Sabine vs. Aviva: Translation and Popular Fiction in Yiddish and Hebrew

In late 1946, an unusual case came before Judge Eliezer Malhi in Tel Aviv. Journalist Yehuda Ya‘akovi (Novik) sued publisher Alexander Mozes and distributor David Topel for publishing Aviva, a popular serialized novel in Hebrew. Aviva, the suit claimed, was not an original work but an uncredited and unauthorized translation of the bestselling Yiddish novel Sabine, which had been published in installments in Poland by the Warsaw Yiddish newspaper Haynt in 1937. This trial was more than a colorful episode in the history of Hebrew popular culture. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, it highlighted the complex legal and cultural relationships between translation and original, Yiddish and Hebrew, and “high” and “low” literature. This article demonstrates how these popular but long-forgotten novels challenged concepts of authorship and translation, identifying a key moment in which shund (“trashy” fiction) becomes part of Hebrew culture.