Poetic Playing Fields: The Israel Folktale Archives as a Social Arena

Abstract

Abstract: The literary biography of Yaakov Lasri, from his time as a frustrated transcriber of stories he heard from others until the publication of his last book, in which he molded stories with artistic freedom, is a voyage through the literary polysystem of Israel of his day and the literary and political fields available to him. His disappointment in the real and symbolic capital that the Israeli Folktale Archives (IFA) offered drove him to seek alternative literary fields at play within the political discourse that blossomed in the late 1960s. The Mizrachi discourse in which social-political marginality started to challenge the heart of the establishment also manifested itself as changes in the literary field, changes that allowed Lasri to receive generous financial support for the publication of his first two books from local institutions and organizations associated with Mizrachi Jews. These gave room to poetics and to genres that neither the scientific establishment (IFA) nor the literary establishment (written literature) could or would accept.