The Strive to Realize the Imagined Map of the Promised Land and its Consequences: Three Dystopias in Hebrew Literature Today
The Strive to Realize the Imagined Map of the Promised Land and its Consequences: Three Dystopias in Hebrew Literature Today

Summary/Abstract: The Promised Land is the Land of Israel within the borders that God promised to Abraham and his offspring. The Promised Land has two functions: a national homeland, and the holy land. These two images, religious and secular, merged into one in the Jewish perception for decades. Nonetheless, this duality of sacred and laic visions have inbuilt tension. In the Israeli society today a question is raised, could the holy land be also a homeland, or the two visions are going to struggle with each other till one of them wins? National-religious groups in today’s Israel are the followers of the messianic thinking of Rav Kook, who perceived Zionism as a messianic action, a tool in the hands of historical necessity, which will lead to salvation. Salvation means the return of Jews to the Land of Israel within the borders of the Promised Land. In the last two decades one can notice a flood of dystopias in Hebrew literature written in Israel. It is rather a new phenomenon. The article concentrates on three Hebrew dystopias The Third (2015) by Yishai Sarid, The Last Six Days (2021) by Yzhar Oplatka, and And Brought us to this Moment (2022) by Idan Seger. These Dystopias illustrate the state of Israel after a revolution in which religious parties take the power and turn Israel into a halachic state. What will happen to the State of Israel if the idea of the "Holy Land" prevails over the idea of the "national homeland"?

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