Coping with racism in Hebrew literary translation

This article examines the treatment of racism in Hebrew literary translation. It relies on culture theorists such as Foucault, Said, Fanon and Bhabha who have analyzed the relations of a society with individuals and groups whom it regards as “others”. The texts discussed have been selected because they can illustrate critical arguments made by these theorists. They include texts which are openly racist (Henryk Sienkiewicz’s W pustyni i w puszczy [In Desert and Wilderness], Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, Edgar Wallace’s The People of the River) and others that criticize racism but fall into the trap against which they warn (Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin). The article also refers to “Geschichte von den schwarzen Buben” (in English, “The Story of the Inky Boys”), one of the stories included in Heinrich Hoffmann’s Struwwelpeter (The Slovenly Peter). In the latter, the Hebrew translations (rather than the German source) make use of racist stereotypes.

Inspired by translation researchers who regard translation as the meeting place of a culture with “others” (Venuti, Tymoczco, Cronin), the article also makes use of the concept of norms as elaborated by Toury. In line with his theoretical approach, it is assumed that the treatment of racism in translation depends not only on the overall attitude to racism in the receiving culture but also on its translation norms.