Israel and America: Cross-Cultural Encounters and the Literary Imagination: Introduction

Cross-Cultural Encounters and the Literary Imagination Israel and America: Cross-Cultural Encounters and the Literary Imagination Introduction Naomi Sokoloff Naomi Sokoloff is an Associate Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization and Chair ofthe Jewish Studies Program at the University of Washington. She is the author of Imagining the Child in Modern Jewish Fiction (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992) and has co-edited two books: Gender and Text in Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literature (JTSA, 1992) and Infant Tongues: The Voice of the Child in Literature (Wayne State University Press, 1994). As Israel's 50th independence day approaches, public discussion in the Jewish world increasingly revolves around the relationship between the Jewish State and the American Jewish community, the two largest and most active centers of Jewish life in the contemporary world. How has literature contributed to these conversations, and in what ways has the literary imagination illuminated such matters? Till recently, it seemed, rather little. For many decades Israel played a minor, and at times negligible, role in the imaginative writing of American Jews.1 America, likewise, was a peripheral topic in Israeli fiction and poetry.2 Things, however, are changing. A reassessment ofZion/Diaspora relations is well underway in contemporary American Jewish literature. In the 1980s and the 1990s Israel has emerged as a central concern in the fiction ofPhilip Roth, Nessa Rapaport, Anne Roiphe, Mark Helprin, and others. In addition, critics have begun to pay more attention to this topic. Its visibility has risen in part because of increasing interest in the academic study ofpop culture, for (Critics who have lamented this neglect include Harold Fisch, The Dual Image: The Figure of the Jew in English and American Literature (New York: KTAV, 1971); Robert Alter, "Defenders of the Faith," Commentary 84, 1 (1987): 52-55; and Ted Solotaroff, The New York Times Book Review (18 December 1988): 1. 2Naomi B. Sokoloff, "Israel and America-Imagining the Other: Natan Shaham's 'The Salt of the Earth' and Philip Roth's 'The Counterlife,'" in The Other in Jewish Thought and History: Constructions ofJewish Culture and Identity, ed. Laurence J. Silberstein and Robert L. Cohn (New York: NYU Press, 1994): 326-52. 2 SHOFAR Winter 1998 Vol. 16, No.2 Israel has often figured more prominently in the realm ofthe thriller, the potboiler, and the historical romance than in highbrow writing. Treatments of Israel in these popular genres are now attracting reevaluation.3 In ISrael, too, things have been changing. In an era that has witnessed an Americanization of Israeli society, Hebrew literature has demonstrated growing attention to America and its influences. Consider, for example, Tsipi Keller's 1996 novel The Prophet of 10th Street (Hanavi mire!wv 'eser), which is set in the U.S.; Shulamit Lapid's Local Paper (Mekomon, 1989) which satirizes the Beer Sheva art scene, poking fun at it for mimicking American trendiness; and Dorit Abusch's The Deserter (Hayored, 1996) which features an Israeli who makes a successful life for himself in New England. After fifteen years in the U.S. this character spends three months in Tel Aviv, only to discover an Americanized Israel replete with McDonalds, shopping malls and supermarket shelves that confound him with their wide array of foreign products. The boundaries between home and away have begun to blur. Further evidence of the recent emphasis on America in Hebrew fiction can be found in Gail Hareven's short story "Healing" ("Healing"), in Savyon Liebricht's "Talking in Vain" ("Leshav yedabru"), and in the American characters ofNatan Shaham's Series (Sidra, 1992). Similarly, Batya Gur's Literary Murder (Retsa~ ba~ug lesifrut, 1989) brings Detective Michael Ohayon to the U.S. to solve a murder case in Israel. He needs a fresh view ofthe matter to figure out whodunit, and it is only from American shores that he gains the perspective necessary to discern what has gone rotten back home. Some of these texts show a new cultural openness to American values while others are critical of them; yet many of them, while critical or not, go beyond the old stereotypes of Hebrew fiction that saw America almost exclusively in terms of materialism and vulgarity-as in...