Abstract

Chochana Boukhobza’s 1986 novel Un été à Jérusalem subverts and recasts several recurring tropes, figures and discourses from the intertextual reservoir of Judaic culture. This article proposes that the novel’s feminist deconstruction of foundational Judaic myths and metanarratives informs the protagonist’s corporeal revolt against the patriarchal confines of the Tunisian-Jewish subculture from which she hails. It also analyzes the text’s intimations that the causes of the violence occurring in both the familial and the societal frameworks in which the female characters find themselves may be linked to the trajectories of two dominant Judaic discourses: religious piety and (Zionist) Israeli nationalism. Finally, the paper looks at how different recastings of revered Jewish female figures are involved in destabilizing the manifestations of patriarchy in the novel.

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