American Jewish Fiction Has a New Favorite Theme: the Jewish State

Four of the most prominent American Jewish novelists—all roughly the same age—have recently published books either set in Israel or in whose plot Israel and Israelis play a major role plot. Two others have published a collection of essays about Israel. To Matti Friedman, it seems that “something’s going on.”

The Israel of each of these novelists is different, of course, but there are similarities. Two recount watching an Israeli war on TV from America and the strong emotions this elicits; two make reference to King David; two have hamsa keychains; two have the Mossad; all have soldiers; and all use a little Hebrew. Perhaps most tellingly, two feature American characters with Israeli second cousins—at first, Jews in America and Israel were siblings divided by European wars, then they were first cousins, but now they’re only second cousins, a generational fact that might explain the fraying connection as much as anything else. None of these novels is fully at home in Israel—they’re more like Mars orbiters than rovers. They’re not permanently on the ground. . . .

In all four novels Israel is the scene of strange and exciting events, if not outright enchantment, but the idea that magic is possible [there] is most present in [Nicole] Krauss’s Forest Dark. (Home, on the other hand, is where the novels set jobs, divorces, affairs, and bar mitzvahs.) . . . Many of the characters in these novels turn to Israel to shore up American lives that feel short on meaning, even if we’re not meant to take that turn entirely seriously.

Jewish American writers of a few decades ago might have poked around the strange Jewish country in the Middle East, but they knew that the real literary action for them was back home. The novelists of 2017 don’t seem so sure. . . . If you’re not a recent arrival from the Soviet Union, you’re not likely to have funny mannerisms, an ethnic chip on your shoulder, or much interesting history of your own. [Shtetl] nostalgia is stale, and with everyone in the suburbs, there is no American Jewish street. The broader American culture seems to offer little cohesion for a writer to either embrace or rebel against. So where do you go?

Read more at Jewish Review of Books

More about: American Jewish literature, Arts & Culture, Israel & Zionism, Israel and the Diaspora

 

Why South Africa Has Led the Legal War against Israel

South Africa filed suit with the International Court of Justice in December accusing Israel of genocide. More recently, it requested that the court order the Jewish state to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip—something which, of course, Israel has been doing since the war began. Indeed, the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) has had a long history of support for the Palestinian cause, but Orde Kittrie suggests that the current government, which is plagued by massive corruption, has more sinister motives for its fixation on accusing Israel of imagined crimes:

ANC-led South Africa has . . . repeatedly supported Hamas. In 2015 and 2018, the ANC and Hamas signed memoranda of understanding pledging cooperation against Israel. The Daily Maverick, a South African newspaper that previously won an international award for exposing ANC corruption, has reported claims that Iran “essentially paid the ANC to litigate against Israel in the ICJ.”

The ANC-led government says it is motivated by humanitarian principle. That’s contradicted by its support for Russia, and by [President Cyril] Ramaphosa’s warmly welcoming a visit in January by Mohamed Dagalo, the leader of the Sudanese-Arab Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. Ramaphosa’s smiling, hand-holding welcome of Dagalo occurred two months after the RSF’s systematic massacre of hundreds of non-Arab Sudanese refugees in Darfur.

While the ANC has looted its own country and aided America’s enemies, the U.S. is insulating the party from the consequences of its corruption and mismanagement.

In Kittrie’s view, it is “time for Congress and the Biden administration to start helping South Africa’s people hold Ramaphosa accountable.”

Read more at The Hill

More about: International Law, Iran, South Africa