Free Essay on Jew as a Wanderer: An Intertextual Reading of Gila Almagor's Works

Modern society is characterized by social disorder, political turmoil, and ethical confusion. The modern man, therefore, witnesses an absence of social infrastructure and human culture. The disintegration of personality results in the collapse of the outer world. The turbulent state of existence in the modern society prompts the writer to write his or her personal existential dilemma in a fluid society. Consequently, a writer while presenting the nuances of modern life showcases his ethical confusion, yet gives a clarion call for humanism.

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Israel's Holocaust literature, a product of socio-political turmoil, a tool for cultural assertion and a personalized document of tormented psyche, is bound up with questions of identity and self-understanding. It reflects tensions between traditional and modern processes of secularization, homeland and exile, and hegemonic culture and ethnic peripheries. The New Wave Israeli Fiction began in the late 1950s. Contemporary Israeli works by Gila Almagor, Ephraim Kishon, Irit Linur, Etgar Keret and Yehoshua Sobol attained international recognition and that translated into various languages.These new generation novelists explore the far-reaching effects of the Holocaust, the personal conflicts between parents and children, gender issues and the social conflicts such as rejection of sacred ideals and loss of identity.They deal with the psychological trauma of the Holocaust, its aftermath and its impact on the survivors. The child survivors of the Holocaust give a message that even the most vulnerable victims of the greatest of traumas need to have their humanity and dignity restored.

Gila Almagor a prominent Israeli actress, film star, and renowned author lives in Tel Aviv. Almagor, through the Holocaust, lost her father and many relatives, while her mothers 47 extended family members were killed in Poland. On the other hand, Almagors mother and uncle escaped to Palestine, while the rest of her family perished one of her cousins survived Auschwitz. In Israel Almagor is acclaimed as a symbol of Israeli culture and also known as the Queen of the Israeli cinema and theatre. Having been in more than forty films and numerous Israeli television serials.She co founded AMI-theIsraeli Artist Association. Currently, she serves as chair of cultural activities in the City Council ofTel Aviv to promote the arts for children and international exchange between the Israeli performing art world and abroad. She is also the president of ASSITEJan Association of Theatre for Children and Young People. Almagor established the Gila Almagor Wishes Fund, a non-profit organisation that supports sick children and works to fulfill their wishes.

(i)Gila Almagor brings out the fragmentation of socio-political and cultural construct as revealed in the depiction of families and dialogues in her novels. She presents the socio-political conflicts through incidents and images used.

(ii)Identity crisis in its various forms has been projected as the primary theme in Almagors fictional psyche.

(iii)Almagors works replicate the ideas of nothingness and worthlessness of life. Amidst the chaos and confusions prevalent, Almagors characters suggest different routes to live through the existing paradigm of their world.

(iv)Almagor presents the existential struggle of a Jew. Her works prove to be the microcosm of the entire cosmos which is not constrained to any time or space.

The researcher proposes to take Gila Almagors autobiographical books: The Summer of Aviya and Under the Domim Tree, both of which have been made into films, for critical scrutiny.

The researcher is going to use intertextual and interdisciplinary approach to her study.

The researcher will concentrate on the trauma experienced by children, which leave them traumatic for the rest of their lives. The imminent chaos in the modern world and its effects on the life of an individual will also be studied.

The study will be a clarion call for a universal collective consciousness which is essential to create a nation without walls.`