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Only Yesterday (Hebrew: תמול שלשום, Tmol shilshom, lit. "the day before yesterday") is a 1945 Hebrew novel by the Israeli Nobel Prize laureate Shmuel Yosef Agnon, widely considered his masterpiece and one of the great works of modern Hebrew fiction. Through a blend of symbolism, intertextual allusions, and tragic comedy, it provides a nuanced perspective on the ideological and cultural tensions within the Jewish community in Palestine during the Second Aliyah period in the early 20th century.

History and background

Agnon receiving the Ussishkin Prize in 1946

Shmuel Yosef Agnon is one of the central figures in modern Hebrew literature; he wrote in Hebrew at a time when it was not a "daily language". He had immigrated to Palestine from Galicia in 1908 at age 20, part of the Second Aliyah wave of Jewish immigration motivated by socialist Zionism movement. Much of the material in the novel is semi-autobiographical, drawing on Agnon's experiences of aliyah, and his life in Jaffa and the pioneering agricultural communities of the time. Agnon was writing the novel for almost 15 years, from 1931 to 1945.

The book was published in Palestine in 1945, and was written during World War II and the Holocaust.

Agnon collaborated with the artist Avigdor Arikha, who illustrated parts of the book published as "Stray Dog" (Kelev Hutzot). Only Yesterday is often called a masterpiece, and even "the Great Israeli Novel".

Plot summary

The main protagonist is Isaac Kumer (or Yitzhak Kummer), a Galician Jew who immigrates to Palestine filled with idealism about building a new life working the land as part of the Zionist project. However, Isaac's initial dreams and illusions are gradually undermined by the harsh realities and cultural divides he encounters. In Jaffa, Isaac finds himself unable to get work on the agricultural settlements due to his lack of experience and labor scarcity, instead making a living as a house painter. He is exposed to the secular, cosmopolitan environment of Jaffa and the polemics between Labor Zionists and the religious old yishuv population in Jerusalem. Isaac develops a complex relationship with the stray dog Balak; he writes the words "mad dog" (kelev meshugga) on the dog's back, so everyone who sees him thought that the dog has rabies. Isaac eventually marries the daughter of a religious family, suggesting an embrace of tradition over his earlier secular leanings. The book ends when Balak bites Isaac and he dies of rabies.

Isaac Kumer is sometimes compared with Don Quixote.

Reception

Only Yesterday was immediately recognized as a major literary achievement upon its publication. It was praised by critics for Agnon's deft use of experimental techniques, weaving a deceptively simple surface narrative about the life of Jewish immigrants together with dense symbolic meanings, literary references, and tragic-comic tones. The novel's depiction of ideological tensions - between secular labor zionists and the religious old community, between the hopes of agricultural settlement and the reality of urban life, between ancient religious texts and modern literary styles - was seen as capturing essential aspects of the Zionist project's paradoxes in an ambiguous but humane light. Over subsequent decades, Only Yesterday became enshrined as a classic of modern Hebrew literature and a central work in the Israeli literary canon, influential on many later Hebrew writers. It brought Agnon broader international renown, contributing to his selection as the 1966 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Balak the 'Mad Dog'

What makes Balak so wonderful a creature is his total dogginess. He not only walks like a dog, runs like a dog, squats like a dog, sniffs like a dog, hungers like a dog, and thirsts like a dog, he also thinks like a dog or (so Agnon convinces us) thinks as a dog would think if a dog could think.

—Hillel Halkin

One of the most famous and analyzed elements of the novel is the stray dog named Balak who becomes an allegorical figure. Early in the story, the protagonist Isaac paints the words "mad dog" in Hebrew on Balak's back. This act sets in motion a tragic chain of events where the dog is reviled, persecuted, beaten, and driven from place to place by people who believe he is rabid based on the writing on his back. The name, Balak, sounds like the Hebrew word for 'dog', kelev, spelled backwards. In the Bible, Book of Numbers 22:2–24:25, Balak was the King of Moab who urged Balaam to curse the Jews.

Balak's suffering mirrors the persecution of the Jewish people, but his role develops into a complex symbol over the course of the narrative, as his tale becomes increasingly intertwined with the experiences of Isaac and other human characters. Balak seems to represent the plight of the diaspora Jew, but also the alienation inherent in the condition of secular Jewish immigrants to Palestine. Interpretations have differed on whether Balak is solely a symbol of the Jewish outsider condition, or also represents aspects of Isaac's psyche. The role of Balak has been extensively analyzed through psychoanalytic, post-structural, and new historicist lenses. Overall, this deeply ambiguous figure has been seen as highlighting Agnon's inventive allegory and modern literary experimentation integrated with centuries of Jewish textual tradition.

Adam Kirsch called Balak's story "one of the great retellings of the Job story"; Hillel Halkin called Balak "a dog trapped by a Jewish fate." The Balak's appearance in the novel puzzled many critics, and one of the interpretations is that he is "representing a combination of Yitshak's sexual development, naivete, self-delusion, and larger psyche".

Agnon's language and English translation

Agnon is often called "a notoriously difficult writer", his language is very different from modern Hebrew, and is described by Israelis now as "archaic":

Agnon was a linguistic pioneer who pitched his modern Hebrew prose on an ancient foundation. His language stretches back to biblical times and weaves in almost everything that came after, from Mishnaic and Talmudic and liturgical elements to modern Hebrew poems and Zionist slogans.

The first English translation of Only Yesterday was made in 2000 by Barbara Harshav, and published by Princeton Press. The translation efforts were described as "the impossible task of wrestling Agnon into English". The book also contains a glossary and "an excellent introduction" by Israeli poet and tranalator Benjamin Harshav, who is also Barbara Harshav's husband.

External links

• Introduction to the English translation by Benjamin Harshav
• "Only Yesterday". archive.nytimes.com., first chapter of English translation

he:תמול שלשום