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Ben Gurion Criticizes Israel’s Literature at Writers Conference

April 9, 1958
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Modern Hebrew literature is “detached from the urgent problems of the State of Israel, ” Prime Minister David Ben Gurion declared today in a letter to the Israeli Writers Conference which convened here today at the new Israeli Writers House here, named after the late, famous poet, Saul Tchernichovsky.

Modern literature in this country, Mr. Ben Gurion wrote, “has not echoed the revolutionary and fateful event of the ingathering of a million Jews.” The Premier told the writers he would not “dare” tell them what their intellectual contribution should be, but he would “allow” himself to present the question as to whether modern literature is identifying itself with the subjects “most fateful to the State. “

Mr. Ben Gurion also pointed out that too small a percentage of Oriental Jews in this country are studying in the higher institutions of learning here.

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