In his article, “On Jewish Revenge,” Shachar Pinsker refers to revenge as not having a “consensual definition” but that it is “connected to the realm of emotions and affect, for there can be a desire or a fantasy of vengeance without actualisation.” Pinsker conceptualizes revenge through collective trauma of the Jewish people from the holocaust. Their inability to process the trauma and receive any form of reconciliation would mutate into feelings of revenge. Time then becomes an important factor as its relationship to revenge is described to be “caused by an act of wrong that happened in the past as an explanation for the present moment, but it is also directed towards the future” (Pinsker). Revenge is then understood to be cultivated by the persistence of the painful past with the intent of altering the future through present actions.
A poem called “Revenge” by Taha Muhammed Ali presented in plenary portrays the concept of revenge as defined by Pinsker. The poem follows a man narrating the potential opportunities to seek revenge from the man who killed his father. All of the scenarios have implications about the future or that which is unknown to the narrator. While the narrator initially wishes to “meet [the man who killed his father] in a duel” (2) in which one of them could die, he is reluctant to even think about pursuing this idea when he pictures the perpetrator as a human being with family and friends. In the last stanza the narrator declares that “paying him no attention/in itself was a kind of revenge,” (57-58) concluding that inaction can also be revenge. Pinsker’s definition of revenge pertains more to the impression than the action, much like Taha Muhammed Ali’s delineation. Revenge needs not to be a course of action as much as it is an emotional process.
Works Cited
Ali, Taha Muhammed. “‘Revenge.’ A Poem by Taha Muhammad Ali.” Translated by Peter Cole, Literary Hub, LitHub, 12 Dec. 2023, lithub.com/revenge-a-poem-by-taha-muhammad-ali/.
Pinsker, Shachar. “On Jewish Revenge.” Aeon, Aeon Media Group Ltd, 17 May 2024, aeon.co/essays/what-role-for-revenge-in-jewish-life-literature-and-culture.
