ABSTRACT
The chapter offers a close visual and textual analysis of one episode of the primetime Israeli television sitcom Arab Labor, created by the Israeli–Palestinian Sayed Kashua. Titled ‘zikaron’—encompassing in Hebrew both memory and national Memorial Day—the episode aims to bridge an existing gap between two forming narratives, the celebratory Jewish War of Independence and the Nakba, the Palestinian disaster of 1948. The chapter argues that by employing humor, irony, and the genre of the sitcom, the creators of the TV series mask a volatile criticism of prevailing social conventions and norms in contemporary Israeli society. By suggesting creative resolutions to the various crises the storyline raises, resolutions that on many occasions transgress social boundaries, Arab Labor creates a meaningful space for identity negotiation and cultural intervention in the Israeli sociopolitical arena. Arab Labor thus, is framed as a site that allows viewers to reconceptualize Israeli collective memory, rendering it more inclusive for non-Jewish citizens of the state.
