The Death of Blessed Memory： A Crisis in Secular Israeli Identity in Yaakov Shabtai＇s ＂Departure＂  

作　　者：Corinne E. Blackmer 

机构地区：[1]Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, USA

出　　处：《Cultural and Religious Studies》2015年第1期33-40,共8页文化与宗教研究（英文版）

摘　　要：Yaakov Shabtai＇s ＂Departure＂ seems, at first glance, only to chronicle the illness and death of an unnamed grandmother living in Tel Aviv, as witnessed through the eyes of her grandson. The grandmother, an observant Jewish woman with socialist politics, liberal social views, and many friends, differs strikingly from her Israeli family. They are wholly secular Jews who disavow belief in religion. They observe yahrzeits, Jewish religious festivals, and holy days only as long as grandmother lives. They discontinue all Jewish observance the moment the grandmother dies, thus allegorizing a complete intergenerational break in Jewish identity. The story ends with the melancholic narrator realizing that he has no memory of the date of his grandmother＇s death. This article contends that this seemingly simple narrative has profound historical and referential meanings. The story functions as an allegorical critique of escalating social and religious divisions in Israel, as well as the implications of the loss of Jewish religion on Jewish identity. ＂Departure＂ reveals that the process of dis-identification and post-Zionism begins with the family： symbolically with the figure of the grandmother, whose peaceful, sociable identity stands in peril of becoming removed from the possibilities of her mode of Jewish being influencing future generations.

关 键 词：Shabtai Yaakov secular Jewishness religious Judaism Tel Aviv post-Zionism Israel MELANCHOLIA Jewish grandmother 

分 类 号：G0[文化科学] B9[哲学宗教—宗教学]