CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Article Title

"Ideologically Incorrect" Responses to the Holocaust by Three Israeli Women Writers

Authors

Rachel Feldhay Brenner, University of Wisconsin Madison

Abstract

In her article "'Ideologically Incorrect' Responses to the Holocaust by Three Israeli Women Writers" Rachel Feldhay Brenner examines the departure from the accepted literary response to the Holocaust in the works of three Israeli women writers: the play Lady of the Castle (1954) by Lea Goldberg (1911-1970), Ruth Almog's (1936-) novel Exile (1971), and Shulamith Hareven's (1930-2003) short stories "The Witness" and "Twilight" (1980). While the writers recognized the historical bonds of the European destruction and the Zionist Jewish revival, their literary responses deviated from the mainstream which tended to concur with contemporaneous ideological positions. Feldhay Brenner begins with a brief overview of the three stages in the Zionist understanding of the Holocaust and of the reflections of these stages in the literary canon. Her discussion then proceeds with an examination of the texts by Goldberg, Almog, and Hareven which deviated from the socio-ideological consensus and concludes with a brief discussion of gender signification of dissenting positions.

Recommended Citation

Feldhay Brenner, Rachel. ""Ideologically Incorrect" Responses to the Holocaust by Three Israeli Women Writers." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 11.1 (2009): <http://dx.doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.1421>

This text has been blind peer reviewed by 2+1 experts in the field.

The above text, published by Purdue University Press ©Purdue University, has been downloaded 793 times as of 06/17/13.