When Daphne becomes pregnant, it isn't only her life that changes... For her husband Amir, for their parents, and for their friends Guy and Abigail, the pregnancy and birth force them all to look at their own lives, at what they want, at their pasts and their futures. Lives are changed.
Set against the backdrop of Israeli history from 1968 to 2016, the story follows two childhood friends who launch a successful medical equipment startup in the 1980s. Their ambition leads to professional triumphs but strains their personal relationship, reflecting broader societal changes. The narrative explores the tensions between Sephardi and Ashkenazi Israelis, military conflicts, and the dual impact of capitalist values on their lives. Through these themes, the novel provides a unique lens on the evolution of Israeli society and its social and political dynamics.
Literary Representations of Evil in Nazi Germany
The association of Nazism with the symbol of ultimate evil- the devil- can be found in the works of Klaus and Thomas Mann, Else Lasker-Sch ler, and Rolf Hochhuth. He appears either as Satan of the Judeo-Christian tradition, or as Goethe's Mephisto. The devil is not only a metaphor, but a central part of the historical analysis. Barasch-Rubinstein looks into this phenomenon and analyzes the premise that the image of the devil had a substantial impact on Germans' acceptance of Nazi ideas. His diabolic characteristics, the pact between himself and humans, and his prominent place in German culture are part of the intriguing historical observations these four German writers embedded in their work. Whether writing before the outbreak of WWII, during the war, or after it, when the calamities of the Holocaust were already well-known, they all examine Nazism in the light of the ultimate manifestation of evil.
Rolf Hochhuth’s The Deputy , a play written and staged almost two decades after the end of World War II, asks why Pope Pius XII avoided a public condemnation of the Nazi regime and the mass murder. In this book, Emanuela Barasch-Rubinstein explores the explicit and implicit religious motifs in Hochhuth’s The Deputy. She discusses the various aspects of the devil acting in the concentration camp, the two figures of the saints – one Catholic, the other Protestant – and the ecumenical practical and theoretical arguments. The author’s detailed analysis of Hochhuth’s play reveals a modern attempt to revive religious traditions of the past, according to which historical events are interpreted as manifestations of transcendent beings. The concentration camp is the kingdom of evil, and the pope’s silence is God’s failure in his ancient battle with the devil.