《犹太警察工会》中犹太人的家园想象与民族身份建构

Jews’ Homeland Imagination and Construction of National Identity in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union

家园不仅为犹太人提供精神上的庇护和指引,还是他们感悟生命和身份建构的载体。在小说《犹太警察工会》中,迈克尔·夏邦以犹太人对家园的想象为背景,聚焦他们在不同历史时期的家园选择,反思犹太人的身份建构历程。夏邦既不赞同犹太身份的美国化,也不支持以色列同化模式,而是倡导一种"走出去"的家园选择,鼓励犹太人在追求独立、自由的身份意识的基础上,建构具有犹太精神内核的新型犹太人的民族身份认同。夏邦提出的这一民族身份建构理念,为当代犹太人建构自我身份和塑造犹太性提供了一种思路,反映了作者对后大屠杀时代犹太人生存命运等问题的密切关注。

Homeland not only provides Jews with spiritual shield and guidance,but also embodies their reflection on life and their construction of identity.In The Yiddish Policemen’s Union,Michael Chabon explores Jews’imagination of homeland by focusing on their choices of homeland during different historical periods and reflecting on their struggle with the construction of Jewish identity.To Chabon,neither Americanization nor Israelization of Jewish identity is good enough.Instead,he advocates the"rushing out"option in building their homeland and encourages Jews to pursue independence and freedom first before embarking on an earnest effort to construct a new Jewish identity based on their spiritual essence.Chabon’s approach to create the national identity offers the contemporary Jewish people a new idea in constructing self-identity and Jewishness and underlies his concern over Jews’existence and fate in the post-Holocaust era.