A mediterranean Hannukah

Les Méditerrannéenes by Emmanuel Ruben

Abstract

This article analyzes the novel Les Méditerrannéenes, by the French writer of Jewish-Algerian origin Emmanuel Ruben, published in France in 2022. The novel, centered around the celebration of the Hanukkah party in his family's home, resumes, through the the only object brought by the family at the time of their expulsion from Algeria in 1962, a chandelier, a complex family mythology, represented in the novel which is also an intimate portrait of the Arab-Jewish symbiosis. Themes such as memory and post-memory, as well as the disappearance of Jewish culture in the Islamic world come to the fore throughout the narrative, which transposes the perplexities and hopes of generations of exiles to the contemporary world, and proposes the concept of Mediterranean ecumene as counterpoint to the nationalism and exclusivism awakened more than a century ago by conflicts between Arabs and Jews.