One of Israels most celebrated writers presents an ambitious and heartbreaking novel that examines--through one womans life--the Jewish story and the state of Israel in the most intimate way possible.
The Name is the story of Amalia, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, named for her father's first wife, a concert pianist who perished in a Nazi death camp and whose sanctified memory haunts Amalia's youth. In a decisive, rebellious break from the culture of remembrance in which she was raised, Amalia grows into a wild, defiant young woman who attempts, unsuccessfully, to remake her life, to change her identity, to redefine herself as a woman stripped of history. Unable to escape her cultural legacy and plagued by troubling questions of faith, Amalia seeks refuge in an ultra-Orthodox women's seminary in Jerusalem and assumes yet another persona, that of the ba'alat tshuva - the penitent. Before long she is drawn to a charismatic rabbi who preaches a fiery heterodoxy. Under his sway, Amalia moves into an isolated apartment on the fringe of Jerusalem and devotes herself to rituals of purification and redemption that are to culminate in a horrific, ultimate act of atonement.
The Israeli author’s poetry, essays, and stories on the haunting legacy of WWII “swirl mystically out of history and into dazzling floods of wonder” (Don DeLillo, author of White Noise). In this portrait of the artist as a young woman, one of Israel’s most acclaimed contemporary writers weaves together a kaleidoscope of fiction, poetry, and essays. Populated by both fictional and real people, each tale is in some way a search for meaning in a post-Holocaust world. Reminiscent of W.G. Sebald, characters irrationally and humanely find reason for hope in a world that offers little. Essays describe Govrin’s visits to Poland as a young adult, where her mother had survived a death camp, but had lost her husband and their child, Govrin’s half-brother. Capturing the depths of denial and the exuberance of youth in a multiplicity of voices, this haunting collection “joins the few serious books that try through artistic means to face the unspeakable” (Aharon Appelfield, author of Badenheim 1939).
The Israeli author’s poetry, essays, and stories on the haunting legacy of WWII “swirl mystically out of history and into dazzling floods of wonder” (Don DeLillo, author of White Noise). In this portrait of the artist as a young woman, one of Israel’s most acclaimed contemporary writers weaves together a kaleidoscope of fiction, poetry, and essays. Populated by both fictional and real people, each tale is in some way a search for meaning in a post-Holocaust world. Reminiscent of W.G. Sebald, characters irrationally and humanely find reason for hope in a world that offers little. Essays describe Govrin’s visits to Poland as a young adult, where her mother had survived a death camp, but had lost her husband and their child, Govrin’s half-brother. Capturing the depths of denial and the exuberance of youth in a multiplicity of voices, this haunting collection “joins the few serious books that try through artistic means to face the unspeakable” (Aharon Appelfield, author of Badenheim 1939).
From one of Israel's most celebrated writers, an ambitious and heartbreaking novel, winner of Israel's Akum Prize for the Book of the Year, that examines through one woman's life the Jewish story and the state of Israel in the most intimate way possible. Ilana Tsuriel was a beautiful, brilliant Israeli intellectual and architect, the estranged wife of a prominent Holocaust scholar and the daughter of a legendary founding Zionist. At the beginning of Snapshots, she dies in a tragic car wreck, leaving her husband, Alain, to piece together the woman he thought he knew from the documents she left behind. Snapshots is assembled from her notes, photos, and drawings, which reveal Ilana's passionate, turbulent, wandering life of love and creativity around the capitals of the world. They portray a woman torn between her life in the United States and Israel; a woman who, during the first Gulf War when missiles were falling on Tel Aviv, struggled with the desire to protect her family yet still engage herself and her children with her homeland. They also uncover a secret, troubled love affair with a Palestinian man, a daughter's efforts to come to terms with her father's weighty legacy, and plans to build a "Utopian Monument" for peace in the history-laden hills of Jerusalem. The result is a whirling, wrenching portrait of a woman grappling with every element of her identity, at the center of a novel that has already been feted with prizes and celebrated as a masterwork of contemporary Israeli literature.
The Name is the story of Amalia, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, named for her father's first wife, a concert pianist who perished in a Nazi death camp and whose sanctified memory haunts Amalia's youth. In a decisive, rebellious break from the culture of remembrance in which she was raised, Amalia grows into a wild, defiant young woman who attempts, unsuccessfully, to remake her life, to change her identity, to redefine herself as a woman stripped of history. Unable to escape her cultural legacy and plagued by troubling questions of faith, Amalia seeks refuge in an ultra-Orthodox women's seminary in Jerusalem and assumes yet another persona, that of the ba'alat tshuva - the penitent. Before long she is drawn to a charismatic rabbi who preaches a fiery heterodoxy. Under his sway, Amalia moves into an isolated apartment on the fringe of Jerusalem and devotes herself to rituals of purification and redemption that are to culminate in a horrific, ultimate act of atonement.
David Shahar (1926–1997), author of the seven-novel sequence The Palace of Shattered Vessels, occupies an ambiguous position in the Israeli literary canon. Often compared to Proust, Shahar produced a body of work that offers a fascinating poetic and ideological alternative to the dominant models of Amos Oz and A. B. Yehoshua. This book, the first full-length study of this fascinating author, takes a fresh look at the uniqueness of his literary achievement in both poetic and ideological terms. In addition to situating Shahar within the European literary tradition, the book reads Shahar's representation of Jerusalem in his multi-volume novel as a "heterotopia"—an actual space where society's unconscious (what does not fit on its ideological map) is materially present—and argues for the relevance of Shahar's work to the critical discussion of the Arab question in Israeli culture.
One Hundred Years of Kibbutz Life shows that the kibbutz thrives and describes changes that have occurred within Israel's kibbutz community. The kibbutz population has increased in terms of demography and capital, a point frequently overlooked in debates regarding viability. Like the kibbutz founders who established a society grounded in certain principles and meeting certain goals, kibbutz newcomers seek to build an idealistic society with specific social and economic arrangements.The years 1909-2009 marked a century of kibbutz life?one hundred years of achievements, challenges, and creative changes. The impact of kibbutzim on Israeli society has been substantial but is now waning. While kibbutzim have become less relevant in Israeli policy and politics, they are increasingly engaged in questions of environmentalism, education, and profitable industries.Contributors discuss the hopes, goals, frustrations, and disappointments of the kibbutz movement. They also examine reform efforts intended to revitalize the institution and reinforce fading kibbutz ideals. Such solutions are not always popular among kibbutz members, but they demonstrate that the kibbutz is an adaptive and flexible social organization. The various studies presented in this book clarify the dynamism of the kibbutz institution and raises questions about the ways in which residential arrangements throughout the world manage change.
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