The proposal to hold a week in Palestine that would be entirely special to the Hebrew book was first raised in an article published in Haaretz on November 19, 1924. The article was signed by a young man named Avraham Shcheglov, who was an assistant on the editorial board of Haaretz and occasionally published news and articles on various topics.
In 1926, Bracha Pelay, founder of the Masada publishing house, initiated the "Hebrew Book Day", about which the newspaper Doar Hayom wrote on March 10 of that year: "The Book Bureau of the Hebrew Writers and Literature Association has decided to declare on Chol Hamoed Pesach 'Hebrew Book Day,' initiated by Mrs. Pelay. On this day there will be banquets, celebrations, lectures, popular assemblies, raffles and concerts, aimed at propaganda and publicity for Hebrew literature."
Indeed, on April 1, 1926, from the morning hours on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, stalls full of Hebrew books were set up, which could be purchased at a 25 percent discount, as can be seen in a photograph taken that day and found several years ago in the archives of the Jewish National Fund.
The organizers feared that the audience would prefer the "Oriental Fair," which was then in its second year and would not attend Book Day, but in practice the event was a huge success, as described in Haaretz the next day: "At nine o'clock in the afternoon, in the presence of thousands of people who had gathered around Rothschild Boulevard, the Hebrew Book Day book market opened... The avenues were ornamented, with tables and book kiosks. A large crowd streamed into Sderot. The Battalion of Language Defenders distributed leaflets from decorated and sign-bearing automobiles that passed through all the streets of the city. Order was excellent, and the Tel Aviv police were on guard."
From 1926 onwards, Hebrew Book Day was held from time to time, in an irregular format. In preparation for Israel's tenth anniversary celebrations in 1958, the writer and poet Shlomo Tenay proposed holding a "week in honor of the Hebrew book." Since then, except for one year during the COVID-<> pandemic, Book Week has been held annually across the country.
Vision in Abundance: Pioneers of Publishing in Israel
Published by Davar Publishing, early 50s, photo: Willem van de Poel, State Archives, Netherlands
The wonderful work of the delusions, dreamers and fulfillers among the pioneers of Hebrew publishing embodies a fascinating story that is part of the development of the Zionist experience in the Land of Israel and in the young State of Israel.
Some Hebrew publishers in the late 19th and first half of the 20th century saw their work as sacred work in a quest to build the cultural values of a renewed people. Most publishers operated under conditions of extreme uncertainty and without a solid economic basis. They embarked on enormous projects and took upon themselves large undertakings of producing, translating, editing and printing thousands of masterpieces of world literature, encyclopedias, various series in the fields of art, science, health and more.
Publishers largely lacked financing and production, and worked without significant marketing levers. They published books even when it was clear that their readership would be limited. They had a vision in abundance, and through it they created a broad platform on which magnificent literature was created in a language used only in sacred scriptures. Among the prominent publishers were "Mekitzi Falling Asleep", "Agora Books", "Ahiasaf", "Am HaSefer", "Japhet", "Tversky", "La'am", "Dvir", "Masada" and more.
There were publishers who came to the field from other occupations and gave publishers the money they earned from commerce and industry (for example: Avraham Yosef Shtibel, who dealt in the leather trade and founded the Shtibel publishing house). They knew that the chances of achieving financial prosperity from publishing books in Hebrew were doubtful, but they wanted to participate in nation-building. Some went bankrupt time after time, but returned to publish another book in Hebrew, followed by another, and in most cases were left without a penny in their pocket.
The battalion that defended the Hebrew language
"Noah's Ark" exhibit by the Language Defenders Battalion, photo: None
Hebrew is now considered the language of the Jewish people in the State of Israel, an almost self-evident fact, but from the perspective of history, this has not always been the case. In fact, throughout the first half of the 20th century there were periods in which Hebrew fought with all its might to take its place at the forefront of speech, reading and writing in Israel.
In 1923, demands began to be heard in the Jewish community from some factions to "return and live under the wing of Yiddish, instead of Hebrew." In response to this dangerous tendency, a group of students from the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium in Tel Aviv came together and established, with the help of the teachers, the "Battalion of Defenders of the Hebrew Language". These were creative young people full of passion for the language, some of them hot-headed and bullying anyone they thought stood in their way of making Hebrew, once and for all, the language of the country.
The "battalion" was quickly joined by hundreds of young people from all over the country, and branches were established in various localities, as well as abroad. The organization was built as a military unit and divided into "companies", with each company responsible for a different area of activity: propaganda, dissemination, defense, information and more.
They printed dozens of leaflets with catchy slogans such as "Hebrew, speak Hebrew" and "One language - one soul." Members of the battalion attended every meeting held and did not allow speakers on stage to speak in a language other than Hebrew. They threw stink bombs into halls where Yiddish plays and dozens of other protest activities were performed. The battalion existed for 13 years, until 1936, and its activity ceased when it was clear to everyone that Hebrew was the language of the country and its inhabitants.
Haim Nachman Bialik
Haim Nachman Bialik, Photo: Ministry of Education, Pedagogical Section
Our national poet was also one of the greatest Hebrew publishers when he founded the Moriah publishing house in Moscow in 1901, which changed its name in Israel to Dvir. Already in the 30s, Dvir had a catalogue of 1,400 books in Hebrew, and Bialik was also the one who coined a phrase that aptly defined the relationship between publisher and author: "When you came to the publisher, you were circumcised."
Bookstores
Bookstore in Afula, 1960, photo: "Biphoto" archive
Today's bookstores should not be compared to those of the time, most of which were small and often combined selling books with stationery.
Children Read
Children Reading, Kibbutz Sarid, 40s, photo: Drenger/Sarid Collection. Archive "Biphoto"
In those times all the children read books for pleasure, and scenes such as the one pictured below could be seen in almost every corner, with the children leaving the library and immediately sitting down and starting to read.
Bookcases
A child in the background of a home library, 60s, photo: Or Family Collection (Butrimovich)
At the time, there were such shelves in every house: shelves that attached to metal pillars from ceiling to floor and squatted with a load of books. As in the attached photograph of Echoes of Light, a collector of Israeli nostalgia items.
bookmark
Bookmark "Flowers of Our Land", 1962,
Folding the edges of the book, what was called at the time "donkey ears," was considered a despicable phenomenon of disrespect. Therefore, everyone was equipped with bookmarks, which presented views of the landscapes of our country, dried flowers, sayings of Sheffer and more.
Book covers
Illustrated books for children,
Most of the children's books at the time dealt with national-Zionist issues, with the aim of arousing among the children full identification with the country and its values. The book covers contained wonderful colorful drawings that referred to the content of the book. The illustrations of graphic designer Peretz Rushkevitch stood out in quality above all others.
The Vanished / Institutions That Were in the Neighborhood
Library
Library in the 40s, photo: none
"We would enter the library quietly and with reverence, and I remember very well the special smell of the old books that prevailed there. We were greeted warmly by the librarian, who used to walk around the bookshelves in importance. The librarian helped us choose according to her familiarity with us, or according to a topic that we said interested us, and always remembered which books each of us had read in the past. From the library, we quickly returned home, with a sense of a new adventure awaiting us" (article: Nitza Wolfensohn).
Institutions / Treasury of Hebrew Literature through the Ages
Asher Barash Ganzim Institute
The Ganzim Institute, located in Beit Ariella in Tel Aviv, is the largest archive of Hebrew literature in the world, where some 800 archival collections of writers, poets, playwrights, thinkers, editors and pen people from the end of the 19th century to the present are preserved and handled. This huge and rich central collection, under the direction of its chairperson, the writer Adiva Geffen, reflects modern Hebrew creativity and the history of the development of Hebrew book culture, alongside the history of the Jewish people in Israel and around the world.
The "hipsters" who fought the literary establishment
The Yachad group in Tel Aviv, 1938. From right: Yocheved Bat-Miriam, Goldberg, Shlonsky, Lyuba Goldberg, Zamora and Moshe Lifshitz, photo: from the Lyuba Goldberg Collection, MOZA
Between 1939 and 1920, a literary group developed in Tel Aviv that included writers and poets, most of them young, including Nathan Alterman, Avraham Shlonsky, Leah Goldberg, Avraham Halfi and Alexander Penn. Members of the group, called Yachad, engaged in original Hebrew work and attacked Bialik and Shaul Tchernichovsky, whom they perceived as "outdated and archaic."
Dvir Press claimed that it "publishes writings of the dead instead of young Israeli works." When Dvir refused to publish their writings, the critic Israel Zamora established an independent publishing house called "Notebooks for Literature", which was joined by Yonatan Ratush, Benjamin Tammuz, Pinchas Sadeh and Benjamin Galai in the photo: The Yachad group in Tel Aviv, 1938. From right: Yocheved Bat-Miriam, Goldberg, Shlonsky, Lyuba Goldberg, Zamora and Moshe Lifshitz.
Do you have photos or memorabilia from the early days of the country? Write to us: Yor@ShimurIsrael.Org
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