“Simeon and Levi Are Brothers”: An Old Story of Brothers and Sister in Modern and Contemporary Hebrew Poetry

• In Event: New Perspectives, Old Stories: Biblical and classical myth in Modern Hebrew literature

Abstract

This paper will discuss manifestations of the story of Simeon, Levi, and Dinah in modern Hebrew poetry and how this story/myth structures and echoes sibling dynamics and their poetic expressions. In 1883, the poem Ahoti Ruhama (My Sister Ruhamah) by Judah Leib Gordon was published in the pages of Hamelitz. The poem, which refers metaphorically to Jewish women but also to the Jewish Nation altogether (leaning to old personifications of "Daughter of Zion" as the Jewish People, indicating endearment by God), as someone who was raped and tortured by all other nations, opens with a motto that alludes directly to the story commonly known as the rape of Dinah: "In honor of the daughter of Jacob, abused by the son of Hamor." The reference "my sister" positions the speaker as a brother who seeks to save and comfort her, explaining to her, with remarkable sensitivity, that she is not to blame for what happened to her. He invites his sister to leave and go somewhere together in search of a place of safety, hoping for rescue by their "father." The poem is imbued with biblical allusions to Hosea and the story of Cain and Abel, both family stories related to sibling relationships. In Tel Aviv 1936, Shaul Tchernichovsky refers to the same story, while in his poem, it is Dinah – taking Jacob's role blessing her brothers – praising Simeon and Levi for their deadly vengeance. Lately, new accounts have been published. This paper will review the portrayals of the story in Hebrew poetry and the relationships they establish, arguing that this is a central and formative myth/primary story in the history of Modern Hebrew and Zionist thoughts, a story that enables relationships between male brothers that are not rivalry relationships.

Author

• Reut Ben-Yaakov, Duke University