Israel in Exile: Jewish Writing and the DesertUniversity of Illinois Press, 2010 M10 1 - 232 páginas Israel in Exile is a bold exploration of how the ancient desert of Exodus and Numbers, as archetypal site of human liberation, forms a template for modern political identities, radical skepticism, and questioning of official narratives of the nation that appear in the works of contemporary Israeli authors including David Grossman, Shulamith Hareven, and Amos Oz, as well as diasporic writers such as Edmund Jabès and Simone Zelitch. In contrast to other ethnic and national representations, Jewish writers since antiquity have not constructed a neat antithesis between the desert and the city or nation; rather, the desert becomes a symbol against which the values of the city or nation can be tested, measured, and sometimes found wanting. This book examines how the ethical tension between the clashing Mosaic and Davidic paradigms of the desert still reverberate in secular Jewish literature and produce fascinating literary rewards. Omer-Sherman ultimately argues that the ancient encounter with the desert acquires a renewed urgency in response to the crisis brought about by national identities and territorial conflicts. |
Contenido
| 1 | |
2 Justice and the OldNew Jewish Nation | 29 |
3 Desert Space and National Consciousness | 60 |
4 Immobilized Rebels on the Outskirts of the Promised Land | 96 |
5 Sinai of the Diasporic Imagination | 126 |
6 Wilderness as Experience and Metaphor | 159 |
Notes | 177 |
Works Cited | 193 |
Index | 203 |
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Términos y frases comunes
Abraham affirms Amos Oz ancient Arab Bedouin Bialik Bible Bible’s biblical Book of Questions Canaan conflict consciousness contemporary Israeli cultural David Grossman death deity desert experience desert space Diaspora difficult divine dreams Egypt Egyptian Elisha encounter ethical exile existential Exodus explore father Feiler feminist fiction figure final find fire first flees flight God’s Grossman Hareven Hebrew Bible homeland human identity ideological imagination individual influence Israel Israeli literature Israelites jabes jabes’s Jewish kibbutz land landscape language literary literature living metaphor Midrash modern Hebrew Moses Moses in Sinai mountain myth narrative Negev Nimra nomadic novel Numbers official one’s Oz’s Palestinian paradigm Perfect Peace perhaps poetic political Press prophetic protagonist rabbis readers reading reality reflects Rosmarie Waldrop Sabra sacrifice sand seems sense Shulamith Hareven significance social sojourn spiritual story struggle Sukkot talmudic tion tradition Translated Trilogy University violence wandering wilderness writers Yani Yani’s Yolek Yonatan Zelitch’s Zionist
Pasajes populares
Página 18 - Mock on' Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau; Mock on, mock on: 'tis all in vain! You throw the sand against the wind, And the wind blows it back again. And every sand becomes a gem, Reflected in the beams divine. Blown back they blind the mocking eye, But still in Israel's paths they shine.
Página 99 - Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord: I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.
Página 48 - And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
Página 57 - Unto these the land shall be divided for an inheritance according to the number of names. 54 To many thou shalt give the more inheritance, and to few thou shalt give the less inheritance: to every one shall his inheritance be given according to those that were numbered of him.
Página 95 - But among these there was not a man of them whom Moses and Aaron the priest numbered, when they numbered the children of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai. For the Lord had said of them, They shall surely die in the wilderness.
Página 36 - Adorno says with a grave irony, 'it is part of morality not to be at home in one's home.
Página xx - I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.
Página xx - An Old Cracked Tune:" My name is Solomon Levi, the desert is my home, my mother's breast was thorny, and father I had none. The sands whispered, Be separate, the stones taught me, Be hard. I dance, for the joy of surviving, on the edge of the road.