Hillel Weiss

Hillel Weiss is a tenured professor at the Joseph & Norman Berman Department of Literature of the Jewish People, Faculty of Jewish Studies, Bar-llan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel. As head of the Department of Hebrew Literature, he changed its name to the Department of Literature of the Jewish People. He is the editor of “Bikoret U’parshanut,” a journal of literary criticism.

As a literary researcher, he specializes in the work of Shmuel Yosef Agnon, about whom he has published five books. He developed a computerized database for the author's complete works, with 2,500,000 words that can be accessed online through a retrieval system. The access is through three main frames:

- Frame A: Poetics. General typology, genres; motifs sources, poetic functions.

- Frame B: index of subjects, philosophy, history; society; psychology.

- Frame C: indices of individual works according to A and B, index of place and names, index of synopses; abstracts of criticism; bibliography.

Hillel Weiss is a prominent figure of the Neo-Zionist movement.Uri Ram, [http://www.press.umich.edu/pdf/9780472115419-ch8.pdf The Future of the Past in Israel - A Sociology of Knowledge Approach], in Benny Morris, Making Israel, the University of Michigan Press, 2007. He was one of the founders of the religious Zionist movement in the early 1970s. He believes in the necessity of rebuilding the Temple and instating Jewish rule over Greater Israel.Haaretz Weiss versa by Avi Garfunkel,30 January 2004[http://friendvill0104.homestead.com/Weiss.html friendvill0104 (copy of Ha'aretz article)][http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s1915134.htm ABC News] Weiss believes that secular Jews are betraying their cultural heritage if they deny the mythical aspect of the Masada narrative.Nachman Ben-Yehuda (1996) The Masada Myth: Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel University of Wisconsin Press, {{ISBN|0-299-14834-3}}, {{ISBN|978-0-299-14834-8}} p 287 In the chapter "The Messianic Theme in the Works of A.B. Yehoshua and Amos Oz"[https://books.google.com/books?id=5U-Dk-5p0mIC&dq=The+Messianic+Theme+in+AB+Yehoshua+and+Amos+Oz&pg=PA204 Israel and the Post-Zionists: A Nation at Risk, Chapter 11: The Messianic Theme in the Works of A.B. Yehoshua and Amos Oz] Retrieved 2013-01-02 in the anthology Israel and the Post-Zionists: A Nation at Risk, Weiss invokes the Holocaust as a cognitive filter to describe the actions of the right wing Israeli government and portrays post-Zionism as a negation of a Jewish State, anti-Zionist and anti-Israel.Editors Shlomo Sharan, Merkaz Ari’el le-meḥḳere mediniyut (2003) Israel and the Post-Zionists: A Nation at Risk Sussex Academic Press, {{ISBN|1-903900-52-2}}, {{ISBN|978-1-903900-52-9}} p 204-226 Weiss views the Jewish experience as an "ongoing Shoah".S. Lillian Kremer, (2003) Holocaust Literature: An Encyclopedia of Writers and Their Work Taylor & Francis {{ISBN|0-415-92984-9}}, {{ISBN|978-0-415-92984-4}} p 822

He has also opposed a visit by Pope Benedict XVI to Israel because of previously expressed views by the Holy See that Jerusalem should become an international city.[http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3697545,00.html Prof. Hillel Weiss: Pope persona non grata ]

In October 2014, Hillel Weiss was accused by several Israeli media outlets, including Haaretz, of advocating "the annihilation of Palestinians".Yarden Skop, [http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.621866] 'University blasts professor who called for annihilation of Palestinians,' Haaretz 21 October 2014 The accusation referenced a Facebook comment made by Weiss towards Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, in which he that stated that there is no genocide against the Palestinian people, as Palestinian Arabs have never constituted "a people".Hillel Weiss, [https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=872980319379347&id=100000021607827 Facebook Post, 27 September 2014] The statement was condemned by Bar Ilan University as ‘contemptible’ and ‘immoral’. Weiss himself has refuted these accusations, including the accusation that he called the elimination of Palestinians, enumerating specific ways by which Haaretz grossly misrepresented the content of his Facebook post.Hillel Weiss, [http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/15879#.VFCwY3V515S Op-Ed: Just the Facts: Response to Attacks, Arutz Sheva, Published: Monday, October 27, 2014 10:04 PM]

Weiss was the cause of a controversy during the 2005 Gay Pride Parade in Jerusalem when he said, "This abomination should be expelled from the Holy City by any means necessary."[http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1011253.html Ha'aretz] 13 August 2008 Prof. charged with incitement to violence for comments on Gay Pride parade Weiss became the subject of another controversy due to comments he made in August 2007, during the eviction of his daughter, Tehila Yahalom, from the Hebron wholesale market. {{citation needed|date=December 2015}} Moshe Kaveh, president of Bar-Ilan University, denounced his remarks.[http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/892900.html Ha'aretz] 13 August 2007 Professor says leftist "terrorists" made him apologize for Comments The Council for Peace and security also criticized him.{{Cite web |url=http://www.peace-security-council.org/flashes.asp?id=644 |title=Council for Peace and security |access-date=2008-08-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727112401/http://www.peace-security-council.org/flashes.asp?id=644 |archive-date=2011-07-27 |url-status=dead }}

• Defamation: Israeli Literature of Elimination, Beit El, 1992.
• [http://www.biupress.co.il/website_en/index.asp?id=729 Agnon and Germany: The Presence of the German World in the Writings of S.Y. Agnon.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110728084423/http://www.biupress.co.il/website_en/index.asp?id=729 |date=2011-07-28 }}, editor, along with Hans Juergen-Becker, Bar-Ilan Press, 2010.

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• [http://www.news1.co.il/blog/weissh/ Personal blog]

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Category:Living people

Category:Religious Zionists

Category:Neo-Zionism

Category:Academic staff of Bar-Ilan University

Category:Israeli literary critics

Category:1945 births