile and life in the Promised Land.

Like many of Agnon's other works, this novel includes references to the Torah, to rabbinic literature in its various forms, and to Hasidic literature and Jewish popular literature through the ages. It was translated into English in 2002 by Barbara Harshav with the title "Only Yesterday"(Princeton).

The novel was written in the late 1930s in British Mandatory Palestine, and finished in 1943, during the Second World War. It was published in 1945, after the war ended.Noted literary critic Baruch Kurzweil stated: "The place of Only Yesterday is among the greatest works of world literature." Leah Goldberg shared Kurzwiel's view.

The plot

Yitzhak Komar, a poor, young man living in Shabush immigrates to Israel during the second aliyah. After a three-day train ride to Trieste and a ten-day sail, he arrives in Jaffa. His language is different from the language of the locals; he speaks Hebrew with an Ashkenazi pronunciation and they - with a Sefardi pronunciation. He is looking for work in the new Jewish settlements, but the farmers prefer Arab laborers to Jewish laborers. In one of the settlements he befriends Rabinovitz, and after they both despaired of finding a job, they returned to Jaffa. Yitzchak finds a job as a dyer, eliciting the following response from the narrator: "He really did not come to the Land of Israel except to work its land, but because the land did not want him he took up this art of dyeing." He befriended "Sweet Leg" (Johanan Leichtfus's nickname) who improved his painting skills. When he found a job, he rented a room for him in Jaffa. Like his friends, Yitzchak threw off the yoke of the Torah and mitzvot (commandments): "He did not go to the synagogue, nor did he put on tefillin, nor did he observe the Sabbath, nor did he respect the holidays. At first, he made a distinction between the positive mitzvot and the negative mitzvot. He was careful not to transgress the "thou shalt not do" negative commandments, but was negligent in the "thou shalt" positive commandments. Finally he did not distinguished between the positive commandments and the negative commandments, and if he chanced to transgress one of the negative commandments 'you shall not do', he would not be afraid."

After Rabinovitz, who found a job in Jaffa as a shop assistant, travels to Europe, Yitzhak, who has never had any contact with women, becomes friends with Rabinovitz's friend, Sonia Zwering. "Yitzhak Komar and Sonia Zwering went together, because he is Rabinovitz's friend and she is Rabinovitz's friend." Later on, the ties between Yitzhak and Sonia strengthened, and they spent a lot of time together.

After Sonia cooled off her relationship with him, Yitzchak left Jaffa and moved to Jerusalem, where he rented a room in the 'Beit Mashomed', and after some time moved to a room he rented in the Zichron Moshe neighborhood. At first he continued correspondence with Sonia, but this relationship also faded. Yitzhak befriended the painter Shimshon Bloikoff, who taught him to draw signs for a living. The death of Bloikoff greatly saddened Yitzchak, and to relieve his grief he went to the Western Wall.

While he was painting a dedication plaque in the Bukharan neighborhood, a stray dog came to him, and Yitzchak painted the words "crazy dog" on his back. This act condemns the dog to a life of exile and persecution because everywhere he goes in Jerusalem (except the gentile neighborhoods who do not read Hebrew) he is seen as having rabies. A man who read the inscription "Dog" from left to right gave the dog the name "Black", which is how he is named in the novel.

Yitzchak connected with the people of the 'old yishuv' and returned to keeping mitzvot partially, after meeting Moshe Amram and his wife Disha, whom he met on the ship on his way to Israel, in 'the homes of the Hungarians". In their home he meets their granddaughter Shifra, "Riva Naa and Chasuda", whose father is Rabbi Peish, a fanatic of the ultra-Orthodox community, and falls in love with her. "Why was Yitzchak similar then to 'Adam HaRishon' when the Holy One, blessed be He, took one of his ribs and placed Eve before him."

Rabbi. Peish went out one night to hang boycott letters. The dog Black saw him and barked at him happily. R. Peish was frightened and kicked the dog. The dog shouted and R. Peish slipped and fell, and then fled for his life. Following this meeting, Rabbi Peish fell ill and lay unable to speak in his home. Yitzchak used to visit him and bring food to Rabbi Peish's wife, who, due to the expenses for doctors, did not have enough distribution money to support herself.

Yitzhak felt he had to go to Jaffa to end his relationship with Sonia, and after several rejections he got up and left. He met Sonia in her room, and from there they went to eat ice cream at Cafe Hermon, where they met some of their friends, including Hamdat, who also immigrated from Galicia. After breaking up with Sonia, Yitzhak stayed in Jaffa. One day Yitzhak and Hamdat met and went for a walk in the city, until they arrived at Yaakov Malkov's hostel, where they met Zerakh Burnett and then Brenner. Yitzchak stayed in Jaffa and spent time with his friends, and when he thought of returning to Jerusalem, he was given free accommodation in the hostel of "Sweet Leg" who went away on business, and stayed in Jaffa. Rabinowitz, who became rich abroad and married, returned to Jaffa and renewed his ties with Yitzchak. When "Sweet Leg" returned to his hostel, Yitzchak returned to Jerusalem.

In Jerusalem Yitzchak returned to his job as a dyer, and rented a room in the house of an engraving artist, and enjoyed being with the members of the engraver's family. He visited Rabbi Peish's house and talked with his wife Rivkah, but he did not ask for Shifra's hand, even though he wanted to marry her, and even wrote to his father that he was going to marry. Yitzchak renewed his ties with Rabbi Alter and his wife Hinda Puah, whom he knew in Shvos before they immigrated to Jerusalem, and on Hinda Puah's recommendation he befriended the blind Chaim Raphael, who was knowledgeable in the Torah and the Mishnah, but needed Yitzchak's help in reading Rashi's commentary. When Rabbi Alter and Hinda Puah discovered that Yitzchak wanted to marry, Hinda Puah and Haim Raphael went to speak to Rivka in praise of Yitzchak. "She spoke in praise of Yitzchak's ancestors to Rabbi Yudil Chassid, and he told in Yitzchak's praise, that every Shabbat they study as one." A few days later they put up a canopy in Shifra's house, and Yizchak took Shifra as his wife.

When he becomes sick, "Black the dog enters Mea Shearim walking on the side of the road with his mouth open and his drool running down his ears and his ears pinched and his tail resting between his thighs and his eyes brimming with blood and he barks and his voice is not heard." Black arrived during the sermon of Rabbi Grunam Yakum Porkan about the end of the rainy season. When Rabbi Grunam said, "He is what I am saying, the face of the generation is like the face of a dog, and not just like a dog, but like a mad dog," he noticed that Black was next to him "and shouted a big shout, 'the mad dog, the mad dog.' The whole nation believed that he was shouting that way to make the heart rumble, like the way he used to do in his sermons, where he takes a word and repeats it loudly." Finally the public realized that they were indeed the dog and they all ran away.

Yitzchak was also at the sermon, but was not frightened by the dog, and even tried to calm people down and said that he himself had written on the dog's back and it was not a mad dog. "And even the cowards put on courage and put all the same blame on the newspapers, who would have scared the hell out of them." Black bit Yitzchak through his clothes. They brought Yitzchak to his home and a doctor came and treated him. Yitzchak's illness worsened, and Rebekah and Shifra took care of him, "Peish would run to Yitzchak and from Yitzhak to R. Peish, until they were exhausted and could not stand on their feet." Yitzchak's agony went on and on, until he died.

After Yizchak was buried, the severe drought stopped, and then came the rains, "there was great joy in the world. There was no such joy seen, all the villages in Judea and in the Galilee and in the Shefala and in the Behar brought forth grain and the wave of the earth was like the garden of God.

Commentaries

The tragic end of Yitzhak Komar, and the meaning behind the character of the dog "Black", were a source of long discussions about the novel. Critics tend to see Black as an expression of Yitzhak Komar's hidden passions, but the range of interpretations is very broad: from a statement about the nature of creativity and art ( Michal Arbel in his book "Writing on the Skin of the Dog"), to psychological insights based on Freud 's views.

Autobiographical details

There are many autobiographical details in The Day Before Yesterday, which correspond to eras in Agnon's own life. The autobiographical details appear both directly and metaphorically. For example, Yitzhak's immigration to the Land of Israel corresponds to that of Agnon, the description of Komar's family resembles the Czaczkes family (the author's family) in exile, both of them arrived in Israel for the first time during the second immigration through the port of Jaffa, and more. The coloring motif in the book can be seen as an analogy to Agnon's writing, starting with the craft itself, through the difficulties he encounters and his way of dealing with them.

Contemporary voices in Those Were the Days

The events the protagonist lives through in the novel take place in the Land of Israel during the historical period known as the Second Aliyah. In addition to the fictional plot, there are many historical events, based on newspaper reports and other sources, that feature prominently. For example, the novel describes Yitzchak and Sonia spending time in a cafe that Meir Dizengoff also used to visit, and the novel states: "and regarding that article about 'Angry Jupiter' that was published by 'The Young Worker' against him, he has already answered them in Ben Yehuda's 'HaZvi', and even Mordechai ben Hillel HaCohen answered them accordingly." This is referring to an actual incident in which an article criticizing Dizengoff was published in the newspaper "Hapoel Ha'Tzair" and Dizengoff replied in Eliezer Ben-Yehuda's newspaper "HaTzvi." Mordechai Ben Hillel HaCohen's criticism of the "HaPoel HaTzair" organization which was also published in "HaTzvi" is also mentioned. Additional examples:

• A conversation is described between Kaddish Silman and Yosef Aharonovitz, editor of "Hapoel Ha'Tsa'ir", Silman's plan to publish a newspaper for Purim - Silman did publish a humorous newspaper for Purim called "Le Yehudiim", starting from Purim 1909.
• The mention of the dogs that are close to Black is a reference to the participation of the rabbis of the Old Yishuv in the boycott in Jerusalem of Ludwig August Frankel, due to his efforts to establish the Lemel school.

Other historical personalities appear in the novel by name, including Yosef Haim Brenner, Aharon David Gordon, S. Ben-Zion, Arthur Rupin, Moshe Montefiore, Yaakov Goldman, Akiva Yosef Schlesinger and many others. Leah Goldberg wrote about the integration of these characters in the novel as follows: "And here the courage and the ability are surprising, how Agnon succeeds, in the most natural way and without harming the story, to insert into his verse detailed names like Dizengoff, Yosef Aharonovitz, Silman, and Azar. And despite the mention of all the particular historical figures by name, the book does not take on a provincial tone. Readers not aware of Jewish history in the Yishuv will pass over the name Dizengoff, as if it were a made-up name, and will not lose the point." How relevant Goldberg's comment is can be illustrated by the description of Sonia's room where there is "a picture of our friend 'Berely' who was killed by Arabs." ] The reader may assume that this Berel is a fictional character, but Agnon scholar Avraham Holtz explained that this is a reference to Dov Berel Schweiger, one of the founders of the organizations "Bar Giora" and "Hashomer", who was killed in April 1909 by Arab criminals.

Footnotes

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Categories:

• 1945 books
• Ottoman Palestine
• Israeli novels