Hebrew Literature and the 1948 War: Essays on Philology and Responsibility

Hebrew Literature and the 1948 War, Essays on Philology and Responsibility is the first book-length study to examine the conspicuous absence of the Palestinian Nakba in modern Hebrew literature. Through a rigorous reading of canonical Hebrew literary texts, the author addresses the general failure of Hebrew literature to take responsibility for the Nakba. The book illustrates how the language of modern Hebrew poetry and fiction reflects the symptoms of Israeli national violence, in which the literary language imagines Palestine as an arena where the violent clash between perpetrator and victim takes place. The author uses close readings of the works of Avot Yeahurun, S. Yizhar, Nathan Alterman, Yehuda Amichai, Yitzhak Laor, and Amos Oz, among others, to develop a new and critical paradigm for reflecting on the moral responsibility of literature and the ethics of reading.