Resurrecting a long-vanished diaspora: The Portrayal of the Jewish Shtetl in Dvora Baron’s Sunbeams

Abstract

Regarded as the first modern Hebrew female author, this essay contends that what set Dvora Baron apart from the male-dominated prose of the period, was her probing of the east-European Shtetl, rather than the Zionist project. Through the examination of Baron’s short story “Shavririm”, this essay probes Baron’s vivid depiction of the Shtetl, as well as offering a scathing critique of the community’s treatment of the heroine— an orphaned girl who overcomes emotional and physical hardships to emerge as a noble, triumphant figure. In her corpus, Baron betrayed a subversive strand of writing that focused on the Jewish women’s experience and gendered traumas in a patriarchal society.