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T HE J EW IS H Q UA R T E R LY R EVIEW , Vol. 95, No. 1 (Winter 2005) v–vi TH E L ON G A N D PA SSIO NATE romance of Jews with the written word did not frequently reach, we are told, into the realm of the autobiographi- cal. Prior to those well-known seventeenth-century exemplars, Glikl’s memoirs and Leon Modena’s Haye Yehudah, Jewish authors commented on virtually everything under the sun—except themselves. The weight of tradition—and the demands of the commentarial mission—suppressed the bold sounding of the author’s voice. Only belatedly did modern Jews, unshackled from the constraints of the past, feel at liberty to position themselves at the center of their own writing. And when they did, they did so with a vengeance. This at least is the received wisdom. It certainly seems the case that the autobiographical voice has grown more pronounced, at times even dominant, in our current phase of Jewish literary history. To be sure, we inhabit—or perhaps have just exited—an era, the postmodern, in which self-reflection and confession are vital tools of intellectual self-definition. One apparent consequence of this hyper-reflexive moment is the boom in autobiographical and memoiristic
Jewish Quarterly Review – University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: Feb 3, 2005
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