An Israeli Indiana Jones

Discovering the Israeli graphic novels is like a full immersion - don´t think about mikvah, though - in a free world where words, and colours, and topics of actuality are freely flying over the nest. Not all of them are translated into English or other languages, but they can be easily used for improving your Hebrew, or just learning the language, thus, getting full access of the street language, so important for grasping the pace of the society in general.

Tunnel by Rutu Modan, children book author and illustrator and also one of the co-founder of a group of Israeli graphic artists, can be read as a local variant of Indiana Jones meeting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Archeology is an important discipline in Israel but it also plays an important role in the national building process as the discovery and authentification of artefacts is often instrumentalized in a process where history meets religion meets politics.

The artefact in case here is the hunt for an old tablet from the Babylonian exile raising questions about who wrote inscriptions on an old tablet. Nili, a single mother, returns to Israel and is trying to fight to save the legacy of her father, once a renowed archeologist, now took over by dementia, against the malicious efforts of the rival teacher Rafi - add academic rivality to the story. Also, Nili´s brother,m also an archeologist, is working with the rival teacher.  A hobby archeologist she is startingt o search for the famed Ark of the Convenent, but figured out that the missing tablet may be located in a Palestinian village. 

The next level concerns issues of ethics and morality in the antiquities world trade, as one person may be able to offer the key to the lost tablet, but this Abuloff is not trustworthy enough to be taken seriously.

Every single page and dialogue of this book has something to say about society and conflict, from the location of the artefact and the complexities of the archeological searches. It is not a political satire by purpose but nevertheless it shows how complex life in a conflict zone may be, without taking any specific political side.

The book was also translated into German by Reprodukt. 

Here is an interview with the author about the book and her creative process published by The Tel Aviv Review of Books, worth reading if interesting in finding out more about this book.