Nitza Ben-Dov ( he, ניצה בן-דב, née Fruchtman, born 10 March 1950) is Professor of

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

and Comparative Literature at the

University of Haifa The University of Haifa ( he, אוניברסיטת חיפה Arabic: جامعة حيفا) is a university located on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel. Founded in 1963, the University of Haifa received full academic accreditation in 1972, becoming Is ...

. Winner of the 2021

Israel Prize The Israel Prize ( he, פרס ישראל; ''pras israél'') is an award bestowed by the State of Israel, and regarded as the state's highest cultural honor. History The Israel Prize is awarded annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state cer ...

Biography

Nitza Ben-Dov was born in

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

to parents who were

Holocaust survivors Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and Axis powers, its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no unive ...

. Her father, Dov (Bernard) Fruchtman, was a teacher of literature and wrote a series of research studies on the oeuvre of

S.Y. Agnon Shmuel Yosef Agnon ( he, שמואל יוסף עגנון; July 17, 1888 – February 17, 1970) was one of the central figures of modern Hebrew literature. In Hebrew, he is known by the acronym Shai Agnon (). In English, his works are published und ...

. Ben-Dov completed her secondary studies at the New High School (Tichon Hadash) in Tel Aviv in 1968. She served in the

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

Defense Forces (1968–1970) in the

Nahal Brigade The 933rd "Nahal" Brigade is one of the Israel Defense Forces main infantry brigades. From August 2019 to June 2021, the brigade was led by . On June 28, was appointed as the new commander. However, three days later, on July 1, Asman suddenly ...

, at Nahal Golan. Ben-Dov studied

Hebrew Literature Hebrew literature consists of ancient, medieval, and modern writings in the Hebrew language. It is one of the primary forms of Jewish literature, though there have been cases of literature written in Hebrew by non-Jews. Hebrew literature was pro ...

and

Biblical Studies Biblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse disciplines to the study of the Bible (the Old Testament and New Testament).''Introduction to Biblical Studies, Second Edition'' by Steve Moyise (Oct 27, 2004) pages 11–12 Fo ...

at the

Hebrew University The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

in Jerusalem from 1970 to 1973 and received a teaching certificate in 1974. In 1974–1983, she did a master's degree and doctorate at the

University of California in Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

. Her doctoral dissertation was on dreams and psychology in the work of Agnon and

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...

. She was an assistant professor at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

from 1986 to 1989. In 1989, she began to teach Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of Haifa, becoming a full professor in 1999. She has served as Editor-in-Chief of Haifa University Press/Zmora-Bitan (1996–2000) and as chair of the Academic TV channel (2001–2005). In 2006 she established the program of Women's and Gender Studies, and in 2013 the program of Cultural Studies. In June 2023 she received the

Haifa Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...

Distinguished Citizen Award. Ben-Dov is married to Yosi Ben-Dov, the principal and managing director of the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa. They have three children and seven grandchildren.

Research

Ben-Dov has published books, articles, and essays on

Shmuel Yosef Agnon Shmuel Yosef Agnon ( he, שמואל יוסף עגנון; July 17, 1888 – February 17, 1970) was one of the central figures of modern Hebrew literature. In Hebrew, he is known by the acronym Shai Agnon (). In English, his works are published und ...

, Abraham B. Yehoshua Amos Oz,

S. Yizhar Yizhar Smilansky (, 27 September 1916 – 21 August 2006), known by his pen name S. Yizhar (), was an Israeli writer and politician. Widely regarded as one of the preeminent figures in Israeli literature, he was awarded the Israel Prize in 1959 ...

, Yehuda Amichai,

Yehoshua Kenaz Yehoshua Kenaz ( he, יהושע קנז) (2 March 1937 – 12 October 2020) was an Israeli novelist who studied at the Hebrew University and at the Sorbonne. Kenaz is best known for his novel ''Infiltration'', published in 1986. Biography Yehoshua ...

, Yehudit Handel,

Haim Be'er Haim Be'er (Hebrew: חיים באר), born on 9 February 1945, is an Israeli novelist. Biography Haim Rachlevsky (Be'er) was born in Jerusalem to an Orthodox Jewish family. He grew up in the Geula neighborhood, and attended Ma'aleh, a state religi ...

, Sami Michael,

Zeruya Shalev Zeruya Shalev ( he, צרויה שלו, born 13 May 1959) is a bestselling Israeli author. Biography Zeruya Shalev was born on Kibbutz Kinneret. She has an MA in Bible studies and works as a literary editor at Keshet publishing house. On 29 Ja ...

, Yehudit Rotem,

Assaf Inbari Assaf Inbari ( he, אסף ענברי) (born March 9, 1968) is an Israeli novelist and journalist. He is the Asper Chair in Zionist Studies at Shalem College in Jerusalem and teaches at Kinneret College and . Biography Assaf Inbari was born and rai ...

and

Dahlia Ravikovitch Dahlia Ravikovitch ( he, דליה רביקוביץ'; November 17, 1936 – August 21, 2005) was an Israeli poet, translator, and peace activist. Biography Ravikovitch was born in Ramat Gan on November 27, 1936. She learned to read and write at t ...

. Her research combines structuralist, feminist, psychoanalytical, and biographical elements in the work of these authors, along with intra-textual and inter-textual scrutiny. Her book ''Agnon's Art of Indirection: Uncovering Latent Content in the Fiction of S.Y Agnon'', published in 1993, revealed the possibility of analyzing Agnon's work (characterized by "the art of indirection", a term coined by Ben-Dov) even when translated into English. Ben-Dov has introduced Agnon to scholars of literature outside Israel and proved that it is possible to analyze word by word, through close reading, the unique nature of Agnon's work. Although the nuanced relations of the 'latent' and the 'uncovered' layers are attached through the essence of the Hebrew language, Ben-Dov illustrates that the greatness of a writer must withstand translation. The book surveys the methods, themes, and materials in Agnon's art, and deals extensively with dreams and their interpretation. It presents intersections of meaning in Agnon's writings, in which various layers are brought to light:

psychoanalytical PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might be ...

and

cultural Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human Society, societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, and habits of the ...

; a discussion is conducted on Biblical infrastructures, which the English reader may find in the translations of the works, in contrast to the Talmudic infrastructures. The Hebrew book ''Unhappy/unapproved Loves: Erotic Frustration, Art and Death in the Work of Agnon'' (1997) enlarges the discussion of the Agnonian corpus and contains psychoanalytical discussions in the spirit of

Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts in ...

and

Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...

; along with these are inter-textual discussions, both literary – as to the affinities between Agnon and

Mann Mann may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Mann (chess), a variant chess piece which moves as a king * ''Mann'' (film), a 1999 Bollywood motion picture * ''Mann'' (magazine), a Norwegian magazine * Mann Theatres, a theatre chain corp ...

, Kafka,

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his ...

, and Flaubert – and artistic-anthropological, on the affinity of the writings to the works of

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...

and

Arnold Böcklin Arnold Böcklin (16 October 182716 January 1901) was a Swiss symbolist painter. Biography He was born in Basel. His father, Christian Frederick Böcklin (b. 1802), was descended from an old family of Schaffhausen, and engaged in the silk tra ...

. The combination of methods constructs an autonomous cultural interpretation, which deciphers the Agnonian character, as well as the society out of which it arises. Common to the corpus under consideration is the theme of unfulfilled love and frustration that this invites. In this book Ben-Dov holds a dialogue with Agnon scholars and critics, and offers an original interpretation of his writing. Her Hebrew book ''And It Is Your Praise: Studies in the Writings of S. Y. Agnon, A. B. Yehoshua and Amos Oz'' (2006) concerns particular, intra-textual research, mapping repetitive primary themes and literary formats in Agnon, Yehoshua, and Oz. It also conducts inter-textual research, singling out the tangential points of Yehoshua (to whom is devoted Ben-Dov's Hebrew book ''In the Opposite Direction'', 1995, about the novel Mr. Mani) and Oz on the one hand, and Agnon and the other: Agnon is a 'father figure' and the creator of literary models on which Oz and Yehoshua draw. In addition, the book indicates the unique elements in the works of Oz and Yehoshua after they lay down a mature fictional mode. The writings that Ben-Dov chose to discuss are timeless.* Her Hebrew-language book ''Written Lives: On Israeli Literary Autobiographies'' (Hayyim Ktuvim, 2011) is a scholarly response to the wave of autobiographic and biographic prose that has flooded Hebrew literature (and literature generally) since the early 1990s. Ben-Dov assigns Preliminaris by

, published in 1992, as the starting point of this salient trend in Israeli literature. In its wake came self-declared autobiographic novels: The Pure Element of Time (Havalim) by

(1998), A Tale of Love and Darkness (Sippur al ahava vehoshekh) by Amos Oz (2002), My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner (Ha-davar haya kakha) by

Meir Shalev Meir Shalev ( he, מאיר שלו; born 29 July 1948) is an Israeli writer and newspaper columnist for the daily Yedioth Ahronoth . Shalev's books have been translated into 26 languages. Biography Shalev was born in Nahalal, Israel. Later he ...

(2009), and Spanish Charity (Hessed sefaradi) by

A.B. Yehoshua Avraham Gabriel Yehoshua ( he, אברהם גבריאל (בולי) יהושע; 9 December 1936 – 14 June 2022) was an Israeli novelist, essayist, and playwright. ''The New York Times'' called him the "Israeli Faulkner". Underlying themes in Ye ...

(2011). In Ben-Dov's discussion of Preliminaris and these others, she substantiates the two faces of this genre: a factual or semi-factual account tied in with a well designed written work. Ben-Dov likewise scrutinizes that dialectics of the later self-declared autobiographic work with earlier writings by these authors. Ben-Dov studies autobiographic writings that preceded the torrent of late 20th and early 21st century: Agnon's story "The Mark" (Hasiman), the full version of which was published in 1962, the two semi-autobiographic novels by Sami Michael Refuge (Hasut) and A Handful of Fog (Hofen shel arafel), published in the late 1970s, and the complex of Dahlia Ravikovitch's prose and poetry, from which the experience of orphanhood erupts. ''Written Lives'' also contains scholarly discussions of writings that are not purely literary, such as the ''Baghdad Yesterday: The Making of an Arab Jew'' (Bebagdad etmol), which is the memoirs of the literature scholar Sasson Somekh (2004); ''Yosef Haim Brenner: A Biography'' (Yosef Hayyim Brenner: Sippur hayyim) by the

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

Anita Shapira (2008); and ''

Home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. H ...

'' (Habayta), a novel of the kibbutz by

(2009). ''Written Lives'' has a three-part

Introduction Introduction, The Introduction, Intro, or The Intro may refer to: General use * Introduction (music), an opening section of a piece of music * Introduction (writing), a beginning section to a book, article or essay which states its purpose and g ...

and an

Epilogue An epilogue or epilog (from Greek ἐπίλογος ''epílogos'', "conclusion" from ἐπί ''epi'', "in addition" and λόγος ''logos'', "word") is a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature, usually used to bring closure to the w ...

.* Doron Cohen
"Written lives: On Israeli literary autobiographies by Nitza Ben-Dov"
, Hebrew Studies 54, 2013 Her book, ''War Life: On the Army, Revenge, Grief and the Consciousness of War in Israeli fiction'' (2016) was published by Schocken. The book deals with the consciousness of war, the experiences of the army, the urge to take revenge, the place of the individual within a group, the occupier-occupier relationship and dealing with loss and bereavement as reflected in selected works in Israeli fiction, from the First World War to the eve of the Second Lebanon War. Each chapter focuses on a different issue in the existence of Jewish and Israeli living in the shadow of wars.

Published books

* ''Agnon's Art of Indirection: Uncovering Latent Content in the Fiction of S.Y. Agnon'', Brill's Series in Jewish Studies, Leiden and New York, 1993. * ''In the Opposite Direction: A Collection of Studies on Mr Mani by A. B. Yehoshua''. Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1995 (Hebrew). * ''Unhappy/Unapproved Loves: Erotic Frustration, Art and Death in the Fiction of S.Y. Agnon''. Am Oved, 1997 (Hebrew) * ''Ve-Hi Tehilatekha (And It Is Your Praise): Studies in the Writings of S. Y. Agnon, A. B. Yehoshua and Amos Oz''. Schocken, 2006 (Hebrew). * ''The Amos Oz Reader''.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (; HMH) is an American publisher of textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults. The company is based in the Financial Dist ...

Publishing, 2009. * ''Intersecting Perspectives: Essays on A.B. Yehoshua's Oeuvre'', edited by Nitza Ben-Dov, Amir Banbaji and Ziva Shamir, United Kibbutz Press, 2010 (Hebrew). * ''Written Lives: On Israeli Literary Autobiographies'', Schocken, 2011 (Hebrew). * ''War Lives: On the army, revenge, grief and the consciousness of war in Israeli fiction'', Schocken, 2016 (Hebrew). * ''Where the Heart is Drawn'', Schocken, 2022 (Hebrew).

References

External links

Israel Prize Ceremony, 2021
15.4.2021
Distinguished Citizen of Haifa
23.6.2023
Nitza Ben-Dov on the Haifa University website
List of articles on the RAMBI website: Index of articles on Jewish studies *Nitza Ben-Dov
"The Dead Do Not Praise the Lord": Alter’s Psalms, Agnon’s "Tehilla," Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago
Hebrew Studies Volume 51, 2010 *Nitza Ben-Dov,
Literary Criticism / The mother lode

5 November 2010 {{DEFAULTSORT:Ben-Dov, Nitza 1950 births Living people Israel Prize in literature recipients Recipients of Prime Minister's Prize for Hebrew Literary Works Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni Israeli non-fiction writers Israeli women writers Israeli women academics Academic staff of the University of Haifa Israeli literary critics Israeli women literary critics University of California, Berkeley alumni

Biography

Research

Published books

References

Further reading

External links