Date: Monday, May 6, 2013 at 7:00 pm
Location: Gelber Conference Centre, 5151 Cote St.Catherine
Information: call 514-848-2424, extension 8721
Yael S. Feldman,
Abraham Katsh Professor of Hebrew Culture,
New York University
Although never mentioned again in the Hebrew Bible, the baffling story of Issac’s near-sacrifice, the akedah (Genesis 22), has had a major role in the Jewish imagination of the last two millennia. It has been retold and rewritten to describe Jewish persecutions and acts of martyrdom. Since the early 20th century however, it was adopted by nascent Zionism, and later the State of Israel, as a secular symbol of military heroes and fallen warriors.
Yael Feldman will discuss the birth of ‘Isaac the Warrior’ from the ruins of historical martyrdom as outlined in her recent study, Glory and Agony: Isaac’s Sacrifice and National Narrative. Tracing the shifting attitudes toward national sacrifice over the last century, she will offer new perspectives into the psycho-ethical tensions surrounding it until this very day.