A revolutionary figure in modern Hebrew literature, Micha Bin Gorion rebelled against his Hasidic family of Medzibezh, in the former Soviet Union, and advocated aestheticism and extreme secularism in Jewish life. He called for a transvaluation, in the Nietzschean sense, of Judaism and Jewish history that led Hebrew contemporary critics to attach the name Aher, meaning "the alien" or "the apostate" to him. Berdichevsky, in turn, showed little appreciation for outstanding contemporary literary figures.
Bin Gorion's writings can be divided into four groups: essays, fiction, folklore anthologies, and scholarship. Berdichevsky's works embody the ambivalent attitudes of his time toward traditional Judaism and the European culture of the Jewish intellectuals.
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