Introduction

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter 1
2. Contents 5
3. Acknowledgements 7
4. Introduction 9
5. I. DEFINITIONS AND DEBATE
6. What is Fantasy? 11
7. What Is Reality? 26
8. What is Unimaginable? 39
9. II. REALISTIC FANTASY AND FANTASTIC REALISM IN CONTEMPORARY ISRAELI LITERATURE
10. May He Come in Haste: Urban Fantasy in Soothsayer by Asaf Ashery 56
11. Etgar Keret’s Fantastic Reality 87
12. Postmodern Jewish Superstition in David Grossman’s To the End of the Land 103
13. III. VISIONS OF HEAVEN AND HELL: THEATER, CINEMA AND CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
14. Dybbuk, Husband, Home: Shmuel Hasfari and the Fantastic Tradition in Israeli Theater 112
15. Magical Realism in Israeli Cinema 141
16. The Grand High Witch of Dreams 163
17. IV. DIASPORA DREAMS: CULTURAL ROOTS OF JEWISH/ISRAELI FANTASY
18. The Man from the Yellow Star 170
19. Why Doesn’t It Rain Fish Here? 190
20. Kosher Vampires: Jews, Vampires, and Prejudice 199
21. V. “Messiah Does Not Call Back”: Fantasy in Jewish Sources and Ancient Jewish Literature
22. Travel Literature: The Itinerary of an Armchair Traveler’s Journey to Eretz Israel in a Seventeenth-Century Yiddish Story 207
23. Ghost Stories in Medieval Hebrew Folktales: The Case of Sefer Hasidim and Sippurei Ha-Ari 220
24. A Terrible Fable and Enchanting Fiction: The Story of Joseph De-La Reina and Its Reflections in Two Novels of Yehoshua Bar Yosef 248
25. The Borders of Messianic Imagination in Jewish Thinking 263
26. Appendices
27. Israeli Adult Fantasy and Science Fiction Published From 1948 to 2011 282
28. Contributors 287
29. Index 291