TY - JOUR
T1 - "so that if one dies"
T2 - The narrative of the replacement child in israeli literature
AU - Olmert, Dana
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Trustees of Indiana University.
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - 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"(Ahi a-za'ir Yehudah) by Sami Berdugo.
AB - 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"(Ahi a-za'ir Yehudah) by Sami Berdugo.
KW - Bereavement
KW - Fertility technologies
KW - Israeli literature
KW - Militarization
KW - Nationalism
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85107965188&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.2979/jewisocistud.26.2.02
DO - 10.2979/jewisocistud.26.2.02
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AN - SCOPUS:85107965188
SN - 0021-6704
VL - 26
SP - 37
EP - 67
JO - Jewish Social Studies
JF - Jewish Social Studies
IS - 2
ER -