RT Article
T1 Will the Holocaust Please Hush? Social and Historical Incongruity in Savyon Liebrecht’s "Hayuta’s Engagement Party"
JF Cultural and religious studies
VO 3
IS 3
SP 135
OP 142
A1 Blackmer, Corinne E.
LA English
PB David Publishing Company
YR 2015
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1842478109
AB Mendel, a survivor of Auschwitz who lives in Israel, remains silent for 40 years after his traumatic experiences. However, Mendel, for no reason that his daughter Bella, also a survivor, can discern, begins to testify to his horrific ordeals during the Holocaust at putatively inopportune times, such as religious holidays and family celebrations. When his granddaughter Hayuta plans an engagement party, the social and historical incongruities of the Holocaust in the context of contemporary Israeli society become apparent. Ordinary pleasures are matters of moral obloquy in the face of the unfathomable black hole of the Holocaust. While critics have charged Mendel’s daughter with preoccupation with invidious social climbing and his granddaughter Hayuta with moral reprehensible compartmentalization of her historical and familial existences, Liebrecht unwittingly implies that historical trauma has very diverse and inexplicable effects on different family members: Some, like the daughter Bella, eventually wish to hear more about the experiences of her father (while feeling that his words will "ruin" her social life), while Hayutaand Shifra his daughter-in-law react by shunning the speech of Mendel, which they experience as ruining their quotidian happiness.
K1 Holocaust
K1 Israel
K1 Jewish History
K1 Liebrecht
K1 Savyon
K1 intergenerational PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)
K1 Remembrance
K1 traumatic testimonial
DO 10.17265/2328-2177/2015.03.002