Serial Trauma: Seriality and Post-Trauma in the Israeli Television Drama Parashat Ha-Shavu’a

This article will compare two texts—a feature film, Waltz with Bashir, and a television serial, Parashat Ha-Shavu’a, both of which deal with the traumatic effects of the 1982 First Lebanon War. The preoccupation of Parashat with the war is enacted through the character of Shaul Nawi, who is plagued by nightmares, hallucinations, and memories from that war. In Waltz, too, as in Parashat Ha-Shavu’a, the protagonist remembers a traumatic event belatedly. But whereas in the film a solution is ultimately discovered and the post-traumatic experience ends in closure if not outright healing, Parashat features a “subject in the narrative without end,” and even after the “riddle” is solved, the traumatic event continues to haunt Shaul. This article argues that the narrative structure of Parashat, as a TV serial, allows the representation of the post-traumatic experience to be more complex than that reflected in the narrative structure of most classical films.