| Travels in Translation: Sea Tales at the Source of Jewish Fiction Subjects: Hebrew fiction -- History and criticism; Jewish fiction -- History and criticism; Sea stories -- History and criticism; Sea in literature; Translating and interpreting; For centuries before its "rebirth" as a spoken language, Hebrew writing was like a magical ship in a bottle that gradually changed design but never voyaged out into the world. Isolated, the ancient Hebrew ship was torpid because the language of the Bible was inadequate to represent modern life in Europe. Early modern speakers of Yiddish and German gave Hebrew the breath of life when they translated dialogues, descriptions, and thought processes from their vernaculars into Hebrew. By narrating tales of pilgrimage and adventure, Jews pulled the ship out of the bottle and sent modern Hebrew into the world. Ken Frieden , the B. G. Rudolph Professor of Judaic Studies at Syracuse University, has published numerous books and essays on Yiddish and Hebrew literature. He edited Etgar Keret's Four Stories and translated stories by Abramovitsh and Peretz in the anthology Classic Yiddish Stories, published by Syracuse University Press. |