The current study investigates changing attitudes to militarism within Israeli society since the tumultuous decades following 1948. Events leading to the current state of Israeli society will be traced in order to illustrate the way in which change occurs. The shifts in Israeli history and society during these decades will be examined alongside developments in Israeli literature. Accordingly, eight works of fiction have been selected to lie at the heart of the study. These works, all of which centre around the Israeli military experience, convey an erosion of personal, national, and ideological certainties. The analysis of these works demands three areas of exploration: the depiction of the soldier in the civilian setting, the depiction of the soldier as he interacts with other soldiers in the military sphere, and ‘post-Zionist’ military fiction produced in recent decades. These three areas of exploration entail an interrogation of gender, nationalism, and ‘post-Zionism’ in contemporary Israel. The works examined in the third chapter contain commentary not only upon the social reality of their authors, but also upon the way in which Israeli literature engages with the issues that inform its existence.This study is fuelled by the need to understand the links between history and fiction, as the latter grapples with the strain of ongoing military conflict. While Yitzhak Laor, Yehosha Kenaz, and Yoram Kaniuk have chosen to explore Israeli militarism through a re-narration of past chapters in Israeli history, Yitzhak Ben-Ner, Amos Oz, Etgar Keret and A. B. Yehoshua all comment on the events of their time. Some authors have identified this strain as a diminishing masculinity; others convey this burden as a direct corollary of shifting truths about Israeli nationalism.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/245628 |
| Creators | Rubinstein, Ms Keren T |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
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