The Pretenders

The State of Israel is supposed to be a setting where, for a Jew, passing would presumably be unnecessary. Yet it is precisely in this imagined haven that passing persists, on the page and off it. The Pretenders explores how modern Hebrew literature has long been preoccupied with stories of passing, featuring characters who reinvent themselves by hiding, shedding, or changing their identities and backgrounds. From wannabe Sabras to Mizrahi Jews passing as Ashkenazi, from Jewish immigrants who deny their diasporic roots to those who adopted strange and unthinkable identities to survive the Holocaust, Israeli authors have used passing to examine the pressures of assimilation and belonging, and at times, to rewrite their own life stories. This book brings Hebrew and Holocaust literature into conversation with African American narratives to show how a range of experiences—often seen as unrelated—speak to one another, and respond to histories of persecution, racism, and social transformation. Focusing on works by Dahn Ben-Amotz, Orly Castel-Bloom, Yoram Kaniuk, and others, The Pretenders reveals a literary tradition shaped as much by self-invention as by national revival, and considers what it takes to belong, and what it may cost to survive.