“I Said unto You When You Were in Your Blood, Live”: Yoram Kaniuk’s Tasha”h

This essay examines Yoram Kaniuk’s acclaimed 2010 fictionalized memoir, Tasha”h (1948) in the context of Hebrew literature’s reaction to the War of Independence and to the Nakba. Placing an emphasis on the narrative’s multiple connections between historical memory and the narrator’s contemporary position, the essay points to crucial moments of literary ethical and political reflection. Building on my recent work on futural aspects in Hebrew literature’s reaction to 1948, the essay places Kaniuk in the tradition established by such authors as S. Yizhar, Amos Oz, and A. B. Yehoshua, among others. At the same time, the essay highlights Kaniuk’s implicit understanding of 1948 as a modernist event: as one of the man-made catastrophes that came to define the modern era.