A necessary examination of temporality, ethics, and trauma in Israeli film and television since the turn of the millennium. Original analysis of contemporary issues in Israeli media and culture, using feminist theory, queer theory, as well as critical race and postcolonial studies. Clear and nuanced analysis that will be helpful for those interested in trauma and memory studis, postcolonial studies, gende and sexuality studies, Jewish studies, Middle Eastern studies, and cultural studies.

A necessary examination of temporality, ethics, and trauma in Israeli film and television since the turn of the millennium. Original analysis of contemporary issues in Israeli media and culture, using feminist theory, queer theory, as well as critical race and postcolonial studies. Clear and nuanced analysis that will be helpful for those interested in trauma and memory studis, postcolonial studies, gende and sexuality studies, Jewish studies, Middle Eastern studies, and cultural studies.

The last decade has marked the growing visibility and worldwide interest in Israeli cinema. Films such as Walk on Water, Or, My Treasure, Beaufort and Waltz with Bashir have been commercially and critically successful both in Europe and the United States and have won a number of prestigious international awards. This book examines for the first time the new ideological and aesthetic trends in contemporary Israeli cinema. More specifically, it critically explores the complex and crucial role of Israeli cinema in remembering and restaging traumas and losses that were denied entry into the shared national past. One of the most striking phenomena in contemporary Israeli cinema is the number and scope of films dealing with past traumatic events - events that were repressed or insufficiently mourned, such as the memory of the Holocaust, traumas from wars and terrorist attacks, and the losses entailed by the experience of immigration. Current Israeli cinema exposes and highlights a radical discontinuity between history and memory. Traumatic events from Israeli society's past are represented as the private memory of distinct social groups - soldiers, immigrants, women, queers - and not as collective memory, as a lived and practiced tradition that conditions Israeli society. This detachment from national collective memory pulls the films into a world marked by a persistent blurring of the historical context and by private and subjective impressions - a timeless world of dreams, hallucinations and myths. These groups feel duty-bound to remember the past, recasting repressed memories through the cinema in order to return and to give meaning to their identity.

The last decade has marked the growing visibility and worldwide interest in Israeli cinema. Films such as Walk on Water, Or, My Treasure, Beaufort and Waltz with Bashir have been commercially and critically successful both in Europe and the United States and have won a number of prestigious international awards. This book examines for the first time the new ideological and aesthetic trends in contemporary Israeli cinema. More specifically, it critically explores the complex and crucial role of Israeli cinema in remembering and restaging traumas and losses that were denied entry into the shared national past.

One of the most striking phenomena in contemporary Israeli cinema is the number and scope of films dealing with past traumatic events ? events that were repressed or insufficiently mourned, such as the memory of the Holocaust, traumas from wars and terrorist attacks, and the losses entailed by the experience of immigration. Current Israeli cinema exposes and highlights a radical discontinuity between history and memory. Traumatic events from Israeli society's past are represented as the private memory of distinct social groups ? soldiers, immigrants, women, queers ? and not as collective memory, as a lived and practiced tradition that conditions Israeli society. This detachment from national collective memory pulls the films into a world marked by a persistent blurring of the historical context and by private and subjective impressions ? a timeless world of dreams, hallucinations and myths. These groups feel duty-bound to remember the past, recasting repressed memories through the cinema in order to return and to give meaning to their identity.

In this collection, leading scholars in both film studies and Israeli studies show that beyond representing familiar historical accounts or striving to offer a more complete and accurate depiction of the past, Israeli cinema has innovatively used trauma and memory to offer insights about Israeli society and to engage with cinematic experimentation and invention. Tracing a long line of films from the 1940s up to the 2000s, the contributors use close readings of these films not only to reconstruct the past, but also to actively engage with it. Addressing both high-profile and lesser known fiction and non-fiction Israeli films, Deeper than Oblivion underlines the unique aesthetic choices many of these films make in their attempt to confront the difficulties, perhaps even impossibility, of representing trauma. By looking at recent and classic examples of Israeli films that turn to memory and trauma, this book addresses the pressing issues and disputes in the field today.

In this collection, leading scholars in both film studies and Israeli studies show that beyond representing familiar historical accounts or striving to offer a more complete and accurate depiction of the past, Israeli cinema has innovatively used trauma and memory to offer insights about Israeli society and to engage with cinematic experimentation and invention. Tracing a long line of films from the 1940s up to the 2000s, the contributors use close readings of these films not only to reconstruct the past, but also to actively engage with it. Addressing both high-profile and lesser known fiction and non-fiction Israeli films, Deeper than Oblivion underlines the unique aesthetic choices many of these films make in their attempt to confront the difficulties, perhaps even impossibility, of representing trauma. By looking at recent and classic examples of Israeli films that turn to memory and trauma, this book addresses the pressing issues and disputes in the field today.

Postzionism first emerged in the mid-1980s in writings by historians and social scientists that challenged the dominant academic versions of Israeli history, society, and national identity. Subsequently, this critique was expanded and sharpened in the writings of philosophers, cultural critics, legal scholars, and public intellectuals. This reader provides a broad spectrum of innovative and highly controversial views on Zionism and its place in the global Jewish world of the twenty-first century. While not questioning Israel's legitimacy as a state, many contributors argue that it has yet to become a fully democratic, pluralistic state in which power is shared among all of its citizens. Essays explore current attitudes about Jewish homeland and diaspora as well as the ways that zionist discourse contributes to the marginalization and exclusion of such minority communities as Palestinian citizens, Jews of Middle-Eastern origin (Mizrahim), women, and the queer community. An introductory essay describes Postzionism and contextualizes each contribution within the broader discourse. The most complete collection of postzionist documents available in English, this anthology is essential reading for students and scholars of Jewish identity, Middle-Eastern conflict, and Israeli history. This is the most comprehensive collection of postzionist writings available in any language. It provides readers with new and provocative ways to think about Israeli history, Israeli national identity, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is of particular interest to American readers is a section presenting writings by American Jewish intellectuals and scholars that contribute to the postzionist critique.