The Mythological Sabra and Jewish Past. Linnéuniversitetet. Kojo Pavic

7/29/2019 The Mythological Sabra and Jewish Past. Linnuniversitetet. Kojo Pavic

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ael Zerubavel

Te ythological Sabraand Jewish Past: rauma,emory, and Contested dentities

J the examination of theircollective identity was highly pronounced in the early years of Zionist settle-ment in Palestine. or a society of immigrants in the process of definingits distinct collective identity and national foundations this preoccupationis hardly surprising. lthough srael has since achieved national indepen-dence and experienced major demographic, ideological, social, cultural,economic and political transformations, sraelis passionate interest in re-examining their collective identity has not diminished. s a new series of

popular publications on Te sraelis demonstrates, this topic continuesto attract public attention and to be prominently featured in sraeli popu-lar and scholarly forums. arious segments of sraeli society continue todebate the opposing orientations of continuity and change between theirpre-sraeli past and their sraeli present. Tis article sets out to explore oneparticular aspect of this broad and complex topic.

ollowing the century tradition of the grand historical narrative,Zionism constructed a sweeping interpretation of Jewish history from

ntiquity to the present, marked by its teleological orientation. dvocat-

ing continuity and identification with ntiquity and a dissociation fromthe period of exile, the Zionist narrative constructed historical dichotomiesthat highlighted the introduction of a radical shift in Jewish history: itsdecline narrativefrom the golden age of ntiquity to Jewish life in exilewas to be replaced bya progress narrativebeginning with the Zionist returnto the Land of srael and leading toward national redemption. Te his-torical juncture of two key events that took place in mid- century, theolocaust and the foundation of the State of srael, affi rmed the semioticstructure of the Zionist narrative. cataclysmic event of major proportions,the olocaust culminated and concluded the decline narrative of exile


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while the establishment of the state marked Zionisms success in shiftingthe trajectory of history in line with the progress narrative.

Te discussion of the construction of a ew an, typical of arevolutionary discourse, articulated most powerfully Zionisms desire todissociate from the discredited exilic past. Tough Zionism was a Jewishmovement steeped in traditional symbols, the figure of the ew Jew ofthe Land of srael manifested its highly critical stance toward the alut(Jewish life in xile) and was largely shaped by an opposition to the nega-

tive image of the exilic Jew. nfluenced also by anti-Semitic depictions ofuropean Jews, the Jew of exile was portrayed as uprooted, cowardly andmanipulative, old and sickly, helpless and defenseless in face of persecu-tion, interested in materialistic gains or conversely, excessively immersedin religion and spirituality. n contrast, the ew ebrew, later nicknamedSabra, was characterized as young and robust, daring and resourceful,direct and down-to-earth, honest and loyal, ideologically committed andready to defend his people to the bitter end.

Te ythological Sabra clearly serves as an ideal type, a fictivehegemonic identity that reflects the cultural background, values, and

collective aspirations of the uropean founders. Te image of the Sabrastood detached from the cultural diversity of an immigrant society and

Stereotyped image of a Sabra; am itzur loading hay at Kfar ittim, .Courtesy of the Israel Government Press Offi ce


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Te ythological Sabra and Jewish Past

represented only a minority of the youth who were typically (though notexclusively) the descendants of the uropean pioneers. et it was a power-ful cultural construct that served as a self-image and an educational modelfor the socialization of sraeli youth and new immigrants. Tis ideologicalframework gave rise to theZionist conversion paradigm that associated therenewed encounter between exilic Jews and the ancient Jewish homelandwith the revival of a native-ebrew identity that had been suppressedduring centuries of exile and the experience of a profound and irreversible

identity change.Jews who return to their ancient homeland were thusrecognized as Olim, a concept that distinguished them from other immi-grants (mehagrim) as well as from Jews who immigrate to other destina-tions. Considered as reclaiming their native identity, olim were entitled toimmediate citizenship by sraels Law of eturn, eliminating the commonrequirement of a liminal period associated with an immigrant status. Tisconversion was often enacted by shedding off ones exilic foreign nameand adapting a new ebrew name, thereby representing the death of theexilic Jew and the rebirth of a Sabra. Te profound symbolic meaning ofname changing as an important Zionist ritual that represents the dis-iden-

tification with a discredited past becomes evident when compared to namechanging as part of the traditional ritual of conversion to Judaism, and

wo young Sabra girls from el-viv, .Courtesy of the Israel Government Press Offi ce


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(perhaps even more evocatively) to an old Jewish folk custom of changingthe name of the severely sick in order to guarantee their recovery.

Te experience of uprooting, which is inherent to the immigration pro-cess, clearly added to individuals sense of rupture between their pre-sraelipast and their sraeli present. ven under more favorable conditions, immi-gration involves dislocation and loss. n the case of Jewish immigration toPalestine (and later to srael), major waves were triggered by a push factorstemming from the introduction of discriminating measures against Jews,and the outbreak of pogroms or wars in their countries of origin. Te new

comers traumatic departure from their exilic homes, followed by the strongand pervasive pressure they met in srael to relinquish earlier identities,languages, memories, and culture, aggravated that sense of rupture. Teexpectation that newolim would personally embody the profound trans-formation from exilic Jews to native sraelis was largely accepted during thepre-state and early state periods as necessary for national revival.

Te rejection of the exilic past was clearly reflected in the Sabrasattitude toward the olocaust. Te persecution and annihilation of Jewsduring orld ar represented the extreme evil of life in alut that was

associated with the others, the exilic Jews who did not realize the urgencyof the Zionist agenda and stayed behind in urope. Tis attitude of psycho-logical distancing was tinged with an air of superiority toward the olocaustvictims who went like lambs to the slaughter, although the ishuv and itsleadership did express concern for, and identification with fate of the Jewsunder azi-controlled regimes. Te ambivalence toward the olocaustsurvivors continued after their immigration to srael, and sraeli publicculture was slow in incorporating the commemoration of the olocaust.Te sraeli writer and olocaust survivor, haron ppelfeld, describes hisdiffi culty in holding on to the elusive memories of his prewar childhood and

war experiences soon after the war ended. rriving in Palestine as a youngadult, he felt the pressure not only to suppress those remnants of memorybut also to change his personality and even his physiognomy in order toaccommodate himself to the ythological Sabra, to become overnight atall, blond lad with blue eyes, and, the main thing, sturdy.

Te ideology of change, however, presented a more extreme stancethan the reality of sraeli life conveyed. n spite of the process of seculariza-tion and nationalization, the largely heterogeneous and culturally diversesociety still preserved a high degree of cultural continuity with Jewish pastand its traditions. Since the s, however, significant changes have chal-

lenged the secular national Zionist ethos that was predominant during thepre-state and the early state periods and its representation of the ythologi-


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cal Sabra. arginal groups such as Sephardi Jews, the ltra-rthodox,sraels rabs, women, and new immigrant communities have demanded agreater representation in sraeli public and political life. Te attitude towardthe olocaust, which began to change in the late s and especially afterthe ichmann trial in , went through a major transformation followingthe collective trauma of the om Kippur ar of ctober . sraels first-hand experience of trauma in the continuing conflict with the Palestinianshas heightened the anxiety over issues of death and survival. sraelis havedisplayed a growing interest in olocaust history and commemoration and a

stronger sympathy for its victims. Te olocaust has gradually emerged asone of the most defining historical events in sraeli collective consciousness,and as a key historical metaphor of Jewish vulnerability.

Te present article sets out to explore the tension between continuityand change in the shaping of the Sabra identity by focusing on the ways inwhich the traumatic response to the olocaust and to sraels precarioussituation within the continuing iddle astern conflict have contributedto sraelis vacillation between the dissociation from and the embracing of

Jewish exilic past. Te following discussion addresses the tension between a

new sraeli identity and old Jewish roots of a former identity and examinesthe ways in which individuals experience of trauma interacts with the Zion-ist conversion formula in shaping the attempts to resolve this tension.

rauma (from the reek wound) complicates the individuals graspof the past and its continuity with the present. Te traumatic event assaultsthe psyche by excessive stimuli that cannot be assimilated into familiarcognitive schemas, and causes its memory to remain fragmented, incom-prehensible, and resisting integration into consciousness. onetheless,the repressed memory of the past invades the present as it asserts itselfthrough uncontrollable flashbacks, nightmares, and unconscious repetition

of behavior patterns. ighly disjointed and lacking coherence, these frag-ments of traumatic memory manifest the opposing pulls to suppress thepast and the compulsion to re-experience it. hile trauma survivors sufferfrom varying degrees of acuteness of the post-traumatic syndrome, theyoften report a feeling of being frozen outside of time and experiencingthe doubling or splitting of the self.

Te literary works discussed in this essay revolve around individualswhose traumatic response to the olocaust and the sraeli-Palestinianconflict evokes a struggle between the conflicting drives to forget and toremember and leads them to the suppression, invention or transformation

of identity. n describing these processes, these works portray the differentstrategies pursued, whether deliberately or unconsciously, by individual


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sraelis, in an effort to deal with their personal and collective traumas.Trough this focus, the discussion reveals a growing recognition of theproblematic relation between the Zionist and the Jewish pasts and theurgency to resolve it. Clearly, the four novels selected for this study do notrepresent the entire scope of possible strategies of coping with the ambiva-lence toward the past and its impact on the Sabra identity. urthermore,the experience of ruptures is shared by various segments of sraeli societythat hold competing ideologies and advocate different responses to the chal-lenge of integrating their pre-sraeli past and the present. Tis essay does

not represent this diversity, as it focuses on sraelis of uropean descentwho were part of the earlier conception of the ythological Sabra butchallenge this ideological framework as they experiment with their ownotherness. Te analysis presented in this essay is part of a broader study ofmodels of identity change in this and other groups within sraeli society.

n sraeli society, writers have played an important role in the construc-tion of the national ebrew culture and continue to be involved in sraelipublic and political life to date. Tis tradition of direct involvement inissues that confront sraelis personally and collectively is further enhanced

by the writers artistic sensibilities and ability to identify undercurrents thathave not yet captured public attention. ebrew literature, therefore, offersa more complex and nuanced picture of both familiar and subterraneantrends that make up sraeli life. Te study of the literary exploration ofsraeli identity through the focus on the individuals perspective can thusserve as a rich resource for gaining insights into these processes and a deeperunderstanding of the changes and challenges that the society faces.

Te novels discussed here include anoch Bartovs Te Fabricator(), mnon Jackonts Borrowed ime(), oram Kaniuks Te Last

Jew () and ichal ovrins Te Name (). Te writers of these

novels belong to two different generations: the older generation of ebrewyouth that grew up during the ishuv years and reached adulthood in thelate s (Bartov and Kaniuk), and a younger generation born around thefoundation of the state (Jackont and ovrin). Te article first examinesBartovs and Jackonts works which are concerned more directly with theimage of the ythological Sabra and the experience of ruptures with thepast. Tough both works are constructed as mysteries that revolve aroundthe uncovering of identities, the differences they present in the choice ofhistorical settings, emplotment and ideological positions are significantand may reflect, at least in part, their respective generational affi liations.

Kaniuks and ovrins novels highlight the hold the past has over thepresent. hile both novels present intricate plot structures and a complex


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exploration of their protagonists response to trauma, Kaniuks tendencyto portray individuals as collective representations contrasts sharply withovrins more individualistic and self-reflexive voice, and may similarlybe linked to generational differences. Last but not least, while the firstthree novels are written by male writers and focus on male characters, inline with the gender-based image of the Sabra, ovrins novel representsa female character and reflects the recent rise of literature by and aboutsraeli women. hope that the following discussion of these works willcontribute to the broader challenge of exploring the transformation of

the Sabra identity into a growing range of emergent identities, as sraeliscontinue to reconfigure their place within the collective drama of Jewishhistory, as well as their local roots in the iddle ast.

RAUMA AND HE FRAGMENAION OF IDENIY

anoch Bartovs novel,Te Fabricator, revolves around the enigmatic iden-tity of a person found in a coma following a car accident that occurred on

his way to London airport. number of intelligence services, includingthe erman, the rench, and the sraeli, get involved in the investigationof what appears to be a clear case of espionage by a double agent. s infor-mation is pieced together by the various intelligence services, they learnthat the unconscious man is a olocaust survivor whose various identitiescorrespond to different periods of his past: erman Jewish child who fledto rance with his parents, he survived the war by virtue of his remarkableability to speak various languages without a trace of a foreign accent and toassume a new name and biography as required by the situation. memberof the rench esistance during the war, he later joins a Zionist group and

is smuggled to British-controlled Palestine. nder the borrowed identity ofa native sraeli, he goes on to fabricate a new sraeli biography that firmlyestablishes his familys roots in the land and conceals his earlier life inurope. decade following his immigration, however, he resumes his oldcontacts in the rench esistance and obtains a rench passport under hisold rench nom de guerre, enri ontreland. t the same time he requestsa erman passport under his birth name, ans Bergsohn, and recreates acomplete biography as a erman citizen. ith a family, home, and businessbase in srael, he develops an intricate web of intersecting identities, biog-raphies, and business contacts that requires superb control of information

to avoid leaks about his fragmented life and self. s he shifts betweenhis various identities and their corresponding geographical, social, cultural,


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and economic environments, his business travels account for the time gapsin each capacity, without arousing others peoples suspicions.

Te Fabricatoropens at the moment of an acute crisis, when the pro-tagonist loses consciousness and falls into a coma, unable to safely recoverthe most appropriate identity. Te British psychiatrist whose help is enlistedconnects the unconscious man with what he believes to be his strongeridentitythe sraeli business and family manat the price of suppressinghis other identities. Te protagonists equilibrium appears to be restoredand his life in srael blossoms until the shocking outbreak of the om

Kippur ar. e-traumatized by the war and in an acute state of agitation,the protagonist drives his car toward the front, loses control on the road,and encounters his death in yet another automobile accident.

Te novel thus revolves around the impact of trauma and immigrationon identity formation. arlier in his life, the olocaust survivors chame-leon ability serves as his survival strategy. Te same strategy also appearsto serve him well in erasing his Jewish past and constructing a new sraeliidentity, in conformity with the Zionist conversion formula. Bartovs herohad to borrow the identity of a native sraeli in order to gain entry into

Palestine in light of the British prohibitions on Jewish immigration, but inassuming the identity of an authentic Sabra whose roots in the land reachbeyond Zionist history, he goes beyond what the political circumstancesrequired. Te sraeli intelligence agent thus notes: s vishalom evroni,he assured himself not only a future separate from his earlier identities, realor fictive, but also a new past, better rooted and more impressive than theman with whose documents he arrived in the country []. urthermore,

vishalom evroni conforms to the Sabra archetype by casting himself inthe role of the orphaned Sabra, and incorporates in his biography otherimportant themes of the national ebrew culture, such as the seculariza-

tion of religious Jews and the Zionist fascination with astern uropeanpeasants. is success in projecting the Sabra image amazes the sraeliintelligence agent: e is one of us, the purest of the pure, [. . .] one whomyou would never ask to see his identity card []. et the novel showsthat in spite of this remarkably solid Sabra appearance, the native sraeliidentity is only one of the protagonists several identities and is no moreauthentic than the others, nor does it offer him a better chance of healingfrom what appears as an acute dissociative disorder. Tus, the protagonistsstate at the opening of this investigationa body without consciousness,a man who cannot tell his own identityserves as a symbolic representa-

tion of his post-traumatic condition. Te Fabricatordemonstrates that theprotagonists defense mechanism cannot withstand the pressure ofre- trau-


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matization by the outbreak of wars in srael, leading him to recreate hiswartime experience of shifting between constructed identities. hen thissurvival strategy is denied by the suppression of his alternative memories,the re-traumatized evroni finds himself in with no recourse otherthan death. n contrast to the Zionist narrative, the exilic Jews conversionto a native sraeli ultimately fails to bring a personal redemption. henthe vulnerable exilic Jew resurfaces from underneath the acquired mask ofa confident sraeli, the illusion of redemption is shattered.

Bartovs work follows the post-independence period, when the ytho-

logical Sabras appeared to be firmly established in their culture and land.Bartov belongs to the generation of writers who came of age during orld

ar . n his earlier novel, Te Brigade(), he provides an intriguingaccount of the Sabras intense ambivalence toward olocaust survivorswhen they encounter them in urope in the immediate aftermath of thewar. Published two years after the om Kippur ar, Te Fabricatorreflectsa stronger interest in the olocaust and growing compassion for the sur-vivors. Te authors sympathetic attitude toward the olocaust survivor isrevealed through the intelligence agents compassionate account, but Te

Fabricatorcontinues the earlier attitude of relating to the olocaust survi-vor as the other. oreover, evroni is ultimately denied both agency andself-awareness in comprehending and in documenting his own (hi)story.Troughout the novel, he remains the object of the native sraelis gaze, asubject of his study.

Te protagonists diffi culty in processing the experience of traumaundermines the attempt to produce an authoritative and coherent narrativeabout his past. Lawrence Langer who studied olocaust testimonies offersthe following observation: s we listen to the shifting idioms of the mul-tiple voices emerging from the same person, we are present at the birth of

a self made permanently provisional as a result of fragmentary excavationsthat never coalesce into a single, recognizable monument to the past.

s Bartov shows, even the powerful sraeli intelligence service and themasterful psychiatrist who commonly engage in uncovering hidden pastsare constrained by the impact of trauma. ronically, the detective-narrator,too, is bound to construct a fictionalized biography as he pieces together thefragments of information available, thereby echoing the fabricators act.

Bartovs novel reveals the frailty of an identity that is based on thesuppression of memory even when a seemingly coherent narrative concealsthese gaps. o the extent that all sraelis are olocaust survivors, evroni

may be seen as a collective representation of the ythological Sabra whosuffers from the postwar effects of violent forgetfulness, whether hidden


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or visible. e will return to the possibility of readingTe Fabricatoras anallegorical representation of sraeli society in the following discussion.

WAR VIOENEAND HE AURE OF HIORIA REGREION

Like Bartovs novel, mnon Jackonts Borrowed imefocuses on an sraelimans transformed identity, which presents a mystery to the sraeli intel-

ligence service. ts protagonist, rik Ben-or, comes as close as possibleto the ythological Sabra: Te son of a famous uropean-born, Socialist-Zionist politician, rik is, quite symbolically, the irst Son of his kibbutz.

leader among his peers, he is ranked as outstanding among his fellowcombat pilots, the cream of the sraeli army elite. ollowing an extendedperiod of military service, he joins the ossad, sraels intelligence agency,and continues to work in the service of his country. t the prime of his life,

rik Ben-or represents the fulfillment of the Sabra image.uring his stay abroad, however, rik Ben-or falls in love with a

Palestinian woman, moves in with her, and cuts off his ties with the ossad.Both he and his lover assume new identities in an attempt to begin a newlife. rik discards his native ebrew name, assumes a foreign first nameand reclaims his fathers old uropean last name, and reinvents himself as

lbert Bodinger. Living under the cover of his new exilic identity, he earnsa living as a hired pilot transporting smuggled goods, which turns himinto a double fugitive from the law. hen a friend is sent by the ossadto track him down, he finds that the once youthful and confident Sabrahas been subject to sickness and sudden aging, a change that conforms tothe stereotypical Zionist view of the exilic Jew. riks regressive conver-

sion poses an enigma and a challenge to the sraeli intelligence service,leading them to send, Shemesh, his childhood friend after him, to explorethe grounds for this change and to persuade rik to return to srael of hisown free will.

oward the end of the novel, rik explains to Shemesh the hiddenreasons for his symbolic conversion as stemming from his growing disil-lusionment with the Zionist historiography and its view of srael as a safehaven for Jews. rik describes his changed outlook: . . . you go out to theworld and discover that they deceived you. [. . .] ou discover that [outthere] there is a big, huge world and people live in it without boundaries,

without wars . . . []. itnessing the sweeping power of the slamicrevolution that toppled the Shah in ran, his conviction grew that sraeli


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Jews are trapped within an endless cycle of wars that offers no way out:e live in borrowed time of grace, he explains to his friend, [. . .] buttime is running out. [. . .]. am afraid, Shemesh. [. . .] ow many bor-rowed decades of wars from within and from without, and at the end, what?estruction. ou win one battle, two, dozen, a hundred and a dozenandthe war is still lost [].

Te regressive conversion is thus rooted in a profound ideologicalchange that leads the protagonist to choose life in exile over death in thehomeland. n making this preference, rik regards himself as following

the footsteps of the Jewish historian, Josephus lavius, who decided to sur-render to the omans instead of killing himself when the Jewish revolt inthe alilee was defeated in the first century .. rik s choice of a historicalmodel stands in contrast to the sraeli national tendency to glorify thosewho sacrifice themselves for the homeland, much like his own father who,according to rik, saw himself as a Bar Kokhba, the ancient leader ofanother Jewish revolt against ome []. Te symbolism of those ancientmodels echoes in a lament by Kugel, riks handler at the ossad, over hisagents choices: h, Ben-or, Ben-or. ad you not decided to act like

Josephus laviouswhat a Judah the accabbee you could have been, oreven a Bar Kokhba . . . [].Like Te Fabricator, Borrowed imerevolves around the protagonists

identity change from a Sabra to an exilic Jew, but in spite of their sharedinterest in this regressive historical trajectory there is a critical differencein their respective accounts. Te Fabricatorimplies that the protagonistsidentity changes are psychological in nature and stem from a olocaustsurvivors pathological response to his traumatic experiences. Borrowedimeprovides a political framework to explain rik Ben-ors identitychange, and empowers him with a deliberate decision and full awareness

of its political ramifications and the personal risks involved. Tis differ-ence may reflect the generational gap between the two writers as well asthe dramatic changes that took place in the second half of the s, inthe years separating the publications of these works. riks views reflect theemergence of a more critical approach to Zionist history and sraeli nationalmyths in the late s, which was to intensify in later decades. n ,his views and personal choices were more extreme than they would appearto todays reader. By focusing on the political and ideological dimensionsof his heros identity reversal rather than on its individual psychologicalgrounds, Jackont implies that this dramatic change is rooted in a broader

social and political change.nce rik assumes the role of an exilic Jew, his degree of freedom


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is increasingly diminished. is attempt to escape from his countrys fateand live peacefully with his Palestinian lover is doomed to fail within theharsh reality of the sraeli-Palestinian conflict. n the end, the Palestinianlover is inadvertently responsible for riks death when the Palestiniangunman she sends after Shemesh mistakenly kills rik who is trying toescape from the ossad. riks regression from an active sraeli agent toa persecuted Jew ends when he is caught between the sraeli ossad andthe Palestinians. lthough his character is granted agency in making hisearlier choices, the constraints of his situation are expressed textually by

his absence as the narrator of his own story, and others are left to reporton his life and his views.

Tough they focus on personal stories, Te Fabricatorand Borrowedimenonetheless suggest that the source of the problem is located beyondthe particular individuals or their specific circumstances in creating analo-gies between the investigators and those whom they investigate. Te sraeliintelligence offi cer who investigates evronia native sraeli named vnerBen-Barakchanges his identities and creates biographies for professionalreasons. n so doing he too becomes the fabricator to whom the novel

title alludes: n that second half of my life, when remained in uropefor years, he notes, did not sit still in one place but kept moving in acontinuous circular motion, each time as a somewhat different character,every time with a different passport, while my cover stories continued tobe replaced . . . []. eflecting on these changes, he further commentsthat [o]f all the masks he has replaced, his favorite was that of ChaimBerkovitch, which would have been his name had his father not changedhis name to Ben-Barak and imagined his son as King Sauls chief offi cer[].

n Borrowed ime, Shemesh is positioned as the immigrant other in

comparison to riks status of a ythological Sabra. Born in ermany asLeopold old, he arrives in Palestine as a child refugee and goes throughthe conventional Zionist conversion, assuming a ebrew name and iden-tity. hen, equipped with a erman passport bearing his old, pre-sraeliname and identity, he is sent to hostile ran to look for rik, he goes fur-ther than his offi cial cover requires in re-embracing his discarded exilicidentity. Shemesh thus continues to follow riks example in undergoingthe Josephus process [], and likewise shifts from the role of the pur-suer on behalf of the ossad to being pursued by them. Te process ofidentification is further revealed in these novels when vner Ben-Barak

and Shemesh are attracted to the lovers of the men they were followingand enter brief relationships with them. Borrowed imeends with another


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ironic twist when Kugel, the ossads old guard who pursues rik, suffersa stroke in urope and, on his deathbed, hears voices speaking in iddish,the discredited exilic language of his youth. Tis symbolic regression toan exilic Jew is further enhanced by its juxtaposition to the hymn of thePalmah underground, a canonic expression of the Sabra culture of riksand Shemeshs generation.

Like Te Fabricator,Borrowed imeattracts attention to the fragileor illusory character of the regressive conversion from a Sabra to an exilic

Jew. Te protagonists identity change can endure for a limited time only,

but it ends with a violent death. Te rupture between the Jewish past andthe sraeli present cannot offer a solution, but neither can the oppositemovement of recapturing an earlier exilic identity. hether these identitychanges stem from a conscious or unconscious response to personal andcollective traumas of war, neither route offers the comfort of resolution orthe promise of redemption.

HIORY IMRIONED Y MYH

YIA IME AND MIRRORED IDENIIE

Te Last Jew, oram Kaniuks epic novel, spans several centuries andthree continents. Te novel portrays a vast array of characters from differ-ent historical times and locales, with a web of connecting threads betweenthem. Te earliest figure depicted in the novel is osef della eina, a century kabalist, who became the subject of legendary tales of magicalpractices, but the key character that propels the plot is a late centurywandering poet and womanizer, osef eina, named after him. Te Last Jewrevolves around several of osef einas numerous offspring, who are often

oblivious to their hidden biological ties. Te novels two main historicalfoci are the olocaust and the ishuv/srael. Te figure of the Last Jewpersonifies the link between them.

Te Last Jew is an inmate in a azi death camp who manages tosurvive thanks to his superb talent as a woodcarver. Believing that he willremain the last Jew to survive the olocaust, he takes upon himself the taskof rescuing Jewish knowledge from extinction. Te Last Jew thus developsa phenomenal ability to memorize all that he hears and reads and to reciteit verbatim. uring his stay in the camp, he meets a young intern, ShmuelLipkin, whose street-smart survival skills help him survive. fter the war,

the two wander around together, living off the shows that the young manorganizes for the Last Jew in which he performs his remarkable recitations.


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Lipkin eventually leaves urope for merica, whereas the Last Jew immi-grates to srael with his wife who, like him, is a olocaust survivor.

Te Last Jews determination to memorize all Jewish texts constitutesa form of resistance to the azi plan to annihilate Jewish memory. n sodoing, he embodies and affi rms the significance attributed by Jewish tra-dition to collective memory encoded in texts. But in embracing the roleof a living monument, he loses touch with historical time, and begins tofeel as if he is living always at one point in an eternal and unchangingpresent[]. Tis sense of being frozenoften experienced by survivorsof traumais also evident in his loss of personal memory and identitythat causes him to become a generic exilic Jew. oreover, his mechani-cal recording is indiscriminate with regard to the value or appropriatenessof the memorized texts, and his repertoire therefore blends history withfiction, scientific study with trivial conversation, Jewish and non-Jewishtexts. Te rather grotesque outcome of this process becomes a parody ofJewish memory that is exacerbated when performed as cheap entertain-ment, featuring the Last Jew as a curiosity or a freak.

Te subversion of historical time is manifested symbolically in the set-

ting of the clock backward, an act that becomes the key to the Last Jewsmemory and which Shmuel Lipkin learned from his own experience in theolocaust: nce invented the turning of the clock backward, afterward lived in reverse time and thats how the amnesia was born and lasted fouryears []. Similarly, an sraeli educator who writes the Last Jews biogra-phy reveals that his story is constructed from the end to the beginning [].Te idea of time flowing backward is repeated elsewhere in the novel. Teturning of the clock backward becomes more loaded when we learn thatthe Last Jew is none other than venezer Shneorson, the irst Son to beborn on a Zionist agricultural settlement founded by his parents. ollowing

his young wifes death,venezer leaves his infant son and goes to uropeto search for his origins. Believed dead by his mother, ivka, she raises hergrandson Boaz as her own son. Boaz, a major figure in this novel, suffershis own trauma during sraels ar of ndependence and that is followedby a lengthy period of disorientation when the war ends.

Te Last Jewcreates a mythical framework by introducing a cyclicalrepetition of biographical patterns, by mirroring and doubling identitiesand symbolic images. Te defiance of the linear historical temporal orderis expressed by the Last Jews observation that that which was finishedlong ago, is bound to begin again [], a view that is reaffi rmed toward

the end of the novel: Someone invents now not only the past but alsothe present in which these things are actually taking place, and what is


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happening is a prophecy that goes both forward and backward, like thehistory that is disappearing from the world []. Te comparison ofKaniuks Te Last Jewand . B. ehushuas later novel,Mr. Mani, maybe particularly instructive: both novels are family sagas that encompassseveral generations of Jews (the ani family is Sephardi) and emphasizecontinuity within the Jewish experience; both use mythical patterns andthe doubling and mirroring of identities; and both are deliberately con-structed against the redemptive thrust of the Zionist narrative. nlike TeLast Jew, however,Mr. Manipreserves a sequential, if counter-historical,

order that proceeds in a reverse chronology from the present to the past.Tis structure incorporates the possibility of a counter-counter-reading(from the last chapter to the beginning), which offers a more comfortingpotential of restoring historical time.

Te Last Jew implies that mythical structures may be far more sig-nificant than historical truth, and that history is inherently suspect. Tenovel portrays an array of characters whose pedigree is obscured, who haveconflicting biographies, and whose identity remains fluid and ambiguous.Te novel articulates the demise of the social and moral order through the

collapse of historical time and genealogical structures: sons who search forthe identity of their biological fathers; husbands who are unsure of theirparenthood on the one hand, or unaware that they are not the biologicalfathers of their children, on the other; persons who look alike yet theirrelationship to each other remains unclear; a wife who finds out that herhusband is also her father; and parents who are siblings or uncles of theirown children.

Te collapse of historical time and the moral order challenges theideological premises and teleological orientation of the Zionist narrativeand the historical dichotomies of sraeli/Jew, homeland/exile. Te exilic

Jewish past cannot be told apart from the Zionist present and vice-versa,the Zionist present carries the same structures and motifs as the exilic past.Te sraeli characters are portrayed as part of an entire gallery of Jewishcharacters who are the manifestations of Jewish archetypes. Te irst Sonof a Zionist settlement is transformed from a ew ebrew into an exilic

Jewpar excellence. ith further irony, venezers departure from Palestineto uroperepresenting the opposite direction to the historical model ofthe xodus from gypt toward the Promised Landoccurs in the spring,the season traditionally associated with Passover and the commemorationof the xodus.

Te mirroring images of Boaz Shneorson, the Last Jews biologi-cal son, and Shmuel Lipkin, his adopted as son from the concentration


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camp, similarly defy the Zionist dichotomies. Boaz is a Sabra, born andraised on a farm, a soldier who fights in srael s ar of ndependence andsubsequent wars, and becomes involved in the commemoration of fallensoldiers. Shmuel, on the other hand, follows the negative stereotype ofthe exilic Jew, a man who is rootless, yet a ruthless survivor. n spite ofthese stark differences, the novel suggests that the two share significantbiographical patterns: born on the same day, though in different parts ofthe world, both are orphaned as children and adopted by others, and bothexploit war situation and live off the memory of the dead. Te doubling of

Shmuel/Boaz suggests that the two are the Janus face of the same personaand hence are ultimately interchangeable. Tis point is further manifestedin Shmuels biography, which is also split into alternative versions: n thedominant version, he goes to merica and, adopted by his half brother, hebecomes a famous theater director. n the other version, he leaves uropefor srael, where he joins the army fighting in the ar of ndependence, andis mistakenly identified as dead. Lipkin uses this opportunity to recreatehimself as a native Sabra, much like Te Fabricatorshero, and adopts thename of osef enan (i.e., the modern ebrew version of his biological

father, osef eina).Te novel thus demonstrates that the fluidity of identity is intimatelylinked to the fluidity of the past. t problematizes the notions of evidence,testimony, biography and history and questions the possibility ofestablishing an authoritative version of the past. Boazs commemorationof fallen soldiers begins by his invention of a testimony on the death of hisfriend enahem and by attributing to him heroic deeds and poetic ven-tures to satisfy the bereaved fathers emotional needs. aced with similardemands by other bereaved parents, Boaz goes on to develop an entireindustry for memorializing fallen soldiers, and calls himself the vulture.

Te novel offers a harsh critique of the exploitation of death and the com-modification of memory, but it also demonstrates that these tendencies arenot unique to sraeli society.

Te Last Jew illuminates the ways in which individual and groupmemories, recorded biographies, and documentary literature are sociallyconstructed. Te novel itself (possibly constructed in its entirety from thetapes of venezers recitations) includes reports, diary entries, letters, mem-oirs, testimonies, legends, and dialogues. Te literary devices employed inthis workthe diversity of material and points of views, the fragmentationof narrative, the intersection of multiple subplots, the recurrence of themes,

and the doubling of identitiesundermine its authority as a record and thesingularity of historical events. Te mythical cyclical rhythm it introduces


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highlights a recurrent pattern of Jewish fate, and suggests the possibilityof seeing the Zionist project as a direct continuation of the exilic Jewishpast.

Te Last Jewshows that history is besieged by myth and ideology. etthe novel also alludes to the possibility of change that may free sraelisfrom the grip of the past. oward its end, the novel depicts the Last Jewsdeath-and-rebirth experience, in which he forgets his acquired memoriesand recovers his identity and memory as venezer Schneorson. Tere wasa time, he says, that forgot ebrew; ebrew vanished and was no longer

there, and spoke in so many voices which forgot, and used to recitewords in other languages and inverted letters []. Te challenge hefaces now is to become again, after fifty years, what had been, for betteror worse []. By losing his monumental stature as the Last Jew, he isnow able to re-enter historical time, to re-connect with his former nativesraeli past and identity, and to observe, for the first time, the effects of thepassage of time on himself and on his surrounding.

Te potential return from myth to history is also alluded to in thesymbolic juxtaposition of two female characters, ivka the atriarch

(venezers aging mother) and oga, her grandchilds companion. Teelderly woman presents an apocalyptic view: Te irst Jew says to the LastJew: Tis is a lost story. Tere was chaos in the beginning and there willbe chaos at the end []. But oga de-legitimizes her view as expressinga desire to avenge and rejects its validity: do not believe in circles thatoffer no way out []. oga, (i.e. morning star), who carries a baby inher womb, represents the potentiality of liberation from the grip of traumaand the return to history, ultimately reaffi rming the Zionist ideology andthe possibility of creating a different future.

OMEMORY ONEED IDENIIEAND HE EARH FOR REDEMION

wenty years after Te Fabricatorwas published, ichal ovrins novelTe Nameexplores the impact of the olocaust on the identity formationof a young sraeli woman who is a second-generation survivor. Born andraised in srael, she struggles with the shadows of the past that intrude onher life and sense of self. s a young girl of four, malia finds out from heraunt that she is named after her fathers first wife, ala, who died during

the olocaust. Te aunt introduces the dead woman as a legendary figure:She was our angel. ur angel. [. . .] ou cant imagine how fantastic she


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was! [, ]. beautiful woman and an aspiring concert pianistwhom malias father had adored , ala committed suicide when takenby the azis and died a proud Jew.

Te aunts revelation about her fathers unknown past is triggeredby his outburst at the child for failing to realize the superb music talentshe shares with her namesake. Tis incident imprints alas presence on

malias consciousness, and from this point on she becomes her secretbut constant companion . malia internalizes the fragmented memoriesinadvertently transmitted to her by her parents, and more directly by her

aunt, in a process that is typical of second-generation olocaust survivors,and which arianne irsch identifies aspostmemory. ccording to irsch,the second generations own belated stories are displaced by the stories ofthe previous generation, shaped by traumatic events that they can neitherunderstand nor recreate.

verwhelmed by her role as a living monument to the dead, maliaattempts to escape the oppressive burden of the past. s a young adult,she screams at her father, told you. dont want any contact with yourpast, no contact, you understand? [/]. Struggling to suppress her

postmemory and separate herself from ala, she undergoes successiveidentity changes: malia, the daughter of uropean olocaust survivors,becomes my, a singer who performs in the free-spirited, mericanizedclubs on el viv beach; later, she leaves srael for ew ork, where shelives in reenwich illage and works as a photographer, and eventuallyadopts the name mily.

ame changing serves as a ritual marker of dissociation with the past,yet the protagonist fails in her attempts to break away from her formeridentities. aunted by the past, malia experiments with the oppositestrategy of totally submerging herself in it. ccepting a commission to

document alas life, she hopes that by creating this photo memorial shewould eventually be free to live her own life. Stein, a wealthy olocaustsurvivor and a former admirer of alas, who commissions the project,represents the traditional Jewish command to remember (zakhor): ou areour second alinka, you will be the one to bring back [our] ala, you![, ]. ou, our second alinka, you will bring ala back to us,you! [, ], he begs malia. t cant be that she wont be anymore,do you understand? Cant be [. . .] they must not succeed in killing hermemory, you understand! [/] Te act of remembering presentsa moral victory over the azis, a responsibility that is personal as well as

collective.


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ade desperate by the failure of her attempts to submerge herself inalas life, malia tries unsuccessfully to commit suicide. nce again, sheseeks to redefine her identity, this time by adopting an rthodox lifestyleand becoming a repentant, abaalat tshuva. Te religious paradigm thatthe rabbi who serves as her spiritual guide teaches her colludes with maliasown wish to suppress the past. emember that repentance is like deathand rebirth, the rabbi explains, [. . .] ne should not only keep awayfrom sin but forget it completely, erase from memory the acts of the past[/]. malia often revisits this religious formula representing a total

break with the past: am a different person [now], and am not the sameperson who sinned [/].

fter two years of eshiva study, she moves to the outskirts of Jerusa-lem and dedicates herself to the sacred craft of weaving prayer shawls (tali-tot) and a orah curtain (parochet). n the verge of accepting the rabbis ideathat the completion of her repentance must lead to marriage and in spiteof her budding love for the young man chosen to be her husband, maliasdoubts about the possibility of breaking away from the past intensify. tfirst she blames ala for undermining her efforts: ts not me, its not me,

abbi, its her! she cries out to her spiritual guide. tried, tried to escape,to hide, tried everything, even the name, her name, changed once, twice,but she pursued me, abbi, even here! [. . .] ts she who gets in the wayof repentance, she wont let me live in her death, she wont ever forgive me. . . [; ]. emories of alas life and her earlier experiences becomeincreasingly invasive. Te narrative reflects her growing agitation in abrupttransitions, broken phrases, gaps and dividing lines. Sudden shifts betweenthe first, second, and third singular pronouns further articulate the growingfragmentation of her identity: But now, how shall Iclaim to confess withclean hands aboutyou, about the fear that impelledyou to start stretching

the warp of the prayer shawls despite what happened last night? [. . .] andfrom the blur, once again shebursts onto the hotel roof with hercrazy sing-ing, and flounces out to the path going down from the walls. You turned

yourhead away in pain; hadntyou done everything to wipe those hoursout ofyourself, as abbi srael othelf instructed, and here she, the impureone, the errant one, stirs inyou again [. . .]

[/, emphasis added]. lsewhere, her use of the plural pronounreflects the co-consciousness of ala/malia, and at one point ala takesover the narrators role as she addresses malia in the second person.

Te heroines doubts about the validity of rupture that the rabbi

advocates grow: ow is it possible to forget, even if the memory is awful,


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even if it is a memory of sin? ow is it possible to say: Be different, am a different person and not the same one who sinned. Tese are justwords, abbi, empty sophistry! [/ ]. s the pressure of the pastincreases, malia gains insight into the repeated behavior patterns thatpervade her life and realizes that underneath her various identities, sheis one and the same person: o more division. ne and your name isone []. malia expresses this realization by deliberately subvertingthe religious conversion formula and by reciting the prayer emphasizingthe unity of ods name as an alternative paradigm: or am the same

person who sinned, did not travel into exile from my home, and didnot change my name again, malia. Tat is the secret of the name woveninto us, for You are One and Your Name is One [/ ]. Convincedthat, in spite of its oppressive presence, denial of the past is also an act ofbetrayal, she objects to the deliberate obliteration of alas memory as aviable route to redemption.

er fiancs mystical rabbi presents to her yet another religious venueto restore unity by means of a sacrificial act of atonement and martyrdom.eath would bring a personal salvation and a collective redemption (tikkun

olam) that would allow the total merging of past and present, of her andala, of history and memory, of an and od. n contrast to her earlieranomic suicide attempts, this act of self-sacrifice represents an altruisticsuicide, committed for societys benefit. Te writing of her confessionis thus a part of the process of repentance, that leads to the fulfillment ofthis mission.

oward the end of the novel, malia completes the tasks that she hasset out to do before her final actweaving the orah curtain and writinga confession. But at the same time she also realizes the impossibility oftotal perfectionof faith, self-sacrifice, and even of od. Te novel ends

enigmatically with the entrance of the Sabbath, leaving open the possibilitythat she might pursue her plan to throw herself off a cliff, wrapped in herfinished orah curtain, or alternatively, that she may emerge reaffi rmed inher quest for an integrated life and self. malias written confession is theproduct of a religious act of repentance and purification before death, butthe writing, also serves as a therapeutic process and as an act of defianceagainst the silence imposed on her by her rabbi and her fianc who refusedto learn about her past. Like St. ugustines Confessions, this text is at oncean autobiography, a religious testimony, a personal diary, a form of prayer,and a work of literature.

ritten over the forty days within the sefirah period (i.e. the fifty dayscounted between the Passover and Shavuot), malias confession rep-


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resents a double movement in time: a linear movement manifested in theprogression of historical time and a circular movement of re-examining thevarious layers of her past. Tis duality is inherent to the period of the sefirahitself, which encompasses the linear counting of the days and the annualcyclical return to the mythical national past, of the xodus from gyptand its aftermath. malias task of preparing herself for her sacrificial actadds another temporal dimension that subverts the linear thrust forward,namely, her countdown toward the date of her sacrificial death.

Te heroine-narrator simultaneous engagement in weaving and in

writing, provides an iconic representation of this double movement intime, as well as of her efforts to tie together the loose, torn threads of herfragmented life and consciousness. urther, by grounding the narrativein the Sefirah period the author provides an evocative subtext that links

malias private journey with a centuries-old Jewish memory of a similarcollective search for redemption, that of the xodus from gypt, the trialsof wandering in the desert, and the handing down of the orah at ountSinai. By limiting the writing to a forty-day period, ovrin creates ananalogy between it and the forty days and nights, which oses spent on

ount Sinai in preparation for the giving of the orah [xodus :].Te grounding of her confession in this highly charged mythical formula ofdeath and rebirth, slavery and redemption, resists the closure of suicide andmay support the possibility of alternative redemption, though ovrinleaves the ending deliberately ambiguous.

malias search demonstrates the rejection of both the Zionist and thereligious conversion formulae that construct a redemptive narrative basedon severed continuity with the past. ovrins heroine of the s is farremoved from the image of the ythological Sabra of the s and s,yet she continues to struggle with a deep-seated ambivalence toward the

Jewish past. Swaying between the battle to fend off the invasive character oftraumatic memory and the desire to suppress or erase the past, and a senseof personal and moral obligation to it, her personal odyssey is clearly linkedto the quest for a balance between the past and the present, her Jewish rootsand her sraeli present. Like avid rossmans See: Under Love, Te Namehighlights the impact of postmemory on those native sraelis, the secondgeneration of olocaust survivors, for whom the trauma of the olocaustis no longer the experience of the other, the exilic Jew, but part of sraelscollective heritage and consciousness.


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EWEEN AN IRAEI AND A EW

Te construction of symbolic continuities and discontinuities between theJew and the sraeli has always been a central theme in the formation ofebrew national culture and continues to this day. n analysis of the fourliterary works discussed in this article points out the discrepancy betweenthe earlier dichotomies constructed by the Zionist narrative and a socialreality that has become increasingly fluid, complex, and heterogeneous.

Challenging the idea of a homogenous and uniform sraeli identity, theseworks defy the notion that the return to the ancient homeland reviveda buried native identity, or that the construction of a native identitybecame a profoundly transformative, redeeming, and irreversible process.nstead, they reveal the proliferation of different, and at times conflicting,configurations of the Jewish-sraeli identity, and as such, they are part ofa much broader trend in contemporary sraeli literature that reflects thedynamic and pluralistic character of sraeli society.

Te continuing effects of trauma contribute to the challenge of the

ythological Sara, the improbability of bracketing off the past, and theexperience of a reality that is fluid, fluctuating, and resists closure. uchhas been written about the crisis of representation and the crisis of testi-mony after uschwitz, and the ways in which the past has continued tohaunt its survivors. Te recent proliferation of historical studies, mem-oirs, fiction, films, plays, and art works on the olocaust reveals the post-traumatic need to keep returning to these issues in spite ofor becauseofthe inability to find appropriate representations, answers, or constructa closure. Te works discussed in this essay show that the post-traumaticsituation undermines the possibility of establishing clear and stable identi-

ties as well as coherent and authoritative narratives about the past. Tistension produces ironies within these literary texts: vishalom evroni isdepicted as a publisher who is unaware of his own life story. malia/mily,by profession a documentary photographer, is unable to produce the photoalbum of alas life, and struggles to document her own life. rik identi-fies with Josephus will to live, yet disregards his major accomplishment ofproducing a monumental historical record. venezers total devotion to hisself-imposed mission to create a record of the past is undermined by hisown limitations as a witness; his son cynically profits from the fabricationof testimonies and memorials for fallen soldiers.

Te analysis of these works also suggests that social reality is much lessuniformly directed than any overarching narrative would have it, thereby


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affi rming Lyotards dictum regarding the death of grand narratives in thepostmodern age. Te novels stand in marked contrast to the uniform andlinear structure of the Zionist narrative as well as its teleological direction.Te identity change prescribed by the Zionist conversion paradigm is thussubverted by the representation of alternative transformations: an identityreversal, the emergence of co-existing Jewish and sraeli identities, and theportrayal of mirroring identities across time and space within an a-historicalframework. Tese themes demonstrate the failure of the Zionist narrativeto provide an appropriate representation of an sraeli reality that is more

diverse and rapidly transforming.nd yet the novels also reveal that the reversal of the Zionist conversion

paradigm does not offer an alternative redemption. Te Fabricatorand Bor-rowed imerelate to the regression from a Sabra to an exilic Jewish identityas illusory and bound to a limited time out (as the original ebrew titleof Jackonts novel, Pesek Zeman, implies). Te subversion of the temporalstructure of the Zionist narrative serves to highlight the critique of itsdichotomized constructs, but the process of historical regression fails toprovide a viable solution in the current state of crisis.

n contrast, Te Last Jew and Te Name hint at the possibility ofintegrating the past with the present and hence at an alternative route ofsurvival, even though they stop short of delivering a promise of redemption.ltimately, the figure of the Last Jew regains his native identity and memoryand is re-integrated into the sraeli present. Similarly, the potential inter-changeability of his two sonsthe adopted exilic Jew and the biologicalSabradiminishes the gaps between these two symbolic representationsof Jewish continuity, and imply that both may continue to offer similarlyviable options. n Te Name, malias ability to become conscious of theunity of her self diverts her from searching for wholeness in death. Te

new possibility of integration allows her to reject the alternatives of a totalsubmission to the past, its complete disowning, or self-annihilation.

ore than offering clear-cut solutions for the contemporary descen-dants of the ythological Sabras, these novels reflect a state of crisis andpoint out an urgent need to overcome the ruptures introduced by Zionistideology and the collective heritage of trauma. By symbolically returning tothe past in their search for continuity, these novels reflect a broader culturaltrend of growing interest in the pre-sraeli past that has become increasinglyvisible since the late s. Te desire to reconnect with the history, culture,and traditions of exile is evident in the emergence of such phenomena as

the revival of religious and communal exilic customs and celebrations;individuals choice of exilic names to create a symbolic continuity with that


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past; the popularity of trips to the familys country of origins or to signifi-cant places in Jewish exilic history; the upsurge of literary and scholarlyworks relating to individual and communal pre-sraeli past; secular srae-lis study of religious texts in formal and informal settings and the publicdiscussion on the nature of the Jewish literary canon (i.e. aron ha-sefarimha-yehudi); the establishment of museums relating to the exilic past andthe continuing existence of immigrant associations; and the establishmentof political parties based on an exclusive, pre-sraeli identity.

Tese phenomena articulate sraelis growing identification with the

exilic Jewish roots of their current sraeli identities that stands in sharpcontrast to the earlier attitude of psychological distancing. Te desire tocreate monuments for the exilic past may also stem from the greater his-torical distance that creates an urgent desire to document that past. Tenostalgic longing that often accompanies this desire may also be engenderedby the acute sense of crisis in the present, which stems from the ongoingsraeli-Palestinian conflict. Tis situation contributesto the function ofthe olocaust as a powerful historical metaphor that represents the con-tinuing pattern of threat to Jewish survival that was previously associated

with life in exile. Te collapse of historical time into a mythical temporalframework nonetheless poses its own danger of obscuring historical distinc-tions and the need for a more critical attitude toward the examination ofcurrent historical developments. sraels future may depend on its abilityto find the balance between the two extremes of creating a rupture withthe Jewish past and flooding the present with memories that might holdsrael in the grip of the past.

would like to thank viatar Zerubavel, Berel Lang, and nat elman for

their thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this article. would also liketo express my gratitude to the utgers Center for the Critical nalysis of Con-temporary Culture for the fellowship in its seminar on Te Performanceof Culture and to Carolyn illiams, Jonathan oldberg and other members ofthe seminar for a most helpful discussion on an earlier draft.

note on translation and bibliography: Te translations of quotes fromebrew sources are mine unless otherwise noted. have used the nglish titlesof works published in ebrew and added the transliteration of the original title

in those cases where the translation might obscure the identification of thesesources.


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. t is impossible to encompass here the vast literature on the subject of sraeliidentity. mong relatively more recent scholarly and popular works on this subjectare nita Shapira, New Jews, Old Jews. el-viv: m ved, (); air uron,

Jewish-Israeli Identity. el-viv: Sifriat Poalim, (); Charles S. Liebman andlihue Katz, eds. Te Jewishness of Israelis. lbany: S, ; zmi Bishara,ed. Between I and We: Te Construction of Identities and Israeli Identity. Jerusa-lem: an Leer & akibbutz ameuchad, (). Te new series entitled Tesraelis includes, among others, om Segev, Te New Zionists. Jerusalem: Keter, (), and Baruch Kimmerling, Te End of Ashkenazi Hegemony. Jerusalem:Keter, ().

. or a further discussion of the Zionist construction of the past, see aelZerubavel, Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli Nationalradition. Chicago: niversity of Chicago Press, . n the different structuresof historical narratives, see ayden hite, Te Content of the Form: NarrativeDiscourse and Historical Representation. Baltimore: Johns opkins niversityPress, . n the concepts ofprogress narrativesand decline narratives, see vi-atar Zerubavel, ime Maps: Te Social ypology of the Past. Chicago: niversityof Chicago Press, forthcoming, .

. Te new native was called the ew Jew, ew ebrew, Eretz Yisraeli,and Sabra (sabar). n referring to the ideal image of the new native, am using

the term ythological Sabra which was coined by mnon ubenstein, o bea Free People. el-viv: Schocken, , (). n the early constructionof the ew ebrew, see achel lboim-ror, e is merging from ithin s,the ew ebrew: n the Subculture of outh of the irst liyot, Alpayim (): (). See also vraham Shapira, n the Spiritual ootlessness andCircumscription to the ere and ow in the Sabra orld iew, in an rianand phraim Karsh, eds. In Search of Identity: Jewish Aspects in Israeli Culture,London: rank Cass, , . or an extensive sociological study of the Sabra,see z lmog, Te Sabra: Te Creation of the New Jew. el-viv: m ved, ;nglish translation, Berkeley: niversity of California Press, .

. See also nita Shapiras observation that the image of the Palmachnik,the ythological Sabrapar excellence, represented only a minority of ebrewyouth and was anachronistic by the time it was fully formed, in rom the Pal-mach eneration to the Candle Children: Changing Patterns in sraeli dentity,Partisan Review (): ). or an earlier critique of the Sabra as a collectiverepresentation, see ubinstein, o be a Free People, . See also itzhak Laor,Narratives With No Natives[nu Kotvim tach oledet]. el-viv: akkibutzameuchad, , (). . n the social and psychological significance of name changing, see rvingoffman. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. nglewood Cliff:Prentice all, , . Paul ntze, elling Stories, aking Selves: emory

and dentity in ultiple Personality isorder, in his and ichael Lambek, eds.ense Past: Cultural Essays in rauma and Memory. ew ork: outledge, , .


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n name changing as a Zionist ritual of rebirth, see also mos lon, Te Israelis:Founders and Sons. Jerusalem: Schocken, , (.). Changing the nameof the severely sick is attributed to the belief that the assignment of a new namewould confuse the angel of death. See Joshua rachtenberg, Jewish Magic andSuperstition: A Study in Folk Religion. : ltheneum, , .

. Charles S. Liebman and liezer on-ehiya, Civil Religion in Israel. Berke-ley: niversity of California Press, , ; uth irer, Te Agents of ZionistEducation. aifa and el-viv: aifa niversity Press, akkibutz ameuchadand Sifriyat apoalim, , (); ael Zerubavel, Te eath of emoryand the emory of eath: asada and the olocaust as istorical etaphors,in Representations (inter ): and ebrew translation,Alpayim (): ; for a more recent study of the complexity of the sraeli attitudetoward olocaust survivors and their absorption in srael see anna ablonka,Foreign Brethren: Holocaust Survivors in the State of Israel. Jerusalem: ad itzhakBen-Zvi Press, (); nglish ranslation, Survivors of the Holocaust: Israel

After the War. London: acillan Press, .. Quoted in igal Schwartz.Aharon Appelfeld: From Individual Lament to

ribal Eternity. anover: Brandeis niversity Press, , ; see also ppelfeldsdescription of self-loathing and desire to be reborn in Te wakening, in eof-frey . artman, ed. Holocaust remembrance: Te Shapes of Memory. Cambridge,

ass: Basil Blackwell, , .wo notable autobiographical accounts bysraelis on remembering and forgetting in relation to the olocaust are Saulriedlanders When Memory Comes(originally published in rench by dition duSeuil, ), ebrew translation, Jerusalem: dam, ; and Shlomo Breznitzs

Memory Fields, el-viv: m ved, ().. Continuity with Jewish tradition was clearly preserved in the symbolic

domains, as the choice of ebrew as national language, the preservation of theJewish calendar of holidays, and the creation of national myths and state symbolsdemonstrate. lthough some of their forms and their interpretation were modified,this is quite different than generating totally new, secular symbolic system thathas no relations to Jewish tradition. or the analysis of the dialectic between newand old, see Liebman & on ehiya, Civil Religion, Zerubavel, Recovered Roots;

lek ishori, Lo and Behold: Zionist Icons and Visual Symbols in Israeli Culture.el-viv: m ved, ().

. Liebman and on-ehiya, Civil Religion in Israel, ; air uron,Jewish-Israeli Identity. el- viv: Sifriat Poalim, , (); vner Ben-mos and lana Bet-l, olocaust ay and emorial ay in sraeli Schools:Ceremonies, ducation, and istory, Israel Studies, no. (Spring ): .n the use of the olocaust as a historical metaphor, see om Segev, Te Seventh

Million: Israelis and the Holocaust. Jerusalem: Keter/ omino, (); Zerubavel,Te eath of emory and the emory of eath; urith ertz,Myths in Israeli

Culture: Captives of a Dream. el-viv: m ved, (); nglish translation,London: alentine itchell, .


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. rauma is described as the response to an unexpected or overwhelmingviolent event or events that are not fully grasped as they occur, but return later inrepeated flashbacks, nightmares, and other repetitive phenomena. Cathy Caruth,Unclaimed Experience: rauma, Narrative, History. Baltimore: Johns opkinsniversity Press, , ; Sigmund reud,Beyond the Pleasure Principle. : ..orton & Co, , , ; on Pierre Janets concepts, traumatic memoryand narrative memory, see Judith Lewis erman, rauma and Recovery. :Basic Books, , , ; an der Kolk, . Bessel and nno van der art,Te ntrusive Past: Te lexibility of emory and the ngraving of rauma,in Cathy Caruth, rauma: Explorations in Memory. Baltimore: Johns opkinsniversity Press, , , and uth eys, rauma: A Geneology. Chicago:niversity of Chicago Press, , .

. s obert Jay Lifton observes, . . . in the case of severe trauma, we cansay that there has been an important break in the life line that can leave one per-manently engaged in either repair or the acquisition of a new twine. Te BrokenConnection: On Death and the Continuity of Life. : Simon & Schuter, ,. Lawrence L. Langer quotes Charlotte elbos testimony that uschwitz isthere, fixed and unchangeable, but wrapped in the impervious skin of memorythat segregates itself from the present me, and a similar description by anothersurvivor, Sally .: m thinking of it now how split myself. Tat it wasnt me

there. t just wasnt me. was somebody else. Holocaust estimonies: Te Ruins ofMemory. ew aven: ale niversity Press, , , respectively; see also hisdiscussion on ; erman, rauma and Recovery, ; and Liftons interviewwith Caruth in her rauma, .

. Pinhas inosar, Hebrew Literature and the Labor Movement. Beer-Sheva:Ben-urion niversity Press, (). n writers contribution to the construc-tion of sraeli national myths, see Zeruabvel, Recovered Roots, . Some ofsraeli major writers of the generation, such as S. izhar, anoch Bartov,

haron egged and mos Kenan, have published, in addition to their liter-ary works, newspaper articles or books of essays on current political and socialissues. Prominent writers of the following generations, including mos z, .B.

ehoshua, itzhak Laor and avid rossman, have followed this tradition.. anoch Bartov, Te Fabricator [Ha-Badai]. el-viv: m ved, ;

mnon Jackonts Borrowed ime[Pesek Zeman;]. el-viv: m ved in ;oram Kaniuks Te Last Jew. el-viv: akkibutz ameuchad & SifriatPoalim, ; and ichal ovrin, Te Name[a-Shem]. el-viv: akibbutzameuchad, . nglish translation by Barbara arshav, : iverhead Books,.

. n the issue of gender and the Sabra image and on womens writing insrael see ael S. eldman, No Room of Teir Own: Israeli Womens Fiction. :Columbia niversity Press, .

. n the challenge of modifying ones life story and passing in a newidentity and on the danger of leaks, see offman, Stigma, .


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, ,

. n the parentless Sabra, see also ubinstein, o be a Free People, .vishalom evroni resembles oshe Shamirs famous literary hero, lik, whowas born out of the sea. See Shamir, With His Own Hands. el-viv: m ved,[], new edition, , ().

. vishaloms biography presents him as the son of a religious Jew who cameto ebron to study in a eshiva and married a ussian woman who had convertedto Judaism. couple of years after his birth, his father was murdered by rabs andhis mother lost her sanity. Practically orphaned and without a family, vishalomwas on his own, became a secular Sabra, and changed his name from the asternuropean avoinik to the ebrew name evroni, after the city of ebron.

. Langer, Holocaust estimonies, .. Te term violent forgetfulness, is clearly linked to the suppression of

memory as a result of trauma, and was coined by haron ppelfeld. See Schwartz,Aharon Appelfeld, .

. or a more extensive discussion of the search for national models fromntiquity and the development of asada and the Bar Kokhba revolt as heroicnational myths, see Zerubavel, Recovered Roots.

. n osef della eina, see Encyclopeadia Judaica, Jerusalem: Keter, , :.

. rauma survivors report on a similar experience of living outside of time,

fixed in the immediate present. See Langers discussion of wounded time inHolocaust estimonies, ; S.J. Brison, rauma arratives and the emaking ofthe Self, in Bal ieke, Joanthan Crewe, and Leo Spitzer, eds.Acts of Memory:Cultural Recall in the Present. anover: niversity Press of ew ngland, ,, esp. ; arnest van lphen, Symptoms of iscursivity: xperience,emory, rauma, Ibid, .

. n the cyclical structure of mythical time, see ircea liade,Myth andReality. ew ork: arper & ow, .

. .B. ehushua, Mr. Mani. el-viv: akkibutz ameuchad, ().nglish translation, : oubleday, .

. ael eldman, Back to enesis: oward the epressed and Beyond insraeli dentity, in itza Ben ov, ed. In the Opposite Direction: Critical Essayson Mr. Mani. el-viv: akibbutz ameuchad, , ().

. n , the same year that Te Last Jewwas published, an sraeli film entitledTe vulture was made on the basis of this novel, yet limited to the subplot deal-ing with Boaz industry of memorialization of soldiers.

. Te commercialization of memory reappears in the description of another,secondary character, Te merican r. Brooks, an industrialist whose daughterdied as a young girl and who develops a highly successful line of products devotedto her memory. Similarly, the fluidity of biography is also attributed to a ermanmother and father who believe in different versions of their sons suicide and create

two burial places for him, not unlike the old teacher and his wife. s the sraeliteacher notes, ith enahem who died twice and rederik who died in a gas


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and an electric oven at the same time, it suddenly became clear that every son diesmore than once, .

. n this point, see also ershon Shaked, Hebrew Narrative Fiction, , el-viv: akibbutz ameuchad, , vol. , ().

. t is interesting to note that Jacques errida, the lgerian born renchJewish philosopher, refers to himself as the last Jew in a text in which he exploresthe autobiographical as well as the philosophical-theological meaning of circumci-sion [Circonfession, Jacques errida par eoffrey Benninton, Paris: Seuil, ]. sideon frat argues, this ambiguous self-labeling may be open to contradictoryinterpretations (Jewish Derrida. Jerusalem: cademia, , , ). Te sameambiguity may be attributed to venezer who embodies both the image of theSabra as the inarticulate nature-child, and the image of the exilic Jew whose lifeis devoted to the preservation of words.

. Quotes from ovrins text are based on arshavs nglish translation. Pagereferences relate to both the ebrew and the nglish editions.

. arianne irsch. Projected emory: olocaust Photographs in Personand Public antasy, in ieke, Crewe, and Spitzer,Acts of Memory, . Postmemoryis further reinforced by the custom of naming children after relatives who perishedin the war. or an extensive discussion of the syndrome of second-generation froma psychological perspective, see ina ardi. Memorial Candles: Dialogue with

Second Generation Holocaust Survivors. Jersusalem: Keter, [year missing] ().. nd how close weare now, Amalia, how dear to me is the light of the

bonfire catching fire inyourhair [. . .] as if I and not you will go tonight like lastyear into the crowd . . . [/, emphases added].

. deviated in this case from arshavs translation of this phrase as no moredistinction since the translation of the ebrew word that ovrin uses, hiluk,asdivision serves better to connote the splitting of her self.

. n anomic and altruistic suicides, see mile urkheim, Suicide: A Studyin Sociology. : ree Press, .

. Te national subtext becomes more explicit when her fianc explains hisrefusal to look at her photographs of ala by making an allusion to the storyof xodus: ach of us, it seems, has to leave his dead in the desert, malia, towhich she whispers in reply: ll stay behind with the dead in the desert [/]. er answer articulates her belief at that point that she will not be able toleave behind the past in order to share a future life with him.

. or an interesting discussion of the notion of alternative redemption inovrins and rossmans works, see achel eldhay Brenner, n wo ptions ofedemption: See: Under Loveand Te Name,Alpayim (): ().

. avid rossman, See: Under Love. el-viv: akibbutz ameuchad, .nglish translation, : arrar Straus iroux, .

. See Judith Butlers critique of the dichotomized view of gender identities

and her emphasis on the proliferation of alternative gender constructions alongsimilar lines in Gender rouble. : outledge, , in particular, .


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, ,

. Shoshana eldman and ori Laub. estimony: Crises of Witnessing inLiterature, Psychoanalysis, and History. ew ork: outledge, , . haron

ppelfeld describes the feeling of being defeated by words when he wanted totell the story of his past: very time you talk about those days, you feel that thatthis is incredible. ou tell and you dont believe that this happened to you. Tis isone of the most humiliating feelings that ve experienced. ppelfeld, Te Storyof a Life, . ollowing dornos famous statement of , after uschwitz, itis no longer possible to write poems (Negative Dialectics, : Continuum, ,), the crisis of representation is often discussed in literature about art and theolocaust. or a critical assessment of this position, see eoffrey artmans andBerel Langs articles in Saul riedlander, ed. Probing the Limits of Representation.Cambridge, : arvard niversity Press, . eldman notes that dornomodified his earlier statement, pointing out that nonetheless literature must resistthis verdict (eldman and Laub, estimony, ). or the turn to the fantastic as aresponse to this problem, see ilead orahg, Breaking Silence: sraels antasticiction of the olocaust, in lan intz, ed. Te Boom in Contemporary IsraeliFiction. anover: Brandeis niversity Press, , .

. See Lori Laub, n vent ithout a itness: ruth, estimony, and Sur-vival, in eldman and Laub, estimony, .

. Jean-rancois Lyotard, he Postmodern Condition. anchester: anchester

niversity Press, . See also ary K. Browning, Lyotard and the End of GrandNarratives. Cardiff: niversity of ales Press, .

. red avis, Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia. : ree Press,.

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The Mythological Sabra and Jewish Past. Linnéuniversitetet. Kojo Pavic

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