Israeli literature that does not originate in Israel is still new, but it already exists.

Ron Segal is one of their authors.

Born in Rechovot in 1980, he has lived mostly in Berlin since 2009, and he completed his second novel with a Döblin grant in a house that Günter Grass had made available to the foundation.

Segal does not feel very comfortable in his homeland and has chosen a kind of "exile" from which Israel can be better observed.

His new novel Cat Music is set in the summer of 1967, in Jerusalem after the Six Day War.

For many Israelis, the conquest of the Old City with its temple district was an eschatological event, the fulfillment of all Zionist hopes, but from a later perspective the consequences of this war appear more problematic.

The year and place are auspicious for the narrative.

The Six-Day War, Segal said in a Hebrew newspaper interview, was the defining event in Israel's political history, but in literature it remained a sacred cow that no one dared touch.

There is a lot to be said for the argument, but despite the spatial and temporal distance, Segal unfortunately does not succeed in getting to grips with this sacred cow.

The novel starts off well.

A young man named Eli accidentally runs over a cat with his Vespa, has him treated, takes him home and from then on shares his apartment with him.

He knows from the vet that the cat comes from East Jerusalem.

His masters probably abandoned him and he ended up in the west of the city.

Happy corpses

A hangover as a Palestinian refugee in an Israeli's house: Ron Segal does have a good sense of humour.

Eli and his cat have barely entered the apartment when an explosion shakes the city, almost shattering the window panes and causing a column of black smoke to rise over the old town.

But soon the all clear will come.

The explosion, according to the radio, is harmless, a film about the war is being made in the old town, and a battle has just been reenacted.

Then Eli goes to buy food for the cat.

On the way, we read, “he passed some soldiers who were just returning from the Old Town shooting.

He had never seen such cheerful corpses.

In a high spirits, covered in blood and poorly bandaged, they marched through the pedestrian zone.”

Ron Segal dissects the pathos of an eschatological event, and the novel is a great read at first.

On his Vespa, Eli runs equally obscure errands for an obscure company, and it takes a while before you find out what goods he is delivering.

It is a piece of paper that Jews send to Jerusalem from all over the world and put between the stones of the Wailing Wall so that God can fulfill the wishes written on them.

This happens late at night when the Western Wall's crowded daytime plaza is empty, and once Eli watches another man appear there a little later.

He takes the notes out of the gaps again, puts them in a big sack and disappears into the darkness with them.

At first he is outraged and wants to rush after him, but then he comes to terms with the situation.