FACING THE HOLOCAUST: Selected Israeli Fiction

by Gila & Joseph Michman-Melkman--Eds. Ramras-Rauch ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1986

Prewar Europe, postwar Europe, and Israel are the settings for the 12 selections in this collection--seven of which were written as short stories while five are chapters from novels. New voices (for Americans) are here as well as well-known writers such as Aharon Megged, Hanoch Barter, and Yehuda Amichai. Whether elegaic or intense, realistic or surrealistic in execution, the fiction here is concerned with what it means to be a human being and a Jew. Can there be normalcy and normal living for those haunted by memories? Is revenge, forbearance, or amnesia the better individual response to the Holocaust? Hanoch Bartov's narrator in ""Enemy Territory"" saves a German woman and her daughters from an attack by fellow soldiers and thinks: ""Rotten with purity. . . We were what we were, condemned to walk the face of the earth with the image of God printed on our foreheads like the mark of Cain."" In Ben-Zion Tomer's ""Lands of Peach, Apricot, and Bread,"" a boy's friendly gesture to a former political prisoner elicits a tale of brotherly love conquering brutalization. And two quite different stories show the influence of other writers. Yitzhak Ben-Mordechai's sensual ""Klein,"" a tale of love found, lost, and found (perhaps?) again has resonances of I.B. Singer, and Michal Govrin's ""La Promenade,"" in its meticulous detailing of the interactions of Jews vacationing ""normally"" in a European seaside resort (long after the war), brings reminders of Henry James' novels of manners. Least successful are two chapters from novels: ""Mrs. Eckhardt's Story,"" by David Scutz, and ""The Lead Soldiers,"" by Uri Orlev. For the sake of clarity, both need to give the reader a better sense of the ""before"" and ""after."" Gershon Shaker's Afterword places the volume in the broader context of all Israeli Holocaust-related literature and provides titles for further reading. Despite some unevenness, a rewarding encounter with the idiosyncratic approaches possible to one of this century's major themes.

Pub Date: March 1, 1986

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Jewish Publication Society

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1986

Categories: FICTION