Iphigenia in Israel: The Daughter's Options in Hebrew Literature

"Iphigenia in Israel" explores how the figure of the daughter—now more prominent with the flourishing of women's writing in Hebrew, but certainly significant well before—works against a literature that has been characterized as a literature of fathers and sons. The project is meant as a corrective to the distorted image of Israeli literature. In addition to incorporating more recent works into our reading of the national literature, alternative readings of earlier works are also included. The article analyzes how authors contend with the "impossibility" of the father-daughter relationship, and the possibilities they present to their characters. While the variations on fathers and daughters seem nearly endless, the options remain starkly limited. More recent works challenge and subvert the paradigm of limited choices.