278 · Carmela Saranga and Rachel Sharaby
in his opinion, from a demonic situation of being possessed. In this situ-
ation, each side is drawn toward the other.
The “other” supplies the characteristic necessary to identify the collec-
tive “self” and is found on the social border, beyond it or near it, for ex-
ample, the ethnic minority or the person who believes in another religion.
Being in a status of “on the border” turns the other into a natural target
for hatred. The otherness confronts us with the question of borders. The
border closes any identity inside its borders and enables it to construct a
world of “me” and “us” versus “them.” Identity simultaneously contains
positive and negative components, inclusion and exclusion.^29
In Yehoshua’s work, the heroes blur, cross into one another’s space,
and thus break the law. The orientalist is enchanted by the possibility of
crossing borders^30 and wandering from Galilee to Jenin, to the West Bank,
and to Jerusalem, where he discovers sickness, rot, and mediocrity.
A study of Yehoshua’s works reveals that the subject of blurred bor-
ders is a repeated motif.^31 The hero crosses borders already in his early
work Facing the Forests (published in 1963). His house is open to the forest
on one side, symbolizing the absence of borders. Later the hero causes a
disturbance of law and order and sets fire to the forest. Yehoshua believes
in clear identities and in clear border lines between them. He is afraid of
the Jews’ partial identity and their ability to “penetrate into the life fab-
ric of others without borders and without taking responsibility.” In his
opinion, “going out beyond the border (in the manner of the settlers) is
a Jewish phenomenon... because Jews do not want borders. Jews want
everything to be open, so that it will be possible to go from here to there,
so that it will not be defined, and therefore... disengagement is the need
to become free of our obsession for other peoples and to return and con-
verge in our territory.”^32
The restlessness of Yehoshua’s heroes in the geographic space intensi-
fies the sense of their being mentally stuck. Crossing personal borders
involves crossing national borders, where a desperate attempt to find
cause and effect for what is happening in the world exists at both lev-
els.^33 All of his main figures are in the image of the dog Horatio, who is
tied to a cut-off chain, peeks into emotionally charged places, gets hurt,
and wants to return home to Haifa. Yehoshua places Haifa, from which
the orientalist goes out on his wanderings in The Liberated Bride, as an
antithesis to Jerusalem. Haifa, according to Yehoshua, is “an accessible