TORTURED ZIONISM: MESSIANISM, AMBIVALENCE, AND ISRAEL IN POST-HOLOCAUST JEWISH AMERICAN LITERATURE BY Elana Hornblass Dushey BA, Yeshiva University/Stern College, 2002 MA, St. Johns University, 2005 MPhil, Fordham University, 2008 DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AT FORDHAM UNIVERSITY NEW YORK MAY 2015 Acknowledgements While working on this dissertation I gave birth to my second and third child. Needless to say, my process was long, often halted and interrupted by the blessings and challenges of life, and in particular, motherhood. Throughout those interruptions, I was brought back to the fold of scholarship by Jacky Gringold, Jane Van Slembrouck, Marty Northrop, Trish Grisafi, Charlotte Willis, and Lauren Navarro, who provided ample empathy and always smart advice. I especially appreciate Liza Zitelli and her keen editorial eye, encouragement, and fantastic ideas. To Moshe Gold, head of composition at Fordham, thank you for being an excellent employer throughout my graduate career. Teaching was, and is, an invaluable gift that always kept me grounded; I am additionally indebted to my students for their humor and curiosity. Martine Stern, Ayla Syed, and Carole Alvino also provided tremendous help in navigating the bureaucracy of graduate school. My committee members Maria Farland and Glenn Hendler guided me with kindness, fairness, and intelligence towards creating my best possible work, and my fourth reader Elizabeth Stone was an insightful member of our defense conversation. I could not have asked for a better mentor than Lenny Cassuto, who not only pushed my scholarship and honed my skills as a writer, researcher, and student of literature, but who also served as my advocate, enabling me to concurrently work and care for my children and husband in a present and proactive way. I thank my friends, old and new, who rooted for me throughout this long process, and especially to Leah Harary, whose insight as a reader I thoroughly trust. My incredible family constantly supported me, including my loving in-laws, and my aunts, uncles, and cousins, who always encouraged me. I am so appreciative of my wonderful siblings and how they provided comic relief when I was feeling the pressures of producing good work amidst my busy schedule. I thank Yolanda Gomez, for giving so much of her time so that I could complete my degree, and for taking such good care of my children while I worked endless hours in the library. To Tommy, who called me “Dr.” everyday: the best motivation. To my mother, who felt my frustrations and relished in my accomplishments, thank you for your unconditional support. I could not have done this without your advice, encouragement, and help. This dissertation is yours as much as it is mine. To my husband Andy, who celebrates in my success, believes in my capability, and who gives me perspective with his invaluable love and support, thank you for your patience and faith. I am so blessed to have my beautiful children Albert, Jack, and Liya whose sweetness, uniqueness, intensity, humor and intelligence remind me daily of how lucky I am. Writing this I also think of my late Nana, who had profound wisdom, and who was so proud of everything I did, especially this pursuit. And I think of my late father, whose love of Israel and vast knowledge of it inspired me to devote years writing about it. His last days were spent in Israel, a most appropriate exit for a person who was proud to be Jewish and was first and foremost a humanist. Tortured Zionism: Messianism, Ambivalence, and Israel in post-Holocaust Jewish American literature Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….1 Chapter 1………………………………………………………………………………37 The Messianic Figure in Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union: A Study of the Limitations of Art and Tortured Zionism Chapter 2……………………………………………………………………………….98 Philip Roth’s circumcised conscience: Zionism and narrative in The Counterlife, The Facts, Patrimony, and Operation Shylock Chapter 3………………………………………………………………………………..171 The Maternal and the Messianic Extreme: Tova Reich and Failed Feminist Revisions Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...237 Bibliography....................................................................................................................243 Abstract Vita Tortured Zionism: Messianism, Ambivalence, and Israel in Post-Holocaust Jewish American Literature Introduction On a July 21, 2014 episode of “The Daily Show,” during the height of the most recent Israeli/Palestinian conflict, Jewish American comedian Jon Stewart began a segment by stating with trepidation, “We need to talk about Israel.” At the mention of the tiny Middle Eastern country, seven of his cast mates popped out, throwing verbal assaults at Stewart’s supposed anti-Jewish and pro-Hamas stance. He then continued to talk about Gaza, when the same cast mates popped out again, spewing vitriolic remarks, including ”Zionist pig.” The comical segment was meant to comment on both the intense and loaded media discourse surrounding the issue, and the criticism Stewart had earlier received for his views on Israel. The audience laughed as Stewart said, “Let’s move on to a more lighthearted topic: the Ukraine.” Stewart’s hilarious bit touches on a compelling issue for Jewish American writers: the difficulty and complexity of addressing Israel and Zionism (especially regarding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and the complex relationship between Israel and Jewish diasporic communities). In Tortured Zionism: Messianism, Ambivalence, and Israel in post-Holocaust Jewish American literature, I look at post- Holocaust Jewish American novelists who try to tackle Israel as a subject, despite and because of these difficulties. I explore narratives by Michael Chabon, Philip Roth, and Tova Reich, which span from the mid-1980s to 2013, to locate their engagement with Zionism. In varying ways, they align 1 2 with Zionism, but their Zionism is an ambivalent Zionism, or what I term tortured Zionism. I name it thus because when they delve into their Zionism, they struggle, present fear and trepidation, but ultimately project a Zionist stance. More specifically, I look at how Chabon, Roth, and Reich negotiate their tortured Zionism through messianism, or messianic allusions, themes and tropes, to ultimately present a complicated, nuanced, and ambivalent Zionist stance. Through their narratives’ development of tortured Zionism, these writers contribute to what I believe is one of the most important issues in contemporary American Jewry, the cultural, religious, artistic, identifying, and ethnic relationship to Israel. Chapter summaries I begin with Michael Chabon and his use of the messianic figure in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000)1 and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007),2 in my chapter entitled “The Messianic Figure in Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union: A Study of the Limitations of Art and Tortured Zionism.” I argue that in both narratives, the messianic figure represents a longing for a post- Holocaust resolution that can manifest either in cathartic art (as in Kavalier and Clay), or in the utopic actualization of the Zionist dream (as in Yiddish Policemen), a counter-historical novel built on the premise that the Jews were defeated by the Arabs in the 1948 war. However, Chabon’s messianic figures fail in their missions and Chabon infuses his narratives with a feeling of longing, and a painful desire for redemption that never actualizes. With both novels, I delineate how Chabon portrays the limitations of artistic creation to simultaneously address how Chabon’s engagement with 1 From here on, Kavalier and Clay. 2 From here on, Yiddish Policemen. 3 the Holocaust and Israel is likewise limited; in Kavalier and Clay, I argue that Chabon utilizes the messianic figures of the Golem and the comic book character the Escapist to suggest that art cannot generate a full catharsis from Holocaust trauma. However, he asserts that the process of engaging the Holocaust through art is imperative nevertheless. My chapter on Kavalier and Clay differs from current discourse because while many scholars address Chabon’s treatment of the Holocaust, the Golem, and comic books,3 they do not acknowledge the messianic component of that dynamic. Furthermore, I also highlight how Chabon does not even mention Israel in his narrative about the post-war years, which reveals to me a certain timidity when handling Jewish post-war issues, an idea reverberated in scholars’ criticism of Chabon’s engagement with the Holocaust.4 The second part of the chapter looks at Yiddish Policemen’s messianic characters and Chabon’s use of the counter-historical form to delineate his portrayal of jaded Zionism. Unlike in Kavalier and Clay, Chabon addresses Israel in the later novel. But by presenting Israel’s counter-historical eradication (in the 1948 war), Chabon develops a 3 See Hillary Chute, who argues that Chabon’s novel reveals how contemporary fiction is in dialogue with comic books. She also sees the Golem as Chabon’s way of encountering history (282), as the Golem “registers on a formal level both the urgency of representing trauma and traumas’ seeming unspeakability”(287). Nicola Morris delineates how the Golem represents power and powerlessness, suggesting that while the Golem helped save Joseph from the Nazis (when Joe hid in the Golem’s coffin), the Golem was unable to save Prague Jewry. Derek Parker Royal studies the rise in comic book studies, which he views as a new discourse that recognizes how comic books reflect ethno-cultural issues. He points out that Chabon’s novel is often cited in these studies as a way to legitimize scholars’ critiques on comic books and culture (“Jewish Comics”). 4 Alan Berger highlights Chabon’s role as a third-generation Jewish American writer, and thus removed from the Holocaust. This distance is reflected in Chabon’s work, as Berger criticizes Kavalier and Clay for its deflective approach to the Holocaust through its use of mysticism rather than factual details.