L’occasion de consacrer un numéro de Perspectives à Theodor Herzl nous a été naturellement offerte, cette année, par la célébration du cent cinquantième anniversaire de sa naissance. Bien des questions se posaient.Comment cet homme si étroitement lié à la société et à la culture viennoises a-t-il pu devenir le concepteur et le fondateur d’un Etat juif ? Comment cet homme d’imagination, longtemps préoccupé par la réalisation de ses ambitions littéraires en est-il venu à poursuivre obstinément une seule et unique ambition : donner un pays aux juifs ? Fallait-il penser que l’Affaire Dreyfus eut un rôle déterminant dans ce changement d’orientation ? Fallait-il supposer d’autres causes ? Nous avons pensé que le creuset viennois eut son rôle à jouer. De quelle manière ? C’est ce que dira l’ensemble des articles réunis ici. L'aube du sionisme JAQUES LE RIDER - Theodor Herzl, austro-hongrois jusqu'au des ongles: réflexions à partir de son journal présionisme STÉPHANE ENCEL - Herzl et sa lecture de la Bible: le passé pour l'avenir GEORGES YITSHAK WEISZ - Aux origines du sionisme de Herzl RITA THALMANN - Du sens de l'honneur viril ay malaise identitaire du judaïsme viennois PHILLIPE OLIVIER - De l'opérette a Un Survivant de Varsovie. Regards croisés sur Theodor Herzl et la musique viennois De la fiction à la réalité CYRIL ASLANOV - L'indifférence de Theodor Herzl vis-à-vis de la langue hébraïque: causes et conséquences MARTIN RODAN - Theodor Herzl: itinéraire d'un Juif viennois de Paris à Jérusalem DENIS CHARBIT - Herzl, le judaïsme et le rabbins: entre respect et méfiance YEHUDA MORALY - Rêves viennois: antisémitisme et anticipation Échos et regards BÉATRICE GONZALÉS-VANGELL - Theodor Herzl, un portrait brosse par ses contemporains viennois GÉRARD HUBER - Herzl et Freud: au-delà de l'exclusion réciproque SOPHIE NORDMANN - Les philosophes juifs allemands face au sionisme THIERRY ALCOLOUMBRE - Une histoire de famille à Vienne. Autour d'un portrait de Klimt Hommage à un ami STÉPHANE MOSÈS - Cyrano de Bergerac

How did Monet really paint his series? What influence did the writings of Kant, Goethe, and Rousseau, or the art criticism of Baudelaire and Zola, have on nineteenth-century artists? Did you know that Renoir also wrote art theory? How did women artists, such as Morisot and Cassatt, struggle against social barriers? How were the lives of the artists expressed in their works? This book answers these questions and much more about the art of the nineteenth century, the cradle of modern art, a century rich in innovations both in art theory, philosophy and in the ideas of writers with whom the artists held a fruitful dialogue. By means of these theories, the author analyzes the principles of the three main movements that developed simultaneously at the beginning of the century: the idealism that ruled the Neo-Classical school and is found in the paintings of David and Ingres; the subjectivism of Romanticism that is revealed in the landscapes of Friedrich and Turner, in the highly expressive works of Goya and Delacroix and in the sculpture of Rodin; and Naturalism's interest in present-day life that is displayed in the landscapes of Constable and Corot and in the figure paintings of Millet and Courbet. This last movement was developed by Manet, Degas, Monet, and Renoir into Impressionism in the second half of the century. The book concludes with an analysis of the many different styles that were current at the end of the century in the art of Seurat, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Redon, and Munch. The texts in the book illuminate the art works that were the gateway to modern art in a new light. These texts are translated into Hebrew – for the most part for the first time – while conserving the writing style of each author. Each chapter is accompanied by an introduction and explanatory footnotes. A book for artists, lovers of art, teachers, and students.

The book examines tales from the Jewish tradition describing the emergence of leadership in several important communities in Israel's history. It focuses on the two famous Sage legends - the legend of the founding of Yavne and its protagonist Rabban Yochanan Ben Zakai and the legend of the establishment of the land of Israel's Rabbinic Presidency and its protagonist Hillel the Elder. The research follows these legends closely and discusses the historical reality which rises from them, and points to the two kinds of leaderships they represent. These forms of leadership are also represented in the Jewish Medieval Literature of Spain, Ashkenaz, Egypt and Kairouan in northern Africa.

Penalty and Temptation: Hebrew Tales in Ashkenaz by Rella Kushelevsky , discusses thirteen tales copied in MS. Parma 2295 (thirteenth century, North France). The tales, which originated in Rabbinic Literature and in medieval story compilations from the East, were re-worked and re-formulated in Ashkenaz. A careful reading of these narrative versions, mostly published here for the first time, and an attentiveness to their unique characteristics compared to classic and modern versions, portrays a broad and panoramic view of Ashkenazi culture: concrete depictions of Paradise and Hell, martyrdom as a central value, repentance practices and other central topics in Ashkenazi piety, as well as images of women and religious symbols from the non-Jewish surroundings. The book offers a double perspective: literary, since these narratives are artistic works in every respect, and hermeneutic, since they trigger a multi-participant dialogue. The readings offered in Penalty and Temptation are the result of the interaction between narratives copied in North France – themselves readings of earlier narrative traditions – and the reader, who becomes acquainted with different modes of being while also similar to his or her own. Ashkenaz in this book is not a historical reality but a fictive entity that bestows this reality with significance, and in which the reader takes part in its establishment.

There are abstracts of all the articles in English.

This book attempts to measure the effectiveness of research tools from different disciplines in analyzing and understanding works of theatre and literature. One of the most significant conclusions of this attempt is that art functions as a way to conceive reality through imagination. As a creative tool for expressing, shaping and reflecting the psycho-cultural spirits of artists, times and spaces, art produces mirrors in front of cultural variedness, different eras, human temperaments, truths, values and meanings. Part one introduces basic concepts of theories from various fields: the philosophy of esthetics, literary sociology, cultural anthropology and psychology written by Nietzsche, Bakhtin, Wolfflin, Croce, Storr, Shoham and others. The common base of these theories is a binary contemplation that highlights the existence of polar duality in the spirit of man. This duality has many forms and names: Apollo versus Dionysus (reason versus instinct), dialogism versus monologism, renaissance versus baroque, romanticism versus classicism, Sisyphus versus Tantalus, Schizoid versus manic-depressive. Part two focuses on interpretations of works of literature and theatre in the light of these theories. The works chosen belong to different writers, cultures and periods: Tonio Kruger of Thomas mann, Hamlet of Shakespeare, The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi and Angel Came Down to Earth by Durrenmatt, The Lover by A.B. Yehushua, The Adventure of Jaber's Head by Wannus, Bath Queen and The Patriot by Levin, The Rain Maker by Lahham and Jericho Governor by Mondi.

Davka 's 6th issue is dedicated to the "Yiddishe Mame" the Jewish Mother