The Representations of the Zionist Soldier in the Collection of Stories "My Short Stories" by Nachum Mendel

Abstract

This study analyzes the representations of the Israeli soldier in the collection of short stories "My Short Stories" by Nahum Mandel (2014), using a literary approach that combines narrative and rhetorical analysis with cultural criticism. The study seeks to dismantle the mythical image of the Zionist soldier through various narrative strategies, chief among which: the description of the soldier's body as both aesthetic and tragic, the use of silence as a narrative language that reflects ambiguity and alienation, and the nonlinear temporal structure that turns the soldier into a mere memory.

The study focuses on three main stories: "Jo", which depicts the enigmatic and silent soldier; "Meeting with a Disabled Man", which presents the disabled soldier as a victim of chance and the military system, and "Service on Mount Scopus", which depicts the soldier in his less heroic moments. The study uses theoretical concepts from modern Hebrew literature, such as: bad moral luck, and narrative silence in the literature of the missing soldiers. It also draws on critical readings on representations of war in Israeli literature.

The study shows that Mandel's stories reshape the image of the Israeli soldier as a fragile person, living in borderline and isolated spaces, suffering physical and psychological traumas, and dealing with open endings that turn him into an existential question without an answer, very far from the official heroic discourse.

DOI:https://doi.org/10.54633/2333-025-059-005