Prof. Yael Darr

My studies address children's culture in general and children's literature in particular during the Jewish nation-building period in pre-state Palestine and the first decades of Israeli statehood.

In my book, U-mi-safsal ha-limudim lukakhnu: Ha-yishuv lenokhah sho’ah ve-likrat medina be-sifrut ha-yeladim heretz-yisre’elit, 1939-1948 (Called away from Our School-Desks: The Yishuv in the Shadow of the Holocaust and in Anticipation of Statehood in Children’s Literature of Eretz Yisrael, 1939-1948) (Darr 2006), I explored books and newspapers written and published for children in the Yishuv during World War II and up to the establishment of the State of Israel. I described the radical change in the metanarrative told to children as a response both to the devastating events taking place in Europe at the time and to the struggle against the British Mandate in Palestine.

My book, Kanon be-khamah kolot: Sifrut ha-yeladim shel tnu’at ha-po’alim, 1930-1950 (A Canon of Many Voices: Forming a Labor Movement for Children, 1930- 1950), (Darr 2013) focused on the political institutions that were responsible for the creation of a first Hebrew canon for children during the Yishuv era, that is, for the first widely accepted repertoire of Hebrew literary texts, authors, and literary models that was regarded as paradigmatic and of great cultural significance. It revealed the complex politics behind the hegemonic Labor movement literature written at that time and presented the multiple voices in the ongoing debate over the nature of that canon.

In recent years my main object of research has been the wide-reaching transformations that altered the Israeli children’s literary field during the State's first decades (funded by the Israel Science Foundation, ISF, 102/13). My latest book The Nation and the Child. Nation-Building in Hebrew Children’s Literature, 1930-1970. (Darr 2018) investigates the active role of children’s literature in the intensive cultural project of building a Hebrew nation.

Books

Darr, Yael.  A Canon of Many Voices: Forming a Labor Movement Canon for Children in Pre-State Israel. Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi: Jerusalem, 2013 [Hebrew].

Darr, Yael. Called Away From Our School-Desks: The Yishuv in the Shadow of the Holocaust and in Anticipation of Statehood in Children's Literature of Eretz Israel, 1939-1948. Magnes Press: Jerusalem, 2006 [Hebrew].

Darr, Yael. The Nation and the Child. Nation Building in Hebrew Children’s Literature, 1930-1970.  Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2018.

Articles

Darr, Yael.  “Nation-Building and Children's Literary Canons: The Israeli Test Case”. In Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer & Anja Müller (eds.) Canon Constitution and Canon Change in Children's Literature. New York and London: Routledge, 2017, 23-38.

Darr, Yael. Renovations in a Five-Story Building: Three Different Readings of Lea Goldberg's 'A Flat for Rent'. Iyunim Bitkumat Israel 27, 2017, pp. 174-196. [Hebrew]

Darr, Yael. "Two Competing Avant-Guard Models in the inter-Generational discourse of Hashomer-Hatzair", Israel 23, Spring 2016, 315-332. [Hebrew]

Darr, Yael. “Picture-Books and Politics: Israeli Children's Picture-Books during the Shift from Pre-State to Statehood”, Problemy Wczesnej Edukacji/Issues in Early Education, Katedra Wczesnej Edukacji UWM, Poland, (3) 43 2016, 36-47.

Darr, Yael. "What does the Disbanding of the Palmach Have to do with Children's Stories?  Moshe Shamir and Yigal Mosinson Write for Children during the 1948 War". Mordechai Bar-On and Meir Chazan (eds.) Politics in Wartime: Studies on the Civilian Society during the Israeli War of Independence. Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi: Jerusalem, 2014, 580-598. [Hebrew]

 Yael Darr. "The Great War and its other battle-fields: Nahum Gutman dictates a first canonical memory of the war to children", Zmanim 126, Spring 2014, 110-121. [Hebrew]

Darr, Yael. "Nominating a children’s national poet: The belated canonization of Chaim Nachman Bialik in Hebrew hegemonic children’s culture", Kinder- und Jugendliteraturforschung international: Ansichten und Aussichten  ("Children's and Young Adult's Literature Research International: Opinions and Outlooks"), Peter Lang Publishing, 2014, 275-288.

Darr, Yael. "When the Recruited Was Beautiful and the Beautiful Was Recruited Thoughts about the Assumed Built-in Conflict Between the "Political" and the "Beautiful in Its Own Right" in Hegemonic Children's Press in Pre-state Israel". Kesher, Vol. 44, winter 2013, 80-86. [Hebrew]

Darr, Yael. "Grandparents Reveal Their Secrets: A Holocaust Narrative for the Young  'Third Generation' in Israel". International Research in Children's Literature, Vol. 5, Edinburgh University Press 2012, 97-110.

Darr, Yael. "Nation Building and War Narratives for Children: War and

Militarism in Hebrew 1940's and 1950's Children’s Literature". Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education, Vol. 48, No. 4, August 2012, 601-613.    

Darr, Yael. "Creating a Socialist Canon for Children: Lea Goldberg Dictates a Revolutionary Dualism in Labor Movement Children's Literature During the 1940's and 1950's". Journal of Israeli History: Politics, Society, Culture, Routledge, Vol. 31, No. 2, September 2012, 235-248.

Darr, Yael.  "An Artist of Equalitarian Poetics: Nachum Gutman in Davar Liyeladim". History and Theory: Protocols, Bezalel: Jerusalem, April 2011, http://bezalel.secured.co.il/zope/home/he/1301858337/1301859932]. [Hebrew]

Darr, Yael. "Discontent from Within: Hidden Dissent Against Communal Upbringing in Kibbutz Children's Literature of the 1940s & 1950s". Israel Studies, 16.2, Summer 2011, 127-150.

Yael Darr, Tal Kogman & Yehudit Shteiman (eds.) Dor Ledor – Children as Avant-Garde: Childhood and Adolescence in Times of Crises and Social Change. Tel Aviv University and Mofet Institute, 2010, 381 pp. [Hebrew]

Darr, Yael. "Youth in Battle on the Elite Theater Stages: The Dilemma of Representing the Israeli Independence War during its Occurrence".  In Meir Hazan and Mordehai Bar-on (eds.). The Civil Society in Israeli Independence War, vol 2, Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi: Jerusalem, 2010, 238-259. [Hebrew]

Darr, Yael. "The Rhetoric of Catastrophe in Children's Periodicals: Transmission of Holocaust Memory in the Weeks Preceding the 1967 War". In Yael Darr, Tal Kogman, Yehudit Shteiman (eds.) Dor Ledor – Children as Avant-Garde: Childhood and Adolescence in Times of Crises and Social Change. Tel Aviv University and Mofet Institute, 2010, 265-288. [Hebrew]

Darr, Yael. "From Canon to Canon: Key Poets for Adults Generate Change and Set the Taste in Literary Canon for Children, 1930's-1970's". In Yaacov Shavit (ed.) Te'uda XXIII Canon and Holy Scriptures, Tel Aviv University, 2009, 269-293. [Hebrew]

Darr, Yael. "A Confrontation between Two Doctrines:  The Birth of Struggle for Hegemony in Hebrew Children's Literature". International Research in Children’s Literature, Edinburgh University Press, Vol. 1,2009 , 139-154.

Darr, Yael. "Negating Diaspora Negation: Children's Literature in Jewish Palestine during the Holocaust Years".  European Judaism, vol. 42, no.1, UK: Leo Baeck College and the Michael Goulston Education Foundation, spring 2009, 17-30.

Yael Darr. "Every Child Will Tell His Child: Constructing the Past for Children in the Midst of a 'Historical Moment'. The Case of The Six-Day War". In Israel: Studies in Zionism and the State of Israel History, Society, Culture, Vol 13, spring 2008, 89-108. [Hebrew]

Darr, Yael. "A Tale of Amendment: A Third Generation in New Holocaust Stories for Young Children written in Israel". In: Gabriele von Glasenapp/ Hans-HeinoEwers (editors): Kriegs- und Nachkriegskindheiten. Studien zur literarischen Erinnerungskultur für junge Leser. Frankfurt a. M. u. a,(Kinder- und Jugendkultur, -literatur und –medien. Theorie - Geschichte - Didaktik; Bd. 57), 2008, 397- 415.

Darr, Yael. "Selling Subscriptions to Davar Li-Yeladim: Partisanship and Literary Independence in Davar Li-Yeladim During the Yishuv". Kesher, Vol. 35, Winter 2007, 110-117. [Hebrew]

Darr, Yael. "Inter-Generational Affinities in the Poetics of Modern Children's Literature: The Israeli Case study". Olam Katan (Small World): A Journal of Children's Literature Study, Vol. 3, 2007, 13-30]. [Hebrew]

Darr, Yael. "Under the Protection of Time: Third-Generation Holocaust Survivors in New Books for Children". In What Was the Word "Shoa"? The  Holocaust and the Israeli Cultural Discourse and Creative Works. Massuah, Vol. 33, 2005, 53-68. [Hebrew]

Darr, Yael. "Atoning for Diaspora Negation: Educators and Writers for Children are Reconciled  with the Diaspora as News of the Holocaust Taking Place in Europe Reaches Them". In Dapim: Studies of the Shoah. Haifa University and The Ghetto Fighters House, 2004, 55-76. [Hebrew]

Darr, Yael. "Recruiting the Zabar: Hebrew Children's Literature Sends its Readers to Battle, 1939-1948.  In Hannah Naveh and Oded Menda-Levy (eds.) Sadan: Studies in Hebrew Literature, Vol. 5, Tel Aviv University, 2002, 254-286. [Hebrew]