286 Yael S. Feldman
Nevertheless, the literary products of these immigrants attest that they
did not necessarily identify with the biblical Isaac, and this for more rea-
sons than one. Let us begin with what I call the patriarchal “gender trou-
ble.” A quick comparative glance at ancient sacrifi cial narratives will tell
us that the story of Genesis 22 is unique when it comes to the sex of the
sacrifi cial victim. A chasm seems to open between the biblical tradition
— and perhaps ancient Near Eastern traditions at large — and the Greek
tradition. While Jephthah’s daughter is unique in the biblical corpus as a
female virgin sacrifi ce, the notorious sacrifi ce of Iphigenia is emblematic of
human sacrifi ce in Greek myth and ritual. Of course, Isaac is unique too in
the Bible as a named (potential) male victim, but the generalized references
to forbidden child sacrifi ce in the Prophets are all gendered as male. Th is
gendered choice has had long-term implications for Jewish psychology and
Zionist ideology — a topic I discuss at length in my study Glory and Agony.
Here I wish only to point out that the biblical Isaac does not partake in the
function usually preserved for male characters within the orbit of Greek
culture, the notorious aggressive struggle with their father or son. Among
its other transformations of pagan myth, the biblical aqedah has “substi-
tuted” male for female,17 without, however, changing the power-relations
structure of the narrative. Isaac fulfi lls the role of a female, as the trouble-
some story of Jephthah’s daughter should undoubtedly remind us. In the
scenario of Genesis 22, so diametrically opposed to the oedipal plot, in
any of its versions, no confl ict is acted out. Any potential aggression is re-
pressed, and by both parties.
Th e spirit of the aqedah, then, even throughout its permutations, is
not amenable to mainstream Freudian interpretations (and not only be-
cause of the absence of the maternal link in the famous triad!). Th e im-
portance of this disjunction could not be exaggerated, especially once we
recall that modern Jewish nationalism emerged from the same European
climate that had engendered psychoanalysis. Zionism therefore bears the
stamp of Freudianism, the oedipal confl ict in particular, in both conscious
and unconscious ways. As an ideology that valorized masculine activism
and preached resistance rather than submission to any use of force, it was
doomed to clash with the patriarchal psychology of nonconfrontation at
the core of its own preferred Jewish canonic text, the Hebrew Bible. Th is
lack of fi t between Freudian psychology and biblical psychology was, I sug-
gest, the fi rst complication for the young Zionist pioneers’ enthusiastic em-
bracing of the patriarchal narratives in general and especially the aqedah as
a symbol of national sacrifi ce. In view of the turn taken by Israeli authors