For the great poet Haïm Nahman Bialik, it was Mount Scopus. In 1925, Bialik gave the powerful speech inaugurating the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A founding moment in the history of Zionism, which the poet inscribed in the long history of the Jewish people. Rather than the rupture represented by the return to Eretz Israel, Bialik insists on the continuity of the study which will henceforth find in this university the privileged place of its extension. It is a way of articulating, with prophetic accents, the long diasporic existence and the recent territorial re-anchoring, and of giving all its historical depth to the spiritual ideal that the University of Jerusalem intends to embody. A sublime but forgotten speech that K. is happy to publish with a presentation by Davide Mano and Ron Naiweld. It is also an opportunity for our magazine to inaugurate a new ‘archive’ section in which we will soon come across other great figures from past centuries who also counted in the history of the Jews and of Europe.
From the summit of Mount Scopus to that of French literature: such is the place that Marcel Proust has conquered. However, it was not until the centenary of his death that an exhibition was finally held on the Jewish part of the author of La Recherche. This is what the mahJ [Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme] in Paris is currently offering, under the inspired leadership of Isabelle Cahn, curator of the exhibition “Proust du côté de la mère” (until 28 August 2022). An exhibition which the philosopher Avishag Zafrani reports on this week.
Finally, the city of seven hills, in which a radiant Yehoshua poses in the photo that illustrates the tribute article devoted to him by Béryl Caizzi. After Amoz Oz and Aaron Appelfeld, a few years ago, another great figure of Israeli literature left us last week. What remains is a body of work, whose main feature Béryl Caizzi recalls and which will long accompany those who wish to rise to the heights of literary commitment but also of moral greatness.
