The Dissolution of Utopia: Literary Representations of the City of Haifa, between Herzl’s Altneuland and Later Israeli Works

[...]the play recreates it for its audience as a consoling myth, as a lost paradise to long for - a paradise that maybe, only maybe, could have existed had the choice been made of a non-national, multicultural, cosmopolitan Haifa, where Jews, Arabs, British and others could have all lived together i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Partial answers 2016-06, Vol.14 (2), p.323-341
Main Author: Bar-Itzhak, Chen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arab people
Architecture
Austrian literature
Cities
Dissolution
Egalitarianism
Herzl, Theodor (1860-1904)
Jewish literature
Jewish people
Minority & ethnic groups
Multiculturalism & pluralism
Ports
Self image
Society
Utopias
Zionism
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Summary:[...]the play recreates it for its audience as a consoling myth, as a lost paradise to long for - a paradise that maybe, only maybe, could have existed had the choice been made of a non-national, multicultural, cosmopolitan Haifa, where Jews, Arabs, British and others could have all lived together in peace. [...]by contrast with the utopian Haifa imagined by Herzl in 1902, an ideal city, impeccably planned, a beautiful, just, cosmopolitan city that harmoniously blends with the nature, while its inhabitants are integrated into both space and the new society without any difficulties stemming from language or ethnic complications, the three Israeli works examined represent a fractured Haifa, embroiled in complex frictions between individual and society, as well as between language, ethnicity, and space. [...]could a non-national, cosmopolitan existence have given these questions better answers, maybe even utopian ones, than national existence?
ISSN:1565-3668
1936-9247
1936-9247
DOI:10.1353/pan.2016.0014