Holocaust; Joseph Skibell; magical realism; allegory; the fantastic; postmemory; trauma

This paper analyzes Skibell's novel A Blessing on the Moon (1997), focusing on elements of the book's magical realism and allegory. It sets out to interpret Skibell's transposition of the Holocaust to his own experience as a representative of the post-Holocaust generation. Finally, the paper explores the ethical problems of this approach to the Holocaust ? an approach that relies heavily on imagination. The interpretation of Skibell's novel demonstrates that the imaginative enactment of the tragic traumatic events cannot be dismissed as a mere appropriation of the Holocaust or as a form of "identity theft"; instead it must be seen as the author's genuine attempt to come to terms with the original trauma of his ancestors. In Skibell's case it is his great-grandfather Chaim Skibelski whose voice was silenced in the war and who becomes the protagonist of the novel.