Israel in exile
Subtitle: Jewish writing and the desert
By: Ranen Omer-Sherman.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Urbana
Language: eng
Number of pages: 210
ISBN-13: 9780252030437
Subjects: Bible. O.T. -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.; Wilderness areas in literature.; Israeli literature -- History and criticism.; Jewish literature -- History and criticism.; Identity (Philosophical concept) in literature.
Description: "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 spiritual and political identities and radical skepticism. Ranen Omer-Sherman shows how the desert serves as a template for the creative 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 Bruce Feiler, Edmund Jabes, and Simone Zelitch."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The voice must remain in the desert : the poetics and politics of representing desert wilderness in Jewish narrative; title: The deception of miracles was keeping them purblind and lost : justice and the old/new Jewish nation in Shulamith Hareven's Thirst : the desert trilogy; title: Desert space and national consciousness : the circuitous journey of the citizen-soldier in Amos Oz's A perfect peace; title: On the outskirts of the Promised Land : immobilized rebels in narratives by Hayim Nahman Bialik and David Grossman; title: Two case studies in the Sinai of the diasporic imagination : Simone Zelitch's and Edmond Jabes' Nomadic god of heretics and strangers; title: To return symbolically to life in the desert : wilderness as experience and metaphor in contemporary life.