The Great Transition : the Recovery of the Lost Centers of Modern Hebrew Literature / edited by Glenda Abramson and Tudor Parfitt. -- Totowa, NJ : Rowman & Allanheld 1985.
    176 p. (Oxford centre for postgraduate Hebrew studies)

    Although there are a number of views concerning its origins, modern Hebrew literature could be defined as being just two hundred years old. A convenient starting point might be the publication of the first letter of N. M. Wessely's Divre Shalom veemet in 1782, or the first issue of the periodical Hameasef, which appeared a year later. During the following two centuries, considerable literature in Hebrew arose in many different places. The emphasis in this volume, composed of papers by distinguished scholars, is on the transition from the great centers of Hebrew creativity in eastern Europe-which fell into decline and disappeared in the terrible events between the years 1881 and 1945-to the new center in Palestine.

Table of Contents:

Part I    Introduction
    1.    Moving Centers in Modern Hebrew Literature / David Patterson (1)
    2.    The Continuum of Modern Literary Hebrew / Chaim Rabin (11)

Part II    Central Europe
    3.    Hebrew Literature in Vienna 1782-1939 / Eisig Silberschlag (29)
    4.    The Hebraists of Berne and Berlin Circa 1905 / Stanley Nash (44)
    5.    Agnon and Germany / Tudor Parfitt (59)

Part III    Eastern Europe
    6.    Odessa as a Literary Center of Hebrew Literature / Ezra Spicehandler (75)
    7.    "Assimilation," haskalah and Odessa Jewry / Steve J. Zipperstein (91)
    8.    Vilna and the Literature of Reform: 1825-1855 / David Aberbach (99)
    9.    Hebrew Communist Literature in Soviet Russia / Ruth Karton-Blum (103)
 10.    Tchernichowski - Against the Tradition / Glenda Abramson (110)

Part IV    The Great Transition
  11.    The Great Transition / Gershon Shaked (117)
  12.    The Rise of the Literary Center in Palestine / Zohar Shavit (126)
  13.    The Cultural Center in Palestine / Ya'akov Shavit (130)
  14.    The Influence of the Early Years on Hebrew Literature in Israel / Nurith Govrin (135)
  15.    The Pain of Transition / Leon Yudkin (145) 
  16.    The Hebrew Theater in Palestine Before World War I / Hasassah Shy (150)

Glossary (169)
Index (171)