"זהות ישראלית, מצינו, איננה אלא דמות צדדית של הזהות היהודית!" מבעים של הומור בסוגיות על יהדות, על ציונות ועל ישראליות ברומן 'מקום אחר ועיר זרה'

Maya Arad's novel in verse "Another Place – A Foreign City" has at its center a main character, Orit, a soldier serving in the IDF Education and Information Section. A secondary character also described is Jay, Jason, a new immigrant who volunteered for military service and is stationed in Orit's section. The relationship formed between the two and the portrayal of military life interspersed with the routine life of Israeli society, leads to reexamination of utterances about Jewishness, Zionism, and Israeliness, of which some are familiar and popular parts of the Israeli cultural discourse and some less prevalent. Most of the utterances appear to be shaped by humoristic means intertwined with satiric undertones. Utterances on Jewishness and utterances on Israeliness intermingle. In certain situations they even clash and raise questions as to the place of the Israeli and the place of the Jew, presenting different possibilities.The purpose of the article is to explore the humoristic undertones in the novel and the contribution of this humor to the different meanings of the work. Humor is utilized in the plot from beginning to end not only as a stylistic means of creating meaning through verbal expressions that generate humor, rather also as an inflective decoration. The rhyming verses create a seemingly joyous, lighthearted, and unconstrained atmosphere. This draws the reader closer to the work and to the events in the plot. However, the different types of humor, such as dark humor, cynicism, and ridicule, insinuate that it is used as a subversive means of criticism, and the topics raised require the reader to rethink issues that come to the fore regarding Israeli and Jewish identity.