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Anita Shapira . Yosef Haim Brenner: A Life . Translated by Anthony Berris . Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture. Stanford : Stanford University Press , 2014. 488 pp.
Book Reviews: Modern Era
In the pantheon of the pure challengers of God and man, in which we find Job, Jesus, and Enoch, Yosef Hayim Brenner's heavy, earthbound figure can be seen one who, as Berl Katznelson wrote, "has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows," on whom "God laid the tragedy of all of us." (399)
Historians, as Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi teaches us, record the past as it was. Jews, by contrast, remember the past not necessarily as it happened, but rather in light of the significance they ascribe to it. Yosef Hayim Brenner--the hero of Anita Shapira's book--is the champion of memories.
It would seem that there is no other Hebrew author about whom so many memories have been written. One such example, mentioned by Shapira (380), is a memory recalled by the Israeli artist Nahum Gutman, son of the author S. Ben Zion. Gutman tells of a number of Hebrew authors sitting on the veranda of his father's house:
While we sat on the veranda, Agnon suggested that we pray Minhah [the afternoon service] at Rav Kook's house. Several of those present objected: "Rav Kook is religious and we are not." Brenner was also among those objecting. Nonetheless, Agnon, R. Binyamin and Azar got up and left together for Rav Kook's house, after which they accompanied him to the synagogue.
Brenner did not walk together with them but rather, strode a distance behind them, while placing his footsteps exactly after those of Rav Kook. This made a lasting impression upon me. While I thought it childish, I nevertheless viewed it as a type of sign. It still strikes me as a symbol even today. And whenever Rav Kook walked to the synagogue, I would also deliberately stride behind him and sink my footsteps into his. I admired him so. (Ehud Ben-Ezer, Ben holot u-kehol shamayim [Hebrew] [Tel Aviv: Yavne], 87-94)
Gutman recalls himself walking through the city, which during his childhood was "a lone house on the sand," in the footsteps of the instigators of the Hebrew revolution. Just as he...