Detailed
Description |
|
First edition of the collected vignettes and stories of Arab life in pre-mandate Palestine by Hawaja Mussa (Moses ben Shemaia Smilansky). Benei Arav is written in a vivid descriptive style; they are the first of their kind in Jewish literature. Smilansky reveals to the Jewish reader a new world - exotic, colorful, throbbing with its own rich humanity. Though in many of the stories Arab life is romanticized, the author's direct knowledge of the Arab ambience and way of life is documentarily valuable and the stories are of literary merit. Composed before World War I, the stories convey an amicable relationship between Arab and Jew. Smilansky's began to write these stories in 1906 under the pseudonym Hawaja Mussa. The entry in the Encyclopedia Judaica that tThese stories were “collected in Benei Arav, 1964” is obviously incorrect, this work having first been printed in 1911.
Moses Smilansky, (literary pseudonyms, Heruti; Hawaja Mussa; 1874–1953), Hebrew writer and agricultural pioneer in Erez Israel. Born in Telepino, a village in the province of Kiev, into a family of Jewish tenant farmers, he went to Erez Israel in 1890 and was one of the founders of Haderah. In 1893 he settled in Rehovot where he was the owner of orange groves and vineyards. An active Zionist, much of Smilansky's literary career, which he began in 1898, was devoted to publicistic writings. He contributed prolifically to the Jewish press in Russia (Ha-Zefirah, Ha-Meliz, Ha-Zofeh, Lu'ah Ahi'asaf, Ha-Shilo'ah, and Haolam), and to Hebrew periodicals in Erez Israel and other countries, and was one of the co-founders of the literary journal Ha-Omer. Smilansky saw himself as a disciple of Ahad Ha-Am, and was one of the first contributors (writing under the pen name "Heruti") to Ha-Po'el ha-Za'ir. Deeply concerned with Arab-Jewish labor problems Smilansky opposed the demand by the Second Aliyah for exclusively Jewish labor in the colonies for economic and political reasons. After World War I he was active in organizations for the reclamation and acquisition of land. He was one of the founders of the Hitahadut ha-Moshavot in Judea, whose chairman he became during World War I, and of Hitahadut ha-Ikkarim (Farmers' Federation), which he headed during its early years and whose periodical, Bustanai (1929–39), he edited. In 1918 he volunteered for the Jewish Legion. Smilansky participated in unofficial and unpublicized talks with Arab leaders in 1936. After World War I he was a faithful supporter of Chaim Weizmann's views, which are reflected in many of his articles in the Hebrew press (particularly Haaretz), and in the 1940s he opposed the struggle of the yishuv against the British regime in Palestine. Much of Smilansky's literary activity was devoted to the history of Jewish agricultural settlement in Erez Israel. Among his many works in the field are: Haderah (1930), Rehovot (1950), and Perakim be-Toledot ha-Yishuv (6 vols. (1959) which ran into several editions). Mishpahat ha-Adamah (4 vols., 1943–53), a book of memoir sketches and first-hand impressions of the pioneers of the First and Second Aliyot, is one of his finest works. During the last years of his life he wrote a sequence of autobiographical novels: Bi-Sedot Ukraina (1944), Ba-Aravah (1947), Bein Karmei Yehudah (1948), Be-Zel ha-Pardesim (1951), Tekumah ve-Sho'ah (1953), and Hevlei Leidah (1954).
Other works by Smilansky include Hadassah, a novel depicting the beginning of the Second Aliyah; Toledot Ahavah Ahat (1911), a short novel; Sippurei Sava (1946); Ba-Har u-va-Gai (1949); Shemesh Aviv; and Im Peridah (revised edition 1955). There are several collections of his works including Kitvei Moshe Smilansky (1924–30), but none is complete.
|
