No one has ever suspected Resling publishing house of putting out pulp fiction, but even though it is a publisher specializing in critical theory, its imprint on Israeli thought is undeniable. Resling's founders Idan Zivoni and Itzhak Benyamini are currently celebrating 20 years of work with over a thousand non-fiction books published in that time.
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The two met at the cafeteria in the humanities department at Tel Aviv University back in the 1990s when they were both studying for master's degrees in literature and psychology. Neither of them had yet thought of a subject for their doctoral thesis, but the desire to publish critical theory led them to found Resling Magazine in 1995. Six years and eight issues later, they moved up to the next stage ﹘ founding a publishing house focusing on the translation of French philosophical works that had sparked their intellectual curiosity but were not available in Hebrew: Jacques Derrida, Michelle Foucault, Roland Barthes ﹘ names that Hebrew readers now know.
The first book they published was Slavoj Zizek's On Superego And Other Ghosts. They had intended to publish it in Resling Magazine, but when the transcript of the Slovenian philosopher's lecture at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque was left without a publisher, they decided to pick up the gauntlet. Resling Publishing house was born.
"From that moment, we understood that we were on to something important, that we were sitting on a corpus of continental philosophy that interests us," recalls Idan Zivoni. "What motivated us was the desire to unlock the secrets of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan; that's what Zizek spoke about in his book and that has been our motivation ever since."
Resling's focus on post-structural French theory was something that was innovative at the time, even though the school of thought developed 30-40 years prior to being translated into Hebrew. "The university publishers did only sporadic translations of these theories. Even in 50 years, they wouldn't have managed to achieve the intensity of translations that we did.
"From their perspective, philosophy ended 200 years ago with [Immanuel] Kant and [Georg] Hagel, and after that a little [Soren] Kierkegaard and [Jean-Paul] Sartre, and that's it," states Zivoni. "In that sense, our project has been revolutionary, but the clock ticks on every revolution. Today, we are in the post-revolutionary stage."
Zivoni admits that "when we published Derida's text 20 years ago it had a very different effect than today. These things are absorbed by culture; the conversation moves forward all the time. They were classics on a global scale. We didn't invent them, but we did enable them to be perceived in Israel as classic translations. We brought forward their fashionably late translation."
Zivoni and Benyamini treated the canonical and – at the time – subversive texts as if they were sacred. "When we first translated Lacan, we read the text aloud by candlelight from A to Z. We felt as if we were hearing the living word of God."
Q: Just how influential is Resling and where were you most surprised to see that influence?
"Let me tell you a funny story," Zivoni said. "A few days ago, the translator who did Walter Benjamin's Passages told me that she was sitting at her hairdresser's one day when the stylist said to her: 'I heard that Passages is sold out, when is there going to be another print run.' So either she was a very special stylist, or there are hairdressers who sit up at night reading Walter Benjamin. It was very moving."
In recent years Resling's influence has trickled down to another main stage – the social analysis of journalist Avishai Ben Haim, who has been influenced over the years by many of the thinkers translated over the years by the publisher.
Resling's editor and co-founder Itzhak Benyamini admits that he doesn't like the interpretations Ben Haim concocted. Benyamini wrote a series of angry posts against Ben Haim, and as a protest sent him 10 books published by Resling that expressed his own political direction. Later on, he did the same with journalist Amit Segal and columnist Gadi Taub, both of whom, like Ben Haim, are associated with a right-wing viewpoint.
"I sent them the books as a prank," says Benyamini. "It was kind of antagonistic, but with a smile.
"It's not that I think Ben Haim is wrong," Benyamini explained. "Some of the materials that he employs are factually correct. My problem is when Ben Haim says that we, as Mizrahi Jews, stand accused the same way as [Benjamin] Netanyahu; that made me explode. I felt personally offended as a Mizrahi Jew that he placed me on the defendant's bench against my will. But at the same time, it's a good example of how influential the publishing house is. Avishai is absolutely a product of Resling; without us, it's obvious he would never have reached those places."
Alongside the many non-fiction books published by Resling, it also has a prose department that published the Vashti series of translated literature, edited by Adi Sorek, which includes books by Sylvia Plath, Thomas Pynchon and Emily Dickinson.
In recent years, Resling has also published the Laboratory series of original Israeli literature, edited by Naama Tsal, who passed away prematurely about a year ago, at the age of 39. The series focuses on experimental literature and Tsal invited authors to work in laboratory conditions on challenging experimental projects. Work on some of the books in the series was cut short with Tsal's death.
"There is no one to replace Naama; she was irreplaceable," says Zivoni. "Naama was very attentive and very precise; she had a strong ability to sniff out good texts."
Post-modernist argot is one of Resling's trademarks and it has trickled deep down into Israeli academic discourse. Even well-educated people with an academic background often find themselves lost in the complex texts published by Resling – both translated works and original Hebrew titles. A humorous Facebook page titled "Daily Resling Book" parodies the publisher's titles.
Resling's founders are proud of their preeminence in the field. "One couldn't imagine academia today without Resling," says Zivoni. "We have become a staple of the social sciences and humanities. The polemic about the post-structuralist discourse has been around since the school of thought emerged in France in the 1960s and is not something that is unique to us. The same thing happened in the United States - the elites found it difficult to accept this discourse but very soon adopted it. It's been the same for us; we have been criticized for our style from the very first book we published. But we feel that we have democratized the discourse - we have opened it up to audiences that would never have gained access to it."
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But the focus on critical theory has a price. "Resling has created an intellectual exile of Israeli critical theorists who have left the country," says Zivoni. "On the one hand a textual community has been constructed, but on the other hand, this community has been deconstructed because the criticism of Israeli violence and militarism weakens Israeliness due to a brain drain from the country. There is a dualism here – the discourse not only constructs a community but also splits it apart and dismantles it. I say that from a very personal point of view. People who were part of Resling, who published books with us, are today academics overseas and speak out against Israel. You can no longer teach in academia overseas without supporting BDS."
This tension – one that it is not all clear whether it may be resolved – stands at the heart of the speech Zivoni plans to give at an event to mark the anniversary of the founding of Resling.
"These are questions that bother me: how is it possible to continue living here and to hold a critical position, can we go on reciting these theories, what is the significance of internal exile, and what are the responsibilities of intellectuals. We will continue to promote political activity in Hebrew - to insist on translating, that is the most Zionist act there is."
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