"Human Engineering" and Shaping Space in the New Hebrew Culture

This article examines constituting texts that discuss in detail a way of life Jewish thinkers want for Israel: Abraham Mapu's "Ahavat tsiyon," Theodore Herzl's "Altneuland," and Yosef Luidor's"Yoash." It is considered that the book "Ahavat tsiyon" contains the first actual descriptions of landscapes in Hebrew literature. The plot of "Ahavat tsiyon" is anchored in the Kingdom of Judah, during the reigns of Ahaz and Hezekiah. Herzl's "Altneuland" is divided into two space-time sections: the first takes place in 1902 in Vienna and Israel; the second takes place in 1923 in Israel. In Luidor's "Yoash," the conventional contemporaneous idea of place is represented by David, a new immigrant who still clings to diasporic concepts.