"So That If One Dies": The Narrative of the Replacement Child in Israeli Literature

IF 0.5 0 HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES Pub Date : 2021-06-01 DOI:10.2979/JEWISOCISTUD.26.2.02

Dana Olmert

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Abstract

Abstract:This article deals with an unexamined aspect of the Israeli culture of bereavement and its ethos of sacrifice: the expanding legitimation among bereaved parents to actively strive to have a substitute child in place of one killed in the course of military service. It begins by reviewing recent civil initiatives aimed at utilizing new fertility technologies to realize this wish. Despite these developments, the claim this article seeks to promote and discuss is that the underlying aspiration for a replacement child has existed within the Israeli national order from the state's early days, and has several common cultural symbolic and sublimative expressions, such as commemorating a dead soldier by naming newborn relatives for him. New fertility technologies have opened up a path to materialize symbolic modes of commemoration. The article closely examines the concept of the replacement child and the national logic guiding it in two novellas written at the millennium's outset by two influential Israeli authors: "Diana's Child" (Ha-yeled shel Diana) by Savyon Liebrecht and "My Younger Brother Yehudah" (Aḥi ha-ẓa'ir Yehudah) by Sami Berdugo.

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“如果一个人死了”：以色列文学中替代儿童的叙事

摘要：本文论述了以色列丧亲文化及其牺牲精神的一个未经审查的方面：丧亲父母的合法性不断扩大，他们积极争取生一个替代孩子，以取代在服役过程中被杀害的孩子。它首先审查了最近旨在利用新的生育技术实现这一愿望的民间举措。尽管出现了这些事态发展，但本文试图宣传和讨论的说法是，从以色列建国初期起，对替代儿童的根本愿望就存在于以色列国家秩序中，并有几种常见的文化象征和升华表达，例如通过为一名死去的士兵命名新生儿亲属来纪念他。新的生育技术开辟了一条实现象征性纪念模式的道路。这篇文章在两位有影响力的以色列作家于千禧年伊始写的中篇小说中仔细研究了替代儿童的概念及其指导它的国家逻辑：Savyon Liebrecht的《戴安娜的孩子》（Hayeled shel Diana）和《我的弟弟Yehudah》（Aḥ我哈-ẓ阿伊尔·耶胡达）。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY-

CiteScore

0.50

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Jewish Social Studies recognizes the increasingly fluid methodological and disciplinary boundaries within the humanities and is particularly interested both in exploring different approaches to Jewish history and in critical inquiry into the concepts and theoretical stances that underpin its problematics. It publishes specific case studies, engages in theoretical discussion, and advances the understanding of Jewish life as well as the multifaceted narratives that constitute its historiography.