Religious Studies Judaism

Description

The writing project is intended to provide you with an opportunity to learn more about Jewish identity through Ayelet Gundar-Goshen’s novel Waking Lions. This novel is about the ethnic tensions within contemporary Israel. It is also about tensions within families and also tensions within social institutions. It is also about contemporary ethics in which an Israeli neurosurgeon makes a fateful and seemingly individual decision on a moonlit night that will reach out and impact all aspects of his life. Some reviewers have noted that the first chapters have the pace of an internal moral drama and the last chapters explode into a suspenseful crime thriller.

When you have finished carefully reading Waking Lions, please write a 10 to 12 page essay which responds to the following: 1) summarize the novel in no more than 4 pages; 2) how do the situations and dilemmas faced by each of the main characters – Eitan, Sirkit, and Liat — help us to deepen our understanding of ethical and moral identities; 3) how do these characters represent tensions within Israeli and Jewish society, 4) does the novel help us to understand how the complexities of creating and maintaining Jewish identity, 5) which characters and why were most sympathetic to you, and 6) what is the meaning of the novel’s title?

The writing project is neither a research paper nor a book review. You might wish to find out a bit about Ayelet Gundar-Goshen. You can complete this assignment without reading anything other than Waking Lions. The novel has been extensively reviewed and some of these reviews might be helpful, but reading them or anything else is not necessary for this assignment. Be creative in how you think about these questions. Be bold in your writing! Make certain that you have finished the novel by Sunday, 17 November and remember that she will meet with us at 1:30 before her public presentation at 3:00.

You may of course read reviews of the book, but nothing else is necessary to complete this paper. Your essay must be turned in at the beginning of lecture Monday, 2 December. I will not accept papers turned in later or outside of this class meeting. Your essay must be technically perfect with no typographical errors or misspellings, neat and professional. You should use a manual of style for all matters relating to the essay. Your essay will be evaluated on the basis of both how well you respond to the specific questions and issues of the assignment as well as the quality of your writing in completing this essay. This assignment will be worth 35% or 35 points of the final course grade. Your essay will be returned at the course final.