Does David still play before you?

Deals with aspects of Israeli poetry through the prism of biblical allusions. Ch. 3 (pp. 139-165), "'It Is I Who Am Slaughtered My Son': Those Who Experienced the Holocaust and Those Who Did Not, " discusses the gap between the Israeli image of the new fighting Jew and Holocaust victims who "went like lambs to the slaughter." These myths gave way to a "biblicization" of the Holocaust that connected it to the history of ancient Israel. As Israelis identified with this history, they felt closer to the humanity of the Holocaust victims and survivors. Two poems each, by Dan Pagis and Amir Gilboa (in Hebrew and in English translation), are analyzed to show how these poets explore profoundly the unbridgeable gaps between the Holocaust and Israeli experience. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)