Thesis: Melamed, Israeli Homemade Video Memorials and the Politics of Loss

Melamed, Laliv. Sovereign Intimacy: Israeli Homemade Video Memorials and the Politics of Loss, PhD dissertation. New York: New York University, 2015.
 
URL: http://gradworks.umi.com/37/40/3740826.html
 
Abstract

Sovereign Intimacy takes as its subject of investigation video memorialization of dead Israeli soldiers done by their close family and friends. Mixing private loss, home-made video production, military conduct, state politics, and an institutionalized commemoration, it redraws the affinities between affective intimacy and forms of governing. It delineates the reshaping of sovereignty by filial relationships, video practicing and aesthetics, state and military administration of death and mass media. Sovereign Intimacy inquires into the political currencies of mourning and loss.

The videos respond to an event triggered by operations of state violence—figured by military power—with a personal lamenting of the breaking of intimate ties. These videos are made by the family and for the family, through amateur and semi-amateur modes of production. Although they were meant to be privately circulated, this phenomenon emerged in tandem to the videos being broadcast on television during the events of the National Memorial Day.

Home-made video memorials become a standard of Israeli memorialization during the 1990s. Largely the result of waning public support of the Israeli occupation of the south of Lebanon, and of a growing disavowal of state authority, the phenomenon represented a potential challenge to hegemonic narratives and aesthetic forms, through the appropriation of memory and means of production. However, it did not make way to a new political voice to emerge. Instead, these videos emotionalized violence and victimized its deliverers. Furthermore, the broadcasting of the videos on television—allegedly as a tribute to the families, a communal gesture of listening and a call for solidarity—participated in a national economy of death in which the lives of Lebanese, Palestinians and marginalized people within Israeli society had no value. Lastly, the phenomenon of memorial videos normalized the growing militarization of civil society and neutralized any call for political action.

 

 

 

New Article: Wright, The Ethico-Politics of Love and Mourning in Jewish Israeli Solidarity Activism

Wright, Fiona. “Palestine, My Love: The Ethico-Politics of Love and Mourning in Jewish Israeli Solidarity Activism.” American Ethnologist 43.1 (2016): 130-43.
 
URL: dx.doi.org/10.1111/amet.12268
 
Abstract

Jewish Israeli left-wing activists engage in a subversive affective politics when they express love for, and mourn the loss of, Palestinian life. But the affects of love and mourning also bind these solidarity activists to Israeli state violence and sovereignty in various ways, entangling them in the very forms of power they aim to challenge. Loving and mourning the Palestinian Other involves an ambivalent ethics in which the activist subject objectifies the Other, and this objectification is a kind of violence that emerges in the affective becomings of solidarity activism. Activist loving and mourning thus call into question the nature of solidarity and alert us to the difficulty of ethics as troubled relations enmeshed in the violence of politics.

 

 

 

New Book: Hever, Suddenly the Sight of War

Hever, Hannan. Suddenly, the Sight of War. Violence and Nationalism in Hebrew Poetry in the 1940s. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016.

 

Suddenly, the Sight of War is a genealogy of Hebrew poetry written in pre-state Israel between the beginning of World War II and the War of Independence in 1948. In it, renowned literary scholar Hannan Hever sheds light on how the views and poetic practices of poets changed as they became aware of the extreme violence in Europe toward the Jews.

In dealing with the difficult topics of the Shoah, Natan Alterman’s 1944 publication of The Poems of the Ten Plagues proved pivotal. His work inspired the next generation of poets like Haim Guri, as well as detractors like Amir Gilboa. Suddenly, the Sight of War also explores the relations between the poetry of the struggle for national independence and the genre of war-reportage, uniquely prevalent at the time. Hever concludes his genealogy with a focus on the feminine reaction to the War of Independence showing how women writers such as Lea Goldberg and Yocheved Bat-Miryam subverted war poetry at the end of the 1940s. Through the work of these remarkable poets, we learn how a culture transcended seemingly unspeakable violence.

 

Table of Contents

Part I: Hebrew Symbolist Poetry During World War II
1. “The Real Has Become a Symbol”
2. The Dispute over War Poetry
3. Criticism of Nationalism Violence
4. Reading Nationalist Poetry Critically
5. Nationalism Anthologized
6. The Living-Dead in Joy of the Poor
7. Revence on a Nationalist Scale
8. Leah Goldberg Writes War Poetry
9. The Duality of the Symbolist Woman Poet
10. The Living-Dead and the Female Body
11. Amir Gilboa: Boy Poet

Part II: Historical Analogy and National Allegory During the Holocaust
12. A Surprising Moral Judgment
13. The Uncommon Stance of a Major Poet
14. Critical Reception
15. A Postnationalist Reading
16. A Symbol, Not an Allegory
17. Allegory in The Poems of the Plagues of Egypt versus Symbolism in Joy of the Poor
18. Allegory as a Nonhegemonic Stance
19. Alterman and the Memory of the Holocaust
20. The Father-Son Strategy
21. Blind Vengeance
22. Breaking the Cycle of Crime and Punishment
23. History of the Defeated

Part III: Symbols of Death in the National War for Independence
26. Return of the Hegemonic Symbol
27. The Living-Dead in the Independence War
28. Amir Gilboa and the Subversion of the Symbol
29. Gilboa versus the Metaphor of the Living-Dead
30. Poets as Reporters
31. Sorrow Petrified into Symbols
32. Hegemonic Strategies
33. From Reportage to Lyric
34. Women Write of Fallen Soldiers as Flesh and Blood
35. In the Service of National Subjectivity
36. Women and the Metaphor of the Living-Dead
37. Criticism of the Living-Dead Metaphor
38. The Authority and Power of Women
39. Popular versus Canonical Mourning
40. The Secrets and Power of Women

Conclusion
Index

 

HANNAN HEVER is the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Professor of Hebrew Language and Literature at Yale University. He is the author of several books, including Producing the Modern Hebrew Canon.

 

 

 

New Article: Szobel, Prostitution, Power and Vulnerability in Early Twentieth-Century Hebrew Literature

Szobel, Ilana. “‘Lights in the Darkness’: Prostitution, Power and Vulnerability in Early Twentieth-Century Hebrew Literature.” Prooftexts 34.2 (2015): 170-206.

 

URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/prooftexts/v034/34.2.szobel.html

 

Abstract

This article explores the juxtaposition of prostitution, masculinity, and nationalism in the works of Hebrew writers at the beginning of the twentieth century. By discussing the psycho-poetical elements that underlie David Vogel’s depiction of prostitution and the ideological elements in Gershon Shofman’s work, and by exposing their dialogue with Hayim Nahman Bialik, this project explores power, vulnerability, gender, sexuality, and nationalism in Hebrew literature of the first half of the twentieth century.

My study argues that the trope of the prostitute enables writers of early Hebrew literature to negotiate questions of strength and weakness in the Jewish world. Although Bialik’s option of sovereign masculinity became the norm for the Zionist discourse, Shofman, Vogel, Brenner, Reuveni and others expressed different perceptions of gender and power. Hence, in order to understand the intensity of the poetic, national, and gendered dilemmas and struggles of this generation, this study offers to listen not only to their concepts of revival, renewal and empowerment, but also to their expressions of weakness, frustration, loss, anger and aggression.

 

 

New Article: Shalhoub-Kevorkian & Roer-Strier, Counter-Hegemonic Qualitative Research: Insights from an Israeli/Palestinian Research Team

Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Nadera and Dorit Roer-Strier. “Context-Informed, Counter-Hegemonic Qualitative Research: Insights from an Israeli/Palestinian Research Team Studying Loss.” Qualitative Social Work (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1473325015595545

 

Abstract

Theorizing social work qualitative methodologies have always been closely related to the context of the studied subjects. This paper offers the framework of context-informed, counter-hegemonic qualitative research for theorizing research in conflict zones. Based on a case study of a group of Jewish and Palestinian social work researchers who examined together the effect of the loss of home on families during an ongoing political conflict, this paper explores the impact of participating in a research team on the researcher’s perceptions and study of otherness and otherization in the context of asymmetries of power. Analysis of the group dynamics discovered: (1) a growing ability to see and acknowledge the other, accompanied by a growing willingness to be attentive; (2) a growing ability to empathically listen to and hear the experiences of suffering of the other; (3) overcoming silencing by allowing voices of dissent, pain and resilience; and (4) creating a liminal space of “safe haven” for the researchers. The paper explores the development of context-informed group reflexivity leading to emancipatory consciousness and academic activism.

 

 

New Article: Tzivian et al, Death of Companion Dogs and Stress in Healthy Israeli Women

Tzivian, Lilian, Michael Friger, and Talma Kushnir. “The Death and Owning of the Companion Dog: Association between Resource Loss and Stress in Healthy Israeli Women.” Journal of Veterinary Behavior 10.3 (2015): 223-30.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jveb.2015.01.005

 

Abstract

Dog owners often regard their dogs as family members that provide companionship and feelings of security and of being loved. The loss of a dog may be experienced as a stressful life event and lead to bereavement. The aim of this study was to explore the contribution of a Conservation of Resources (COR) theory to the understanding of the effects pet dogs might have on their healthy adult owners’ stress. We performed a cross-sectional study of 110 current dog owners and 103 bereaved owners, all females. Veterinarians from 48 private clinics from central Israel referred the researchers to owners who euthanized their pet dogs in 1-month period. The control group included owners who had lived with the dogs for more than 2 years. Based on the COR theory, 2 new instruments to measure resource losses and gains of owners were assembled. The level of stress was assessed by the Perceived Stress and the Somatic Complaints scales. Stress was stronger for bereaved owners (statistically significant). In multivariate regression, for current owners, the factors correlated with stress were: number of cigarettes, performing or not performing sports activity in previous 2 weeks, and dog-related losses. For bereaved owners, the factors that correlated with stress were number of cigarettes and losses owing to a dog’s death. The findings of the study supported the hypothesis that stress among bereaved owners is higher than that among the current owners. It seems that the death of a dog is a stressful life event.

New Article: Barak and Leichtentritt, Ideological Meaning Making After the Loss of a Child

Barak, Adi and Ronit D. Leichtentritt. “Ideological Meaning Making After the Loss of a Child: The Case of Israeli Bereaved Parents.” Death Studies 39.6 (2015): 360-368.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2014.958626

 

Abstract

The study provides a view of ideological meaning-making processes of 10 Israelis who lost a child examining the parents’ perspectives and written public documents. The texts and interviews were analyzed using Gadamer’s hermeneutic philosophy. Findings indicate that bereaved parents construct conflicting ideologically oriented viewpoints: doubting and affirming the Zionist ideology; ascribing sense and senselessness to the loss; and joining the ethos but keeping personal meanings. Our conclusion is consistent with theorists who reject the notion that the human narrative should be coherently unified. We point to potential links between relational dialectics and meaning-making theory and outline implications for practice.

New Article: Possick, Grandparents’ Meaning Construction of the Loss of a Grandchild in a Terror Attack

Possick, Chaya. “Grandparents’ Meaning Construction of the Loss of a Grandchild in a Terror Attack in Israel.” Journal of Loss and Trauma 20.3 (2015): 214-28.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15325024.2013.852028

 

Abstract

This qualitative research study is based on in-depth interviews with 12 grandparents who had a grandchild killed in a terror attack in Israel. Two main categories that emerged from the data analysis were (a) loss in the personal context and (b) loss in the collective context. Each category was subdivided into two groups: first, grandparents whose grief centered on specific aspects of the painful loss of an intimate connection with the grandchild and grandparents who were directly exposed to the terror attack and whose narrative focused on the traumatic memory, and, second, grandparents who constructed their loss as part of the history of anti-Semitism and grandparents who constructed their loss as part of the Israeli narrative of the struggle for the land and the state of Israel. The article demonstrates how each type highlights a different aspect of grandparental bereavement as a result of a terror attack. Clinical implications of the findings are presented.

Seminar: Azrieli Institute Student-Faculty Seminar (Nov 26, 2014)

Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies

Student-Faculty Seminars

Join us for our first seminar of the year!

Wednesday November 26, 2014

10:30AM-12:30PM

 

Jerusalem Art History Journal. An Undergraduate eJournal: The Process and Product

– Dr. Loren Lerner, Project Director, Department of Art History

– Pata Macedo, Journal Designer, Department of Design and Computation Arts

– Israeli Archaeology in Jerusalem: National Heritage, Identity, and Partiality – Charlotte Parent

– Symbols and Motifs: Depictions of the Heavenly Realm in Mordecai Ardon’s At the Gates of Jerusalem – Valerie Gauthier

– Expressing Exile as a Shared Experience: The Work of Steve Sabella – Stéphanie Hornstein

– From the Depths of the Matrixial Sea: Reviving Loss and Memory in Contemporary Israeli Art – Braden Scot

– The Artistic Apocalypse: Three Religious Depictions of the End of Days – Amanda Charlebois

– Representations of Jesus in Early Christian Art – Samantha Wexler

 

The Benefits of International Diversification:The Case of Israel in a Nexus of Market Development, Corporate Governance and Structural Change

– Dr. Lorne Switzer, Department of Finance