Breakdown and Bereavement, first published in 1920, is the story of a young Jewish immigrant in Palestine in the early 20th century. Like many of Yosef Haim Brenner's protagonists, Hefetz finds that pioneer life under Ottoman rule is a difficult and depressing path to a Zionist homeland. Brenner, himself a Russian-born immigrant to Palestine, was one of the first and most important authors of modern Hebrew literature. He was killed during the Jaffa riots of 1921.

This is a bilingual project. The first part, in Hebrew, is the story "Injustice" by Yosef Haim Brenner, written following the conquest of Palestine by the British troops during WWI. The story takes place on the Turkish side of the dividing line between the combating forces. An escaped British prisoner of war had taken shelter among a group of Jewish workers, who, following a heated discussion, turned him over to the Turkish army. The second part of this project, in English, is a chapter in the book "The Escaping Club," written in 1922 by the same British prisoner of war, the aviator A. J. Evans, who gave his account of the same event.

This reading is in Hebrew.

Yosef Haim Brenner (1881-1921) was a Ukrainian-born Hebrew-language author, one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew literature. Born to a poor family, Brenner grew up in grinding poverty. Brenner immigrated to Palestine (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in 1909. He worked as a farmer, eager to put his Zionist ideology into practice. Later he devoted himself to literature and teaching at the Gymnasia Herzliya in Tel Aviv. He was murdered in southern Tel Aviv in May 1921 in the course of the anti-Jewish Arab riots known as the “massacres of 1921″. Brenner published his second book, “In winter”, in 1904. It is a collection of 4 stories about hardships of ...

This reading is in Hebrew.

Yosef Haim Brenner (murdered by Arab terrorists in 1921 at the age of 40) presented in his book “From Here and There” a piercing, soul searching portrayal of the “second aliyah,” the dominant immigration into Palestine at the beginning of the twentieth century. The following words have influenced many at the time, and are still thought to represent Brenner’s literary “will”: “Life is bad, but always secret … Death is bad. The world is conflicted, but also diverse, and sometimes beautiful. The world is miserable, but can also be wonderful. The nation of Israel, by the rules of logic, has no future. One must, nonetheless, work. So long as you have a soul,...

This reading is in Hebrew.

Yosef Haim Brenner (1881-1921) was a Ukrainian-born Hebrew-language author, one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew literature. Born to a poor family, Brenner grew up in grinding poverty. Brenner immigrated to Palestine (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in 1909. He worked as a farmer, eager to put his Zionist ideology into practice. Later he devoted himself to literature and teaching at the Gymnasia Herzliya in Tel Aviv. He was murdered in southern Tel Aviv in May 1921 in the course of the anti-Jewish Arab riots known as the “massacres of 1921″. Brenner was very much an “experimental” writer, both in his use of language and in literary form. With Moder...