<p> In Jewish Studies in general and Jewish literary studies in particular, the autobiography has taken on renewed significance in the twenty-first century. A recent wave of Hebrew autobiographical writing has reinvigorated long-standing debates about the connections between family drama and national history in the modern state of Israel. This dissertation examines the discourse of selfhood generated by a select group of authors from the 1950s-1990s, the decades immediately preceding the genre's current boom. The "confessional mode of Israeli literary autobiography," as I designate this discourse, exposes the religious underside of early Israeli life writing. </p><p> The proposed genealogy uncovers a heretofore unacknowledged stream of autobiographical writing positioned at the nexus of public and private expression. Starting with Pinhas Sadeh's <i>Hah&barbelow;ayim kemashal</i> (1958), I deconstruct the author's sacred-profane terminology and his embrace of sacrificial tropes. I then explore David Shahar's <i>Kayitz bederekh hanevi'im</i> (1969) and <i>Hamasa le'ur kasdim</i> (1971), two works engaging with the Lurianic kabbalistic mythology of fracture and restoration (<i> tikkun</i>). The next turn in my discussion, Hanokh Bartov's <i> Shel mi atah yeled</i> (1970), focuses on the development of individual memory and artistic identity. Haim Be'er's confessional oeuvre anchors the final two chapters, which reveal the therapeutic and theological motivations behind <i>Notsot</i> (1979) and <i>H&barbelow;avalim</i> (1998). </p><p> My interdisciplinary engagement offers fresh readings of these autobiographical performances. The narratives by Sadeh, Shahar, Bartov, and Be'er deploy memories as a conscious, aesthetic act of self-construction. Riffing on the portrait of the artist as a young man, each author reveals the intimate connections among memory, trauma, and artistic creation. Concurrently, they mediate their religious identities in the new Jewish state, Oedipally rejecting the father's faith. The combination of literary self-reflexivity with spiritual self-accounting (<i>h&barbelow;eshbon nefesh</i>) links these Israeli writers with the classic confessional "double address," which engages both God and the human reader. My analysis thus contributes a new consideration of the relationship between author and audience in modern Hebrew culture. </p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:3557024 |
| Date | 27 April 2013 |
| Creators | Pressman, Hannah Simone |
| Publisher | New York University |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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