A case for an integrated approach to the mediation of national literature: Translated Hebrew literature in the United States in the 1970s and 2000s

The last years have seen a rise in the study of translation as an ideologically-implicated activity within the context of power relations, as well as in translation research from a sociologically-oriented frame of reference. In this article, I will point to a methodological consideration which draws from both of these perspectives, and could be useful for the study of the ideological mediation of national literature through translation. My suggestion is to systematically integrate findings from relatively separate yet complementing discursive areas of culture, located in the publishing, journalistic and academic fields, in order to better grasp the scope and interrelatedness of the phenomena of ideological mediation. As a case study, I examine the mediation of Hebrew literature in the U.S. in the decade following the 1967 Six-Day War, and demonstrate a protective trend meant to create a less critical portrayal, literary and otherwise, of Israeli society and history for the (Jewish-)American audience. I then offer preliminary findings from a recent, quite opposite trend in the mediation of Hebrew literature in the U.S. in the 2000s.