The Zionist right and national liberation: From Jabotinsky to Avraham Stern

This chapter examines methodology for examining ideological and poetical developments in modern Hebrew literature through the usage of a central biblical archetype. The binding of Isaac was a major metaphor in Jewish tradition, but what is surprising is that it remained central even in the completely secular Hebrew literature written in the twentieth century. The literary model of Aqedah and the intertextual space created through it links the Holocaust and redemption, destruction and rebirth. The Aqedah moves here from the collective consciousness to the family unit; an act of divorce is seen in the light of the Aqedah. The ancient myth serves to elevate a personal experience. The poem shifts between dream and reality; between the biblical sacrifice and sacrifice as a symbol of guilt. The abundant use of the Aqedah reveals two different directions in which modern Hebrew literature is developing. There is the current of protest against the political establishment as illustrated in the poem by Hanoch Levine.