Please join us in congratulating Nadav Linial, who was awarded the Michael S. Bernstein Dissertation Award for his outstanding dissertation, “Second Time as Tragedy: The Tragic Mode in Second Aliyah Hebrew Literature." This compelling project explores how Hebrew writers appropriated and reconfigured generic conventions associated with classical tragedy to depict the fate of Jewish immigration to Palestine in the early twentieth century. In Linial’s interpretation, the "tragic mode" elevates and universalizes these narratives of early immigration while also exposing the inevitable rupture between Zionist ideals and the realities of life in Palestine. The executive committee of the Frankel Center was impressed with Linial's nuanced interpretations of Hebrew literature and culture. They noted the originality and usefulness of the "tragic mode" in the context of Zionist literature and appreciated his attention to issues of gender and sexuality in the novels discussed.
The Bernstein Award, which comes with a $4000 cash prize, was established to honor the memory of Michael Bernstein, a distinguished graduate of the University of Michigan. Mr. Bernstein studied History and received top honors in 1973; he subsequently earned a J.D. from the University of Chicago. He joined the Office of Special Investigations (OSI)—the Nazi-hunting unit of the US Department of Justice—in 1985 as a trial attorney, and was appointed Assistant Deputy Director of OSI in 1988. Mr. Bernstein died in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. He was returning from Vienna, where he had persuaded the reluctant Austrians to take back Nazis deported from the U.S.
