Producing the (Eretz-) Israeli Place: On the Documentary Urge in Kibbutz Literature

The present article suggests returning to the starting point of kibbutz literature, to observe several of the avant-garde models created within the kibbutz society from the perspective of a century. The writers' avant-garde urge spurred them to create an ex nihilo repertoire for those spheres of life in which the old repertoire was unsuited to the needs of the new reality. New models of collective or semi-collective forms of writing were created, which were compatible with the experience of communal life; and the narrator perceived himself, first and foremost, as an emissary, a narrator-witness. This study will serve as a preface to a poetic and ideological discussion of Assaf Inbari's 2009 novel, Habayta (Home). Inbari's novel continues the tradition of documentary avant-garde writing that seeks to relate a collective story, the story of the creation of the "place." The writer's transformation of documentary material, and his sophisticated use of the collective voice, which is also simultaneously personal, makes this novel an innovative and complex work of art.