Narrating the Palestinian in Philip Roth's Operation Shylock: A Confession (Critical Essay‪)‬

Introduction : Jewish American Literature and the Arab/Israeli Conflict Irving Howe argues that Jewish American literature in general is the result of a confrontation between "an immigrant group and the host culture of America" (Howe 1977:3). Apparently the immigrant experience in America of marginality and alienation emerges as the basic subject of the American Jewish writer in the present time, however, there are many American-Jewish narratives located in an Israeli landscape. This reveals that "the subject of Jewish identity is increasingly being set against an Israeli background" (Solotaroff 1992: XXII). The interest of Jewish and Zionist American writers in Israel drives critics to come to the conclusion that since America is a multi-ingredient nation rather than a melting pot "one can look forward to a new renaissance of Jewish-American fiction about Israel in the next decade"(Pinsker1993:8x).