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Popular Culture Studies

About the IsraPulp Collection

IsraPulp is a research collection of Hebrew popular literature and pulps (established 2004). It includes thousands of rare books and serialized pamphlets published since the early 1930s to the present day, in a wide range of genres: Westerns (some take place in Arizona), detective stories, crime novels, science fiction, romance, comics, and non-canonical children's books. Cultural undercurrents, political interests, and content that would not have been published in mainstream publications -- all are represented in this collection.

Explore IsraPulp Collection titles on ASU Library's OneSearch (search "IsraPulp": Hebrew characters search enabled). Materials are housed in Distinctive Collections and may be viewed at any of the reading rooms by request: AskAnArchivist.

 


אוסף ישראפּאלפּ לספרות פאלפ עברית מכיל אלפי פריטים השמורים באוספים המיוחדים של הספרייה. באוסף ספרים, מגזינים, עיתונים, פוסטרים ושאר דברי דפוס המקיפים סוגות רבות (ספרי מתח ופעולה, ספרות רומנטית, מערבונים, ספרות בלשית, מדע בדיוני ועוד), ספרות ילדים לא קאנונית ופרסומים מחתרתיים המתעדים את התפתחותה של התרבות הפופולרית בישראל משנות השלושים ועד ימינו.

IsraPulp Collection: Hebrew Popular Literature

Additional Resources

About the Collection

Leket-Mor, Rachel. 2022. "My Heart Is in the West and I Myself Am on the Eastern Edge: Hebrew Pulp Westerns and the Sabra Cowboy." In The Literary Western in the Global Imagination, edited by David Rio, Marek Paryz, and Christopher Conway, 253–277. Leiden: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004525306_016.

Leket-Mor, Rachel. 2011. “The Israeli Popular Literature Collection at ASU Library.” Judaica Librarianship 16/17: 1-53. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.14263/2330-2976.1003.

Related Articles

"Tarzan and the Jews: how the king of the apes became an Israeli craze," Rex Weiner. The Forward, August 7, 2012.

Israeli Superheroes: The International Catalogue of Superheroes 

"Israel's Unexpected Spinoff from a Holocaust Trial," Kershner, Israel. New York Times, September 6, 2007.

Hebrew Sources

Fantasy 2000: A 1970s periodical (IsraPulp Collection physical copy)

This World (העולם הזה): A sensational, anti-governmental edited by Uri Avneri, 1950–1989

Stalag: A podcast dedicated to reading and critiquing Stalag books, 2021 (links to Spotify)

The Tiny Novel / The Quill (1939–1961): Gabriel M. Rosenbaum's study 

The Israeli Cartoon Museum

The Israeli Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy

Shragah Gafni's Official Site: A bio-bibliographic site, including scans of book covers and some full-text.

Eli Eshed's Multi-Universe: The blog of the prolific guru of Israeli popular literature

Notalgiyah online: David Sela's online project, preserving Israeli everyday life

Related Collections

Eliasaf Robinson Tel Aviv Collection, Stanford University: Census materials, advertisements (1920s–1930s), maps, postcards, photographs, flyers, movie handbills, business ads.

Stanford University Library holds a photograph archive of Olam ha-kolno'a ("Cinema World", 1951–1974) and Lahiton ("Hit Parade Newspaper", 1969–1987) magazines, documenting Israeli popular music (1950s–1980s).

Time Travel: A digitized collection of posters, pamphlets, advertisements, brochures, and other ephemeral materials form Israel, the National Library of Israel, Arcadia Fund, and UCLA.

Jonathan Friedlander collection of Middle Eastern Americana, 1875-–2006 at UCLA

Queer Eye, Israeli fanzine: A digital fanzine published between 2009 to 2011, giving voice to gay and queer issues in the Israeli society. Archived and hosted by the University of Texas in Austin Libraries.

The ASU Library acknowledges the twenty-three Native Nations that have inhabited this land for centuries. Arizona State University's four campuses are located in the Salt River Valley on ancestral territories of Indigenous peoples, including the Akimel O’odham (Pima) and Pee Posh (Maricopa) Indian Communities, whose care and keeping of these lands allows us to be here today. ASU Library acknowledges the sovereignty of these nations and seeks to foster an environment of success and possibility for Native American students and patrons. We are advocates for the incorporation of Indigenous knowledge systems and research methodologies within contemporary library practice. ASU Library welcomes members of the Akimel O’odham and Pee Posh, and all Native nations to the Library.