The Sabra The Creation of The New Jew PDF
The Sabra The Creation of The New Jew PDF
The Sabra The Creation of The New Jew PDF
by this endowment
the s. mark taper foundation supports
the appreciation and understanding
of the richness and diversity of
jewish life and culture
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page b
the sabra
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page ii
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page iii
The Sabra
The Creation of the New Jew
Oz Almog
translated by
Haim Watzman
09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my late grandparents,
Asher and Sarah Kantor
and
David and Miriam Lichtshine
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page vi
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page vii
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Translator’s Note xi
Introduction 1
1. Idealistic Euphoria 23
Epilogue 255
Notes 267
Glossary 295
Bibliography 299
Index 301
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page viii
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page ix
Illustrations
ix
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page x
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page xi
Translator’s Note
xi
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page xii
A Narrative Glossary
The early Zionists came almost entirely from the Jewish communities of
Eastern and Central Europe, the Ashkenazim (sing. Ashkenazi). The
Jews of the Islamic world (with a few outposts in Europe) are called Ori-
ental or Sepharadi (pl. Sephardim) Jews. Traditional Jewish life re-
volved around religious practices and religious study. The yeshiva was
an institution for religious studies (for men—women did not study). One
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page xiii
The Fourth Aliya and Fifth Aliya of the late 1920s and the 1930s
have often been labeled the “bourgeois aliyot” because they included a
large number of middle-class Jews who arrived with some money and
property and settled in the cities.
The entire Jewish community in Palestine during the pre-state years
is referred to as the Yishuv. Many in the Yishuv, especially in the labor
movement, tended to avoid calling themselves “Jews.” They preferred
the term Hebrews, which emphasized, they believed, a national affilia-
tion rather than a religious one.
While the Zionist farmers were a minority of the Yishuv, they were re-
garded, even by the urbanites, as fulfilling the Zionist mission in its fullest
form. They were “realizing” or “consummating” Zionism—engaging in
hagshama. Hagshama thus became the ideal to which the younger gen-
eration was educated, and a loyal young Zionist was expected to aspire
to it. (Construction, road work, and other forms of nonagricultural man-
ual labor could also be acceptable forms of hagshama.)
The younger generation—the Sabras—that grew up in Palestine was
socialized through a series of frameworks and organizations. If the Sabra
man or woman came of age on a kibbutz or a moshav, this socialization
was part of daily life. In the kibbutzim, where children lived in separate
children’s houses, the young people were called the youth division
and enjoyed a large measure of independence.
In the cities many young people joined a pioneer youth movement,
one of several organizations whose declared ideal and goal was hagshama.
Almost all of them were of explicitly socialist orientation. Many teenagers
participated, through their schools, in the Gadna (an outgrowth of the
earlier Chagam, a premilitary group), the youth corps associated with
the Haganah, the military defense organization sponsored by the Zion-
ist self-governing organizations. Kibbutz children had a similar frame-
work called the Kibbutz Brigade.
The elite strike force of the Haganah—to a large extent independent
of it and associated specifically with the socialist Zionist movements and
settlements—was the Palmach. Palmach units, which included both
men and women, split their time between military training and action
and work on kibbutzim. The time they spent working on the kibbut-
zim, as well as the group of men and women participating in it, was
called hachshara (pl. hachsharot). A member of the Palmach was
a Palmachnik.
After the State of Israel was founded the Palmach was disbanded, but
a unit of the Israeli army (officially the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF), called
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page xv
Translator’s Note :: xv
the Nachal, was organized along the same lines, combining military serv-
ice with agricultural labor, and was itself later an important Sabra so-
cialization framework. One of the Palmach’s units operated within the
Arab population by dressing up in Arab clothes and adopting Arab speech
and ways. These were the Mistarabim, important because they exem-
plified the Sabra link with Arab culture. A young man who sought out a
noncombat position in the army, a desk job or support role, was a job-
nik. The collective legends of the operations and battles of the IDF and
its predecessors, passed on to young soldiers to educate and motivate them,
were called moreshet krav, combat heritage.
The Zionist movement also organized groups of young people who
immigrated to Palestine, and later to Israel, without their parents. This
was the Youth Aliya. Such children, along with some city children,
were sent to live on kibbutzim in a kind of boarding school arrangement
called a Youth Society.
Common Sabra terms that appear throughout this work are dugri,
the direct, frank, no-holds-barred Sabra way of talking, and chizbat
(pl. chizbatim), a tall tale or humorous anecdote. A Sabra boy gener-
ally sported a blorit, forelocks, that tuft of hair over the forehead that
was always uncombed and wafted in the wind.
I have largely preserved Oz Almog’s practice of using the masculine
form as generic. While this is more acceptable in Hebrew than in En-
glish, it is, in this case, more than a matter of convention. The fact is that
Sabra society was very much based on masculine ideals. Of course there
were Sabra women, and they played an important role in Sabra society,
culture, and even in the military. But the classic, influential, and famil-
iar Sabras were men, and the mythic Sabra ideal of the farmer, military
commander, and adventurer, as well as the poet and writer, was explic-
itly a male one. The great majority of the products of Sabra culture were
men, and the characters they portrayed were masculine.
Women existed in Sabra folklore less as individuals than as part of
the group, in which the men dominated. There were many reasons for
this, in particular the importance that the military unit and the experi-
ence of battle played in the formation of the Sabra character. For this
reason, the use of the masculine gender provides a more accurate repre-
sentation of how this society viewed itself.
Haim Watzman
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page xvi
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 1
Introduction
1
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 2
2 :: Introduction
pioneer generation, while the second generation has been called the
Sabra generation. The Sabra generation includes the Jews born in Pales-
tine toward the end of World War I through the 1920s and 1930s who
were educated in social frameworks belonging, formally or informally,
to the labor movement of the Yishuv, as well as immigrants who ar-
rived in Palestine as youngsters (alone or with their families) and were
assimilated into the same milieu. These social institutions included the
kibbutzim, the moshavim, and their schools; the Hebrew gymnasiums
(academic high schools) in the large cities; the agricultural youth vil-
lages (agricultural vocational boarding schools); the pioneering youth
movements; the premilitary corps such as the Chagam and the Gadna;
the Palmach and its brigades in the War of Independence and, after
the founding of the state, the Nachal and the first elite units of the
Israel Defense Forces (IDF)—Commando Unit 101, the paratroopers,
the marine commandos, and the pilots—who continued the Palmach
tradition.
This book’s definition of the Sabra is thus not biological (someone
born in Palestine) but cultural—a generational unit identified not by coun-
try of birth, but rather by affiliation to the institution that imprinted a
specific culture on these young people. As already indicated, the term in-
cludes immigrants who came to Palestine as children and whose per-
sonalities were shaped in the melting pot of Sabra socialization. They
were generally considered full-fledged Sabras by both themselves and their
comrades, as well as by the older generation.
The Sabra generation’s beliefs were molded by the Hebrew-Zionist
educational system in Palestine. This was a generation for whom He-
brew was the language of conversation and of reading, and who were
educated under the mythical aura of the pioneer settler and defender.
They studied in schools and boarding schools affiliated with the labor
movement—the socialist Zionist political parties united under the aegis
of the Histadrut labor federation—or schools belonging to the general
educational system sponsored by the Jewish Agency. They spent many
of their adolescent hours in youth movement chapter houses and vol-
unteered after completing high school to work in agricultural settlements
(those who grew up in moshavim and kibbutzim did so as a matter of
family duty, while young people from the cities arrived in the settlements
under the sponsorship of the youth movements and as part of Palmach’s
agricultural-military training units, the hachsharot). The Sabras fought in
the Haganah, the Palmach and, during World War II, in the British army,
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 3
Introduction :: 3
4 :: Introduction
Introduction :: 5
Credit for the transformation of the term “Sabra,” now with a mod-
ern Hebrew pronunciation, into a generic term for the native-born Is-
raelis was claimed (rightfully, as far as I have been able to discover) by
the journalist Uri Kesari. On 18 April 1931, the newspaper Do’ar Ha-
Yom published an essay by Kesari titled “We Are the Leaves of the Sabra!”
It charged that the Zionist institutions were discriminating against the
native-born Jews, the Sabras, and giving preference to Russian and Ger-
man Jews “and the rest of the Ashkenazim.”5 Kesari’s contemporaries,
especially the artists among them, quickly began using the term and the
symbol of the sabra, and slowly inculcated them into the collective con-
sciousness, as Dan Almagor relates:
Less than two weeks after the appearance of Kesari’s essay, the publisher . . .
produced a new humorous pamphlet named Tzabar. On 19 April 1932—
precisely a year and a day after the birth of the new epithet—the poet Yehuda
Karni published, in the illustrated newspaper Kolnoa in Tel Aviv, a poem en-
titled “In the Homeland of the Sabra,” in which he told of an encounter with
a young Sabra. On that very same day there appeared, under an article by the
Jewish-Polish film director Alexander Ford in the literary weekly Ketuvim,
the following note: “The cinema director is currently preparing a film on life
in Palestine—The Sabra.” Two months later the editors of Ketuvim reiter-
ated, under another piece by Ford, that he was “preparing in Palestine the
movie The Sabra.” The production of the Israeli film The Sabra was not com-
pleted for various reasons, but the new term had already taken root, even
among educators. When the first issue of Ofakim, the newspaper of the Ha-
Shomer Ha-Tza’ir movement devoted to problems of education and society,
first appeared in December 1932, the introductory editorial already referred
to the “Sabra spirit.”6
6 :: Introduction
and the members of the youth movements and the Palmach began de-
veloping a consciousness about their cultural uniqueness. They also pro-
duced and honed native status symbols and a peculiarly native Israeli style
in language, dress, and collective leisure culture. Novelist Moshe Shamir,
a Sabra who followed the typical socialization path of the members of
his generation, was apparently the first to express this consciousness in
writing. In an article he published in one of the Yalkut Ha-Re’im pam-
phlets (anthologies written and edited by Sabra writers, produced at the
beginning of the 1940s), he wrote: “I am a member of the revolutionary
generation, and I feel a sense of collaboration with all those who were
born [with me].”7 But the first to express this generational consciousness
through the concept of the Sabra and with an emphasis on the Sabra style
as distinct from that of the pioneer was the journalist Uri Avneri. Per-
haps not coincidentally, Avneri was not a native-born Israeli but had im-
migrated from Germany as a boy. He was assimilated into his new coun-
try via the Sabra institutions, losing all signs of his Diaspora origins except
for his accent.8 In September 1946 Avneri published two articles on
Sabraism in the periodical Ba-Ma’avak: “The Floor to the Israeli Gen-
eration!” and “Who Are These Sabras?” These articles sang the praises
of the Yalkut Ha-Re’im collections and identified them as the manifes-
tations of a healthy and welcome rebellion against the older generation,
which was depicted as a band of old and degenerate men and women
holding sway over Jewish society in Palestine. Avneri considered Sabraism
the culmination of the anti-Diaspora vision and made one of the most
extreme cultural distinctions of that period between the Jew and the Is-
raeli. “Moshe Shamir,” he wrote in reference to Shamir’s article in Yalkut
Ha-Re’im, “views the Diaspora in all its bleakness—as a proud, healthy
Israeli man. . . . This is the most glorious victory of the Israeli generation—
to see the sons of the Diaspora cured and made upright as they are ab-
sorbed and assimilate into his way of life.”9
Avneri’s words were an indirect echo of the view that a new Israeli or
Hebrew nation had come into being. This proposition was in the air
among Tel Aviv youth at the beginning of the 1940s and produced the
Canaanite circle led by the poet Yonatan Ratosh.10 It was no coincidence
that Yitzchak Yatziv, journalist and editor of the children’s newspaper
Davar Le-Yeladim, attacked the Canaanite phenomenon in an article en-
titled “Sabraism as an Ideology,”11 published in the Histadrut daily news-
paper, Davar, close to the time that Avneri’s article appeared. The
Canaanite view was in fact an extreme and somewhat simplistic ideo-
logical expression of a spontaneous cultural process that had begun
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 7
Introduction :: 7
The spiritual image of the Sabra is not the product of a natural and contin-
ual development. The Sabra is the outgrowth of an extremely strange adul-
teration. There are two worlds here. Our parents who are not Sabras, with
all their years in this country—and us. . . . The renaissance that we await is
not Zionist and is not Jewish. It is Hebrew.13
Keinan, with the naiveté of the revolutionary, erred in not identifying the
umbilical cord linking Judaism and Zionism. The Canaanite vision of “the
land of the Hebrews, the land of the Euphrates” in which the Jew would
be transformed into the Hebrew, has not been realized to this day. But he
was correct to point out that a new nation had come into being in Pales-
tine and that a new Israeli national image had been fashioned, completely
different from the image of the Jew who lived outside Palestine.
The cultural phenomenon called Sabraism, the authentic culture of
native Israeli youth, ostensibly appeared even earlier, during World War
I, among the children of the First Aliya, the young people who had bro-
ken away from the established pre-Zionist Jewish community in Jerusalem
and Jaffa, and the members of the first graduating class of the Herzliya
Gymnasium in Tel Aviv. Avshalom Feinberg—who would later be called
the first Sabra—and Aharon Aharonson were the prototypes of the Sabra
who had been born in the moshavot, while Eliahu Golomb, Dov Hoz,
Shaul Avigur, David Hakohen, and Moshe Sharret were to a large ex-
tent the prototypes of the Sabra graduate of the gymnasium.14 These
young people already had Sabra characteristics, such as a rough and di-
rect way of expressing themselves, a knowledge of the land, a hatred of
the Diaspora, a native sense of supremacy, a fierce Zionist idealism, and
Hebrew as their mother language. Nevertheless, most scholars of the ori-
gins of Zionism agree today that these were no more than the first glim-
merings of the Sabra phenomenon. It came into its own only in the 1930s
and 1940s, when there was for the first time a large group of native-born
Israelis in the kibbutzim, moshavim, and established neighborhoods of
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 8
8 :: Introduction
the cities. This was the period that saw the development of the youth
movement and Palmach cultures and the artistic, ideological, and lin-
guistic expressions of the Israeli natives. Only then did Sabraism become
a fully elaborated phenomenon.
The Sabra’s prestige, the consensus about how the Sabra should look,
and the use of the term itself peaked during, and especially after, the 1948
War of Independence. The Israeli public, in particular the older genera-
tion, tended to attribute the war’s achievements to the native-born Sabras
and “Sabraized” immigrants; they minimized the role played, for ex-
ample, by those new immigrants who had entered combat immediately
upon their arrival in the country.15 Examples may be found in the official
army newspapers as well as in the unofficial newsletters put out by the
battalions and regiments during and after the war. Many of their pages
(especially their front and back covers) are illustrated with drawings and
photographs of male and female combatants of a typical Sabra appear-
ance, wearing the characteristic Palmach garb (stocking cap, Arab head-
dress, etc.). The Palmach-Sabra experience—the native slang, the camp-
fires, the sing-alongs—was stressed in these newspapers. Another reason
why the fighting Sabra was prominent in the national saga of 1948 was
that most of the victory albums and war literature recounting the im-
pressions of the fighters from the front were written by Sabra writers,
most of whom had served in the Palmach.16
The culture of memorialization that developed after the war played a
central role in mythologizing the native Israeli and fixing the term
“Sabra.” The victory’s heavy price in lives lost left the older generation
with a sense of guilt intermingled with deep gratitude for the younger
generation—especially for the Palmach, the “favorite son” of the Yishuv
leadership, which had lost many of its fighters. This feeling found ex-
pression in the press, in art, and especially in the wide-ranging memo-
rial literature. The term “Sabra” appeared over and over again in the
memorial anthologies for the fallen of 1948, including the official an-
thologies put out by the Ministry of Defense.17 It turned into something
of a linguistic code for expressing the nation’s love for its loyal youth.
During that same period the stereotypical Sabra appeared as a cul-
tural hero in the arts—in fiction, poetry, songs, painting, sculpture, cin-
ema, theater, and entertainment.18 The war albums gave prominent place-
ment to photographs of Sabras, especially Palmach fighters with—as a
well-known song described—their “handsome forelocks and counte-
nances.” A photograph of Avraham Eden (“Bren”), a good-looking
Palmach commander of typical Sabra appearance, raising an “inked”
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 9
Introduction :: 9
Israeli flag (an improvised flag painted onto white fabric with ink) in Eilat,
became the symbol of the young nation and reflected the symbolic-mytho-
logical parallel between the beauty of the ancient country and the youth-
ful beauty of its Sabra sons. Young people who resembled Eden began
to appear prominently as heroic Sabra characters in cinema, theater, and
advertisements.
An especially important contribution to grounding the mythological
image of the Sabra was made by the artists and cartoonists, for example
Arieh Navon, Shmuel Katz, and Dosh (Kriel Gardush), whose drawings
illustrated articles on the war and on the IDF that appeared in the daily
press, especially the military press (some cartoonists also published col-
lections of their drawings). “We were then sort of journalist-artists,” re-
lated Yossi Stern:
There was a common concept then of putting a journalist and an illustrator
together. The illustrator was like a news photographer. We would be given a
jeep and would travel into the hot areas. Many of my Palmachniks were walk-
ing around the streets of Jerusalem. They were our heroes, the liberators of
the city. Heroes from our mythology. They jumped off jeeps—red-haired kib-
butzniks with stocking caps or Arab headdresses on their heads, the city fa-
vorites. . . . From the dust and the stocking cap we tried to create something
new.19
These artists, who had a very sharp “cultural eye,” memorialized the
image of the Sabra in his shorts and sandals, with his slipshod appear-
ance and his hair falling over his forehead, in drawings and cartoons.
They brought out the stereotypical Sabra charm—youth, roguishness,
self-confidence, boldness, and common sense. In some of the drawings
the Sabras appear next to a prickly pear cactus as a kind of generational
marker.
The Sabra dialect and slang, which took form in the youth movements,
the youth villages, the military organizations, and the kibbutzim in the
1930s and 1940s, began to spread in the 1950s to larger social circles,
in response to the joy that the rest of Israeli society took in the bristly
younger generation. The disseminators of Sabraism were largely young
writers, journalists, and artists (some of them former Palmachniks) with
good eyes and ears who documented and spread the young folklore and
humor. Native Sabra Hebrew, with its experiential layers and its fine cul-
tural distinctions, became very common in the newsletters of the youth
movements, the Gadna, and the army. It appeared in songs, in skits per-
formed by army entertainment groups like the Chizbatron and the
Nachal Troupe, in plays for children and adults (the most notable ex-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 10
10 :: Introduction
amples being Yigal Mosinzon’s On the Negev Plains and Moshe Shamir’s
dramatization of his novel He Walked in the Fields), and in literature for
children and teenagers. In 1951 the term “Sabras” appeared in the satir-
ical lexicon The Laughter of Our Mouths by humorist Efraim David-
zon. In the margin of the page, under “notes and clarifications,” the au-
thor wrote: “The unique Sabra language and their style in life and
literature, heralding a refashioning of the Hebrew language, have spurred
debates in the press and in literature. The Sabras have created new con-
cepts and terms and stylistic elements that were not known to previous
generations. . . .”20
The daily press also began to grant entry to Sabra style, fawning over
the spoken Hebrew of the natives, the first fruits of Zionism. A humor
column called “Those Sabras,” which quoted the linguistic gems of Sabra
children, was published in the weekly supplement Davar Ha-Shavua from
1951 onward, and a similar column appeared in Ha-Olam Ha-Zeh four
years later. The innovative personal column “Uzi and Co.,” written by
Amos Keinan (who inherited it from Benyamin Tammuz) and published
in the paper Ha’aretz from 1950 to 1952, was written wholly in collo-
quial conversational Hebrew and was widely imitated.
An important contribution to the assimilation of Sabra culture and
the Sabra spirit into Israeli life in the 1950s was made by Ha-Olam Ha-
Zeh, under the editorship of Uri Avneri and Shalom Cohen. These two
veterans of the Givati Brigade tried, with no small success, to fashion a
young, playful, and rebellious magazine in the spirit of the Palmach.
Along the same lines was the “What’s New” column written by Dahn
Ben-Amotz, which appeared in Davar Ha-Shavua and in which the char-
acteristic direct, frank language of the native—what the Sabras called
talking dugri—was prominent.21
The early 1950s also witnessed the growth of a documentary and nos-
talgic literature on the period of the underground movements and the
War of Independence, with the fighting Sabra as its focus. This included
stories for children and teenagers produced by such Palmach veterans as
Yigal Mosinzon, O. Hillel, and Yisrael Visler (Puchu). This literature also
contributed to ensconcing and exalting the Sabra mythological image and
heightened the identification of the hero of 1948 with the Sabra. The most
important anthology of that time was The Palmach Book, edited by
Zerubavel Gilad and Matti Megged, which appeared in 1953.22 The book
was a nostalgic summary of the Palmach-Sabra life and indirectly a col-
lective declaration by the members of the Palmach generation of their
historic place in the Israeli epic.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 11
Introduction :: 11
Among the books for children and teenagers that contributed to the
glorification of and fondness for Sabra culture, three in particular de-
serve mention. The first is Yemima Tchernovitz-Avidar’s Eight on the
Heels of One (1945), a spy story of adventure and heroics that takes place
on a kibbutz and is connected to the Haganah’s activity. The second, by
Puchu (Yisrael Visler), is A Gang Like This, published in 1950, which
tells the youthful experiences of a group of Palmach enlistees. The third
is Yigal Mosinzon’s Hasamba series, which began to appear in 1950 and
garnered a huge readership. The heroes of the series, who play pranks
on the British and Arabs, are Sabra figures whose very names testify to
their Sabra identity (especially Yaron Zehavi, the commander of the
Hasamba gang, and Tamar, his deputy). The three works have common
elements: Sabra heroes; their linguistic style (colloquial Hebrew in the
youth movement and Palmach idiom); the youthful way of life in the kib-
butz, the youth movement, and the Palmach; and the integration of sus-
pense and humor, appropriate to the spirit of the times. Sabras of sev-
eral decades avidly devoured these books and internalized their cultural
messages.23
An example of the waxing popularity of the Sabra image in the 1950s
can be found in a review of the play On Children and Adults, staged by
the Ha-Matateh Theater in 1953:
12 :: Introduction
Introduction :: 13
pointed retorts, and his sharp Sabra accent and diction (nothing of the
kind had ever been heard, at least with this frequency, on the national
radio station before), Ben-Amotz contributed to the dissemination of
Sabra humor, language, and image, and to the rising popularity of the
Palmach generation.
14 :: Introduction
Introduction :: 15
16 :: Introduction
The Sinai Campaign at the end of 1956, in which the Israeli army
dealt a humiliating defeat to the Egyptian army, was perceived by the
Israeli public as the victory of the Sabra, and especially of the para-
trooper and the pilot. Admiration for the fighting Sabra, exemplified
in the romantic figure of Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan, then reached its
climax. The term “Sabra” made many appearances in the tales of the
war that appeared in the press, albums, and songs, all of which waxed
ecstatic over the wondrous younger generation produced by Zionism
and the IDF. Sabra folklore became one of the trademarks of the IDF’s
combat units, especially the paratroopers, the pilots, and the naval
commandos.
Introduction :: 17
its barbs at Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, one of the outstanding heroic
Sabra figures of 1948.
The trend to secularize Zionist ethoses and myths played itself out at
the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s for a range of so-
cial reasons and as the result of historical processes. Among these were
the political upset of 1977, which marked the waning of the labor move-
ment and the culture it represented, and the peace treaty with Egypt,
which transformed the mythological image of the Arab “Amalek” and
so also the Israeli self-image. Then came the Lebanon War (the first war
over which the Israeli public was deeply divided), the expansion of the
Israeli media (which broke out of the bounds of Israeli culture), and the
growing influence of critical postmodern thinking on educated Israelis.
During this period, which some refer to as “post-Zionist,” newspaper
articles and scholarly books appeared that dealt with what was called,
derisively and critically, the “myth of the Sabra.”37
A transmutation of the heroic image of the Sabra occurred in drama as
well. The satiric play Charly Kecharly by Daniel Horowitz, staged at the
end of 1977 at the Khan Theater to mark the country’s thirtieth anniver-
sary, portrayed the Sabra in unflattering terms and caused a controversy.
A similar secularization and examination of the Sabra myth with less
subjective eyes took place during these same years in the academic com-
munity. The growing distance between Israeli society’s formative and cur-
rent periods gradually removed the ideological boundaries that earlier
historians and sociologists had accepted, consciously or unconsciously.
The current scholars’ point of view was more detached and less ethno-
centric. The fissures in the once-firm national consensus concerning young
Israel and the growing challenges to the status of the political and mili-
tary establishment, especially after the Lebanon War and the Intifada,
were a psychological and intellectual substrate on which dozens of schol-
arly studies on the Palmach, the War of Independence, and the youth
movements quickly sprouted. This research was carried out in a variety
of fields—sociology and anthropology, literary studies, history, cinema,
psychology, linguistics, education, Middle East studies, and art history.
Scholars came to recognize—first largely in the fields of literature and
history and later in sociology—that the second generation of the Zion-
ist revolution had unique characteristics, and the term “Sabra” turned
from a mythological designation into a scholarly analytical label refer-
ring to the elite of Israeli youth in Israel’s formative period.
One reason for the present study is the wealth of publications touch-
ing directly and indirectly on Sabra culture—the hundreds of editori-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 18
18 :: Introduction
Introduction :: 19
sacrifices for that ideology; and sharp condemnation of those who di-
verge from it. The sixth is the institutionalization of nationalist ideas by
insinuating them into every area of individual and communal life through
taboos, cyclical ritual, symbols, an institutionalized clergy, and places of
study.
In the nineteenth century, a number of European thinkers identified
the emergence of a type of socio-nationalist revolution that becomes a
religious crusade and produces a kind of “secular religion.” Fascinated
and troubled by the new relation created in their time between the mod-
ern state and traditional religion, they took stock of romantic patriot-
ism, the definition of life goals, the nature of government, and the moral
system of a society in which traditional religion was becoming detached
from the state. One of the most prominent among these thinkers was
French historian Alexis de Tocqueville. He considered the French Revo-
lution “a political revolution that acted as a religious revolution and in
a certain sense took its character.” Furthermore, he wrote, “The revo-
lution became a kind of new religion . . . a religion that, like Islam,
flooded the country with soldiers, apostles, and martyrs.”38
In 1967 American sociologist Robert Bellah published an article in
the journal Daedalus entitled “Civil Religion in America.”39 Bellah ex-
amined the tight cultural linkage between American nationalism and
religion. He was not the first scholar to point out the close cultural tie
between American nationalism and Calvinist Christianity,40 and the meta-
physical character of values in secular American culture, but he was the
first who identified religious elements in a culture that had been perceived
up until then as secular by its very nature. He created a general theoret-
ical framework for understanding secular symbols, ceremonies, ideals,
and myths. Civil religion (there are those today who prefer the terms “na-
tional religion” or “secular religion”) is, according to his definition, a
religious dimension that exists in the life of every nation through which
it interprets its historical experience in the light of a transcendental re-
ality. According to Emile Durkheim, on whose ideas Bellah based his
thinking, all social cohesion is founded on a common moral denomina-
tor that derives from religious sources. Bellah argues that civil religion
is vital to modern society because it creates a prophetic consciousness—
a kind of pillar of fire that leads the camp. On one hand, it grants moral
legitimacy to the social order; on the other, it establishes moral criteria
according to which the society endlessly examines and criticizes itself. It
is both a tool to preserve the existing order and a mechanism for con-
stant social change.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 20
20 :: Introduction
The view that links revolution and nationalism to religion has also
influenced the study of the Zionist movement. Many historians and so-
ciologists have noted the religious aspect of the pioneer experience and
have analyzed the para-religious deep stratum of Zionist culture. The
most notable of these are Charles Liebman and Eliezer Don Yehiye,41
who examined the link between the Zionist movement and religion
through a methodical use of Bellah’s theory of civil religion. The Zion-
ist revolution, they argue in their study, created a kind of civil religion
in Israel, a political and ideological structure that drew its legitimacy from
traditional Jewish sources. Traditional Jerusalem, which was molded into
new pioneer forms, granted legitimacy to the common Zionist values,
united Israeli society under a common identity and a sense of a common
fate, and granted depth and significance to the enterprise of the national
renaissance.
Zionism, like other national movements that appeared in Europe,
America, South Africa, and Australia, quickened hearts, swept along the
masses, and grew from a small movement into a national religion that
displays all the basic traits enumerated above. The Jewish foundation
that preceded Zionism and the ancient, organic link between religion and
nation in Judaism strengthened the para-religious dimensions of Zion-
ism and differentiated it from other national religions. The Zionist move-
ment enveloped the Jewish Yishuv in Palestine in a kind of bubble, gave
life profound meaning, and included a complex mechanism of com-
mandments, ritual, symbols, mission, and social supervision. The tinder
for the new faith was provided by the ancient Jewish yearning for Zion,
while the oxygen needed for the fire was provided by European nation-
alism, modern anti-Semitism, and socialist utopianism. As with other na-
tions, the Jews partially exchanged the transcendental God for the na-
tion, the state, and the homeland, and considered the land they had come
to live in as the “promised land.”
The pioneer was a devout believer who observed the precepts of pa-
triotism with physical and spiritual valor. He did not simply prepare the
soil for commercial exploitation in the Holy Land; he “made the desert
bloom” and “drained swamps”—tasks that became a holy and ascetic
labor. The soldier who fell defending the Yishuv was a martyr who died
sanctifying the homeland (instead of sanctifying God). And the memo-
rials and monuments that were planted in every corner of the country—
in numbers that cannot be found in other cultures—became icons and
altars on which the cyclical ritual of the national holidays were celebrated.
Young people were sworn in year after year at these memorial sites with
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 21
Introduction :: 21
22 :: Introduction
chapter 1
Idealistic Euphoria
23
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 24
24 :: Idealistic Euphoria
The Sabra was indoctrinated in Zionist ideology from the cradle. The
pioneers sang lullabies charged with the pioneering ethos—though, iron-
ically, some were sung to traditional Jewish melodies, and some were even
sung in Yiddish.
Most of the songs, as one writer has noted, “promoted pride in He-
brewness, a sense of purpose, and an injunction to pioneer, fight, and
conquer. The persecutions by the gentiles, the wanderings over the face
of the earth, the unremitting aggression were conveyed to the young per-
son [through the songs, which fostered] hope and faith in redemption
and rebirth, the conquest of the land and its development by its return-
ing Jewish sons.”3
Many songs and stories for children and teenagers, published in pri-
vate editions, in school readers, in yearbooks put out by such bodies as
the Jewish National Fund (JNF), and in children’s periodicals, explicitly
and implicitly exalted the beauty of Zionist ideals and heroes and the
achievements of the pioneer, the Ha-Shomer guardsman, and the soldier.4
In inspiring language they glorified the settlement enterprise (especially
in the outlying regions of the Negev Desert and Galilee), the defense of
the settlements and of the Yishuv by the Ha-Shomer organization and
Orde Wingate’s Night Squads, the illegal immigration operation, the es-
tablishment of the State of Israel, and the War of Independence.5 For ex-
ample, Little Dani, protagonist of Miriam Yellen-Shtaklis’s poem “Prayer,”
on his eighth birthday asks God to make him a “valiant hero” because
he needs “to build an airplane . . . with guns” and “to bring immigrants
to the Land of Israel”—two classic Zionist objectives.6
The educational system was the Yishuv’s most important and most ef-
fective arena for Zionist socialization. Zionist education in Palestine was
initiated at the end of the nineteenth century and reached the height of
its development at the end of the 1920s, when it split into four major
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 25
Idealistic Euphoria :: 25
26 :: Idealistic Euphoria
Idealistic Euphoria :: 27
terprise in the Land of Israel, throughout all the pioneer periods from
the First Aliya to Palestine up to our day.”12
The number of educational periodicals was large, relative to the size
of the population, and they devoted much space to ideological education.
There were also many teacher conferences on the subject of Zionist edu-
cation (many of them sponsored by the Council of Israeli Teachers for the
Jewish National Fund), and their proceedings were published and dis-
tributed as supplementary materials for schoolteachers and principals.
The educational system omitted from textbooks and from the cur-
riculum all beliefs and positions that might challenge, even slightly, the
fundamental assumptions of Zionism. Even beliefs and ideologies that
were simply different from Zionist ones were left out.13 The textbook
writers set themselves the goal, as one of them remarked, of using the
books to integrate the pupil into Zionist society “in a way that will never
allow him to detach himself from this fabric of the common destiny.”14
This goal was achieved in two fundamental ways.
The first way was by the presentation of the pioneer enterprise as an
epic, a thrilling drama, by placing it on a historical continuum together
with ancient Jewish deeds of heroism. One of the central pedagogical
tools for linking the nation’s mythological past to its pioneer present was
the study of the Bible—one of the principal subjects in the otherwise sec-
ular schools. In the high schools of the general system of education, for
example, four out of the thirty-five weekly hours of instruction were de-
voted to the Bible.15 “Any Zionist structure not founded on this base of
Bible,” said educator Baruch Ben-Yehuda, “will be a structure made of
matchsticks that the most casual breeze can knock down.”16
The Bible was thus studied in school from a new, secular, nationalist
perspective, not as a source of religious faith or as a work of philoso-
phy; its tales served to instill Zionist ethics and to familiarize students
with the glorious past of the Israeli people. The symbolic connection be-
tween Biblical mythology and modern reality in the Yishuv and in Israel
was accomplished through actualization of the Biblical stories. So, for
example, the educator Urinovsky recommended presenting the story of
Jeremiah’s opposition to a Jewish rebellion against the Babylonians (Je-
remiah 24–42) in this way:
Jeremiah the prophet opposed the Judean movement for rebellion against
Babylonia out of ethical, religious considerations. . . . But worthy of special
emphasis is his uncompromising, tragic struggle for his people’s existence in
their land. He preferred the shame of surrender and temporary enslavement
to utter political destruction with honor, which leads to exile, to the uproot-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 28
28 :: Idealistic Euphoria
ing of the tree from the place it sprouted and grew. . . . Jeremiah, the rational,
practical prophet, fearful for the fate of the homeland and the existence of
the nation, the remnant in Judea, and the exiles in Babylonia, should serve as
a guide to us in these frenzied times, so that we do not exchange our home-
land for an imaginary policy or proclaim empty slogans, but rather strive to
gain a foothold on the soil of our fathers.17
The second way the textbooks conveyed Zionist ideology was through
cultural ethnocentrism. Hebrew culture was glorified and made central
to world culture; it was the standard against which all other cultures
were compared. Ethnocentrism is especially characteristic of religious
societies, which organize their lives around religious doctrine and dis-
allow information from outside that could endanger it. Writer Arthur
Koestler, who served as a foreign correspondent in Palestine at the end
of the 1920s, wrote of this sarcastically in his diary after a visit to the
Herzliya Gymnasium:
History is taught by an equally egocentric system. For the study of antiquity
the Bible serves as the main source, and Israel as the hub of the ancient world.
The confused events of the Dark and Middle Ages are summed up as a series
of migrations by barbarian tribes anti-clockwise round the Mediterranean,
while the Jews in the same period migrated clockwise in the opposite direc-
tion. And so on.
All this reminds me of the first school I went to in Budapest. The Hungar-
ians too, as a small nation wedged precariously between the Slavonic and Ger-
manic worlds, were inclined toward this kind of mystical ultra-chauvinism.18
Although the history and culture of other nations were studied in the
schools in a fragmentary way, they were not a top educational priority
and were generally presented in relation to the fate of the Jews, espe-
cially their persecution. Chaim Arieh Zuta and Y. Spibak noted in the
introduction to their book The History of Our People:
We have integrated the history of the nations into the history of our nation
in a restricted and concentrated way, so as not to distract the student from
the main part of his study of our people’s history. . . . We have made room
for the history of different nations at those junctures in which they came into
contact with our nation.19
Cultures that did not come into contact with Jews—such as those of
Africa and Eastern Asia—were shunted into a far corner of the curricu-
lum. In this, of course, Zionism was no different from other Western cul-
tures of the same period, much less other national religions.
As a result of this ethnocentrism, the history of humanity was per-
ceived by Israeli youth as “the history of Jewish pride, the history of the
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 29
Idealistic Euphoria :: 29
Jewish martyrology, the history of the Israeli people’s eternal war for its
existence,” as Baruch Ben-Yehuda put it.20
Literature was also studied from an ethnocentric point of view, though
one less stark than that applied to history. The focus was the literature
of the national revival and the writers and poets with links to Zionism.
Most of the works were studied in the context of nationalism, with stress
on the importance of socialism and the pioneer epic and rejection of the
Diaspora.
Teaching history and literature through an ethnocentric prism achieved
three important ideological goals with regard to the younger generation.
First, it magnified the importance of the Jewish people in human history
and their intellectual and moral primacy in the family of nations. Sec-
ond, it illustrated the logic and necessity of the Zionist solution to the
persecution of the Jews. Third, it amplified implicitly the awareness that
the Jewish people’s survival despite the persecutions they had endured
over the ages was miraculous.
The general press, which educated young people also read, was also
characterized by cultural ethnocentrism. Much space was devoted to lo-
cal news and little to events around the world—a result of both provin-
cialism and the character of a revolutionary society, which tends to be
preoccupied with itself. The most extreme example of this was the sparse
coverage given to World War II in general (at least relative to its impor-
tance) and to the Holocaust in particular. (This was also a result of the
ethos of rejection of the Diaspora, which will be discussed later.)
The person produced by the Zionist educational system was thus some-
one who viewed the world through the contracting lens of his ideologi-
cal faith. He had limited capacity to observe his culture “from the out-
side” and a limited critical faculty, especially with regard to politics and
society.21
30 :: Idealistic Euphoria
Each and every day more bacteria enter the mouth and endanger our well-
being, so we brush our teeth every day. Let us hope that by brushing our teeth
and keeping clean in general a healthy and fit generation will grow up in our
land that will be able to continue the growth and development of the Israeli
people in our land.25
Idealistic Euphoria :: 31
born national language, with all the value-laden connotations and ide-
ological and emotional overtones it had assimilated. “[The language] was
the basic foundation of all education, but together with bestowing the
language we enriched the children with many concepts and values,” re-
lates Zivia Katarbursky, who taught in Jerusalem and was one of the
country’s first preschool teachers.28 Children’s compositions during the
thirties and forties in fact show the assimilation of Zionist concepts, apho-
risms, and characteristic modes of expression into the public discourse—
including the frequent use of the first-person plural in the future tense:
“we will build,” “we will plant,” “we will establish.”
school programs
and memorial ceremonies
All religious societies recognize that the child is taught to accept the yoke
of religion not only by winning his mind but also, and principally, by
winning his heart. “Zionist education will be achieved not by explana-
tion and persuasion alone,” stated educator Baruch Ben-Yehuda, “but
rather . . . by a relation to Zionism through emotion.”29
The pedagogical means for achieving this “relation through emotion”
was for current events of national importance to reverberate through
morning inspections and assemblies in the schools and preschools. An-
other instrument was a special lesson devoted to social interactions—a
kind of social dynamics class in which the teacher led a discussion of
problems in interpersonal relationships and the relation between the in-
dividual and society. This brought the pupil into adult society, made him
a partner in its joys and sorrows, and quickened his emotional and in-
tellectual involvement in the national experience.
Schools and teachers also interested the children in national events
and intensified their emotional participation in the national experience
by assigning pupils to write letters to soldiers at the front (Yishuv sol-
diers volunteering in the British army during World War II and IDF sol-
diers during the War of Independence and the Sinai Campaign). The fate
of the soldiers to whom the letters were addressed was in this way linked
in the children’s mind to the fate of the nation as a whole, strengthen-
ing their awareness that they lived in a fateful time that demanded na-
tional solidarity. The participation of the entire class in writing these let-
ters made the children feel as if they themselves were taking part in a
military operation and led them to value and admire the soldiers at the
front all the more.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 32
32 :: Idealistic Euphoria
Today is the thirtieth day since Ussishkin’s death. . . . There was a memorial
service in the gymnasium that I will never forget as one of the most moving mo-
ments: a few words by a friend . . . honor for the gymnasium flag: to the blast
of the trumpets and the thunder of the drums the flag appeared, and the majesty
of the return [to Zion] enveloped us . . . the raising of the national flag . . . our
principal’s speech . . . the lowering of the flag to half-mast . . . the placing of
the symbol of mourning on the institution’s flag . . . and “Ha-Tikva” . . . —these
were moments that will not be forgotten . . . moments in which the soul is pre-
pared to sacrifice itself for the nation—and to die peacefully.30
With the establishment of the state all these ceremonies and assem-
blies were set aside and replaced by Independence Day. The national rite
was from then on celebrated on this day, as in other national religions.31
Not by coincidence, it was also called State Day. In 1951 the Ministry
of Defense initiated a memorial day for fallen IDF soldiers on the day
before Independence Day, and in 1954, after a three-year trial, it became
an official national memorial day. Over the years this has become Zion-
ism’s most sacred day. The frightening siren (reminiscent of the blowing
of the shofar in synagogue on the high holidays), the moment of silence
(recalling the silence of the Amida prayer, the central part of the Jewish
service), and the laments and litanies recited in schools and settlements
(recalling the Yom Kippur service) moved both young people and adults
and intensified the national commitment of Israel’s youth.
Idealistic Euphoria :: 33
ing under the sponsorship of the Haganah and later the IDF. Both struc-
tures prepared adolescents for the military and taught them Zionist mil-
itary history, love of the land, and the values of agriculture and volun-
teerism. The social activities in the Gadna clubs, which had the character
of youth movement chapter houses, included public readings on Friday
nights and on other days. These were generally selections from the Ha-
Shomer Ha-Tza’ir newspaper, Al Ha-Mishmar, and from the military pe-
riodical Ba-Machaneh, as well as from Gadna publications. Notably, this
was mostly general ideological material not addressed specifically to
young people.
The youth movements also preached the pioneer creed and prepared
their urban members for life on a kibbutz and for military service in the
Palmach or the Nachal corps. Some youth movements received financial
support and guidance from the schools. For example, the Scouts were
organizationally linked to the Reali school, and Ha-Machanot Ha-Olim
was connected to the Herzliya Gymnasium. Another example of the ide-
ological symbiosis between the schools, the settlements, and the army
was the volunteer work performed by urban school students on kibbut-
zim and moshavim; this eventually became an eleventh-grade require-
ment. Still another was the requirement, imposed in 1942 as a condition
of receiving a high school graduation certificate, that one must perform
national military service after the completion of high school.
The kibbutz movements of the early 1940s (especially Ha-Kibbutz Ha-
Me’uchad) also contributed to the symbiosis between the civilian and
military educational structures. They believed that preference should be
given to building an independent Hebrew military force rather than to
participation in the war against the Nazis, even though some of their
members enlisted in the British army. In August 1942 the Ha-Kibbutz
Ha-Me’uchad council decided to allow the Palmach to maintain itself by
arranging for its members to work at kibbutzim. The decision was a finan-
cial solution to the continued existence of the Palmach while integrating
it organizationally into the economic-social-cultural system of the kib-
butz movement. Another impetus for the decision was the labor short-
age that the collective farms were beginning to face. Kibbutz movement
leader Yitzchak Tabenkin was responsible for the decision, seeing it as a
way of consummating the idea of a “workers’ army.” Later on the other
kibbutz movements joined the arrangement. The decision in fact saved
the Palmach from being dismantled after the British ended their support
for it.32 In 1944 the Palmach headquarters signed an agreement with the
pioneer youth movements (Ha-Machanot Ha-Olim, Ha-Noar Ha-Oved,
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 34
34 :: Idealistic Euphoria
Idealistic Euphoria :: 35
The way an individual comprehends his nation’s history, and so his na-
tional identity, depends in large measure on the national myths he was
educated in while young. The principal myths that the Sabras were taught
and that appear in their own writings may be identified as deliverance,
the few facing the many, the binding of Isaac, the redemption of Israel,
and the right to the Land of Israel.
Deliverance (in Old Times and New) Even though the Zionists rebelled
against the traditional Judaism of the Diaspora, in practice Zionism’s re-
lation to tradition was a complex and convoluted combination of rejec-
tion and acceptance; in many ways a partial cultural continuity was in
fact preserved. A classic example of this continuity is the myth of Israel’s
deliverance from its enemies—a foundation myth of Judaism and, as it
turns out, of Zionism as well. At the basis of traditional Jewish belief
and central to the chronicle of Jewish history as told in the Bible is the
concept that God saves Israel over and over again from its adversaries.
The Jewish people rise up from the dust and are redeemed at the last
minute, while their enemies are doomed to destruction.
The main pedagogical tool through which the Sabra internalized the
myth of deliverance was the emphasis placed on the Jewish victory over
the foe who tries to destroy Israel. This concept was clearly present in
the folklore of the holidays—Pesach, Purim, Lag Be-Omer, and especially,
Hanukkah. It was emphasized in stories and songs learned in preschool
and school and was woven into many of the holiday songs written for
preschool children. The intention was to teach children that the mira-
cles of the present day (the victory over the Arabs and the expulsion of
the British) were replays of the miracles performed by Moses and Joshua,
Mordechai and Esther, Bar Kochba and his legions, and the Maccabees.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 36
36 :: Idealistic Euphoria
And all the nations and all the children of Israel went out to battle with Hitler,
and he fell in that war and died. And the next day the children of Israel num-
bered themselves and verily not one was lacking, and they came to the bat-
tlefield and looked, and here was Hitler fallen dead and his horse by him. And
they rejoiced and were happy. And while they were still gazing at the body
here came an army of horsemen. And they fell upon the Jews, but the Jews
were victorious and destroyed all the bad people in the world. And a new
generation rose, a young generation, a fresh generation, that did not know
evil and cruelty, and never did another bad man rise up in the world. So will
it be, so will it be done, so will it befall. Our hope is not yet lost.35
The Few Facing the Many The myth of the few facing the many is derived
to a large extent from the myth of deliverance. The theme of the victory
of those who are inferior in number and weapons but superior in
courage, faith, and moral values appears over and over in Jewish his-
tory, in Biblical commentaries, and in Jewish prayer. The drowning of
Pharoah’s army at the Red Sea, the victory over Amalek at Refidim, the
conquests of Joshua, Gideon’s victory over the Midianites, Barak’s vic-
tory over Sisera, David’s defeat of the Philistines, the Maccabees’ rebel-
lion against the Greeks, and Bar Kochba’s rebellion against the Roman
legions all reprise this theme.
The central elements of this myth are the boldness and craftiness (“For
by deceptions thou shalt make thy war,” as the Book of Proverbs ad-
vises) of the commander of the Hebrew army, whose spirit does not fail
when he encounters an enemy force stronger and more numerous than
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 37
Idealistic Euphoria :: 37
his own. David, who defeats the heavily armed Philistine Goliath with a
slingshot and stone, is the shining example. In the period of the Yishuv
and in the first years of the state, emphasis on the numbers of the enemy
is frequent in references to how Israeli forces had battled “the seven Arab
nations.”
Another element in this myth is the power of the Jewish God, who
can overcome any other power in the universe “with a mighty hand and
an outstretched arm” and who shelters the apple of his eye, Israel, un-
der his paternal protection. The verse from the Haggadah of Pesach: “He
who protected our fathers and us, when not just one has risen up on us
to destroy us . . . and the Holy One, Blessed Be He, delivers us from their
hands” is one of the many verses that express the secret of Jewish
strength—divine providence. An evil and cruel power—Pharaoh, Mid-
ian, Amalek, or Goliath—stands against and wishes to attack Israel, and
indirectly its God, yet in the end is beaten to a pulp and scattered before
Israel in shame. Superiority in spirit (Jewish faith and ethics) defeats the
gentile’s evil—“Not by might, nor by power but by spirit, says the Lord
of Hosts.” The equivalent phrase in modern Israel is “the superiority of
human quality over quantity.”36 Official Zionist ideology did reject the
dependence on God and emphasized faith in physical strength in its stead.
However, the concept that a higher power saved the people of Israel from
danger was implied in the words of the pioneers—especially in the way
they celebrated the traditional holidays, particularly after the War of In-
dependence.
The uniqueness and superiority of the Jewish people as set forth in
the myth of “the few facing the many” can explain why this myth be-
came one of the most important of the Zionist religion.37 It stands out
in particular in the interpretation and emphases that Zionism gave to the
Jewish holidays, especially Hanukkah (the Maccabees versus the Greeks)
and Lag Be-Omer (Bar Kochba and the Jewish rebels versus the Roman
armies).
The “few facing the many” myth received a contemporary pioneer-
ing cast in the sub-myths of Masada and Tel Chai. The Masada myth is
not in any way a part of traditional Judaism. It is the story of a handful
of fighters who fiercely defended their desert fortress against a large Ro-
man army and chose to kill themselves rather than be taken prisoner and
live as slaves. In this way the fighters were triumphant, winning a moral
victory over the enemy, the Roman Amalek. (The doubtful historicity of
the myth has been much written about in recent years.)38 The Masada
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 38
38 :: Idealistic Euphoria
Idealistic Euphoria :: 39
The depth to which the Tel Chai myth penetrated and was internal-
ized in the Sabra soul can be seen in the writings of young people of all
ages, from every movement and institution and in every period. An es-
pecially telling example can be found in a letter by one Sabra in which
he censures his girlfriend for daring to imagine that he might settle in an-
other country. He uses Trumpeldor’s motto: “And you well know the
program I have set for myself, so how can you even think of settling in
a gentile country? Am I the man who would do such a thing? I have but
one homeland, and it is Israel. It is good to die for it and—even more
so—to live in it.”41
The crushing defeat of the Arab armies, which had been considered
well armed and numerous, in the War of Independence was perceived,
even if not openly, as the finger of God, and as another link in the his-
torical chain of deliverances from the enemies who wished to destroy Is-
rael. The consummation of the myth in this victory honed and intensified
the national feeling that the process of returning the nation to its land
had “divine sponsorship,” and that the IDF’s victories were also achieved
with divine guidance.
The Sinai victory led the public to feel the force of the “few facing the
many” myth all the more intensely. Another ostensible miracle had taken
place, and the small, weak Israeli nation had emerged from the battle
with the upper hand. The wretched and grotesque performance of the
enemy soldiers—who fled en masse from the battlefield despite Egypt’s
prewar boasts—fit well with the David versus Goliath legend. Here was
young Srolik, the typical Sabra figure made famous by editorial cartoonist
Dosh, just like David the shepherd, “ruddy, with fine eyes,” innocent and
moral, triumphing over the boastful Arab Goliath, heavily armed and
clumsy. David was victorious because of his heroism, dexterity, and moral
robustness, despite his inferior size and weaponry. He defeated Goliath,
as European depictions of the scene show, by aiming precisely at the gi-
ant’s single vulnerable point, his bare forehead.
The Binding of Isaac The myth of the binding of Isaac, which interprets
the fallen soldier as Isaac bound on the altar of the nation and the home-
land, is not unique to the Zionist nation. It made an appearance in Eu-
rope in the nineteenth century with the rise of the national movements
and became a more substantive and important element in the cult of war
and the nation in Western culture in the wake of World War I, in which
soldiers were killed by the millions.
The Israeli myth of Isaac as the one who falls in battle appeared ini-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 40
40 :: Idealistic Euphoria
tially in the first memorial anthology, Yizkor. From that time onward it
made ever more frequent appearances in the commemorative literature,
as well as in Hebrew poetry and prose.42 Recast as a sacrifice, the fallen
Hebrew soldier was transformed from an unlucky young man who had
lost his life into a martyr who had willingly given it up.
Since the Hebrew fighter’s death was viewed as voluntary and altru-
istic, it was perceived in the nation’s consciousness as an expression of
sublime patriotism. The martyred Hebrews—from Trumpeldor and
Hannah Szenes to Dani Mas and Uri Ilan—were viewed as new incar-
nations of great figures of the past: the Hasmonean rebels, Hannah and
her seven sons from the Book of the Maccabees, the ten rabbis led by
Rabbi Akiva who were executed by the Romans after the Bar Kochba
revolt, and the World War II partisans and Warsaw ghetto fighters. All
were Jews who, according to legend, died sacrificing their lives to save
their nation.
Parents who lost their sons in war were also glorified by the myth.
They were presented as having heroically accepted the sacrifice of their
most cherished possession for the sake of the nation and were praised
for gritting their teeth and holding back their grief when they learned of
the death of their beloved child. “At your orders he went, at your orders
he fell. May you be blessed,” wrote poet Re’uven Grossman, editor of
Scrolls of Fire, to Zionist patriarch Ben-Gurion when his son had fallen
in the War of Independence. His letter, which moved “the old man,” was
published and became a symbol of the heroic acceptance of death.
Zionism made three substantive changes in the classic, traditional myth
of Isaac. First, the binding of Isaac by his father was replaced by the son
volunteering to be bound. Instead of an act of submission to the divine
will, it became a deed of heroism—not spiritual heroism, however (the
willingness to die to sanctify God) but a physical act of heroism. No
longer would heroes accept divine judgment and die reciting “shma yis-
rael.” They would now fight valiantly to the last bullet and, their heads
held high, die on the altar of their homeland.
The second change was that the sacrificial victim was not sacrificed
for some unknown purpose (God does not tell Abraham why he must
sacrifice his son) or as a test of faith in God. Rather, his sacrifice was per-
ceived as an important means to realizing the Zionist ideal and as a test
of tribal loyalty.
The third and probably most important change was switching the
story’s center of gravity from the relationship between Abraham and his
God (metaphorically, between the patriot and his homeland) to that be-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 41
Idealistic Euphoria :: 41
42 :: Idealistic Euphoria
Idealistic Euphoria :: 43
44 :: Idealistic Euphoria
The Biblical Right to the Land of Israel The need for a refuge for a perse-
cuted nation and the right of the Jews to self-determination are indeed
cornerstones of Zionist ideology, but from a symbolic point of view their
importance was secondary. Paramount to the moral justification of the
Zionist enterprise was the notion of historic justice. The term “exile”
served the Zionists not only as a means of rejecting the past, but also as
a way of presenting Jewish existence outside the Land of Israel as a tem-
porary reality and, even more, as something that had been imposed.
The moral right of the Jews to immigrate to and settle in the Land of
Israel was never the subject of debate in the political and ideological fo-
rums of the Yishuv, not even on the theoretical-juridical level. This right,
which was at the foundation of Zionism, was taken for granted; it was
expressed in the very term “Land of Israel,” which implied ownership
by linking a geographical place, “the land,” with the Jewish people, “Is-
rael.” Even those delegates to the Zionist Congress who advocated ac-
ceptance of the British offer of Uganda to the Jews did not deny the moral
right of the Jewish people to return to their own land; they merely be-
lieved that the Uganda proposal was a more practical one. Their view
failed because they did not properly appreciate the force and the sym-
bolic importance of the Land of Israel in the Jewish ethos. The right to
the land was never seriously questioned in Israeli society until the period
after the Six Day War—and even then the right to the land within the
pre-1967 borders was never challenged.
The myth of “our right to the Land of Israel,” including the right to
establish an independent state in the land, was based on a mixture of
justifications. There were practical and moral arguments (according to
Western secular moral principles), such as the need to solve the problem
of anti-Semitism, the right of the conquering defender to the land of the
Arab aggressor, the settlers’ rights to virgin land they had domesticated
(“making the desert bloom”), and the right to land purchased legally at
market prices. But there were also justifications of a mythological and
metaphysical nature—first and foremost the divine promise given to the
forefathers.
Along with the myth of redemption and the myth of deliverance, the
myth of the right to the land was one of the most prominent in the Jew-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 45
Idealistic Euphoria :: 45
ish history textbooks. This was because even nonreligious Jews needed
a divine promise to justify the Jewish people’s right to the Land of Is-
rael.49 So, for example, the textbook Our People in the Past and Present
states:
The chronicle of our people comforts the exiled and informs them that the land
from which they were exiled is theirs forever; God promised it to our fathers—
to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; on more than one occasion the forefathers left
the bounds of the land, but they did not forget it and did not leave it for good;
even after four hundred years of Egyptian slavery, the nation succeeded in lib-
erating itself and returning to its land, the land flowing with milk and honey,
which God swore to give to his people for eternity.50
The myth of the right to the land influenced the Sabra’s worldview in
two ways. First, it strengthened his feeling that Israel could justifiably
annex territories that had been abandoned by the Arabs in the War of
Independence. This sentiment was expressed in the widespread use of
the term “liberation” to describe the battles of that war.51
Second, the myth influenced the Sabra’s historical role (which affected
his self-image). If the territories conquered were liberated lands of the
forefathers, then the Sabra warrior who freed them was not simply a
second-generation immigrant from Europe, but the successor to the Bib-
lical boy who walked in his sandals over the mountains of Canaan, as
the poet Ze’ev described: “Mount Gilboa’s in his eyes / The Bible lilt is
in his voice.”52 The myth gave the Sabras a sense of ownership, of being
natives, even though they were in fact immigrants or the sons of immi-
grants. If the pioneers felt at home in the land from the moment they ar-
rived, their Sabra children thought of themselves as if they had been liv-
ing in the country for generations, like the trees and wildlife.
ideological training
46 :: Idealistic Euphoria
fact, during the Yishuv and early state periods, pioneer ideology pene-
trated into the smallest capillaries of the social circulatory system to such
an extent that it became, as noted earlier, a kind of all-embracing reli-
gious experience. The symbols, the connotations, the motifs, and the ide-
ological messages found their way into many verbal and visual expres-
sions, even if the Sabras were not always consciously aware of this. They
appeared on banners, in music, in art, in radio broadcasts, in plays, in
the handful of films produced then, in editorials, and even in the way
people dressed and in children’s toys and games.53
The uniform worldview held by the molders of public opinion in the
press, in literature, and in advertising was a product of not only their
emotional identification with the Zionist message but also the small num-
bers of the Yishuv population and the concentration of capital in national
institutions. These last two factors enabled efficient propagandizing. The
penetrative nature of the ideological messages and the close and largely
unseen institutional supervision of them spread them everywhere, con-
firming and reconfirming the Sabra’s worldview. The young Sabra lived
in an “ideological bubble,” where he was subjected to a constant bar-
rage of propaganda.
The Zionist Bar Mitzvah In S. Shalom’s poem “Voices in the Night,” which
was frequently recited at ceremonies, a process similar to a rite of pas-
sage is described through a dialogue between an anonymous voice (as if
the voice of God) and a Hebrew youth:
Idealistic Euphoria :: 47
48 :: Idealistic Euphoria
the youth divisions in the kibbutzim were also an early exercise in re-
sponsibility, tightly binding young people to the ideology.
Idealistic Euphoria :: 49
My heart overflowed with happiness, I shook the hand that wrote so many
poems. . . . His eyes glowed with a wonderful light, a shining precious light.
I gazed into his eyes. I gazed well into the inner recesses of his soul, the soul
of a poet. When I reached his soul, a sacred shiver ran through my body, and
I cast my eyes down from the holy place.56
Children of all ages had a special liking for courageous heroes like
Sarah Aaronsohn, Alexander Zeid, and Hannah Szenes and, more than
any other, Yosef Trumpeldor, Zionism’s most revered martyr. The tale
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 50
50 :: Idealistic Euphoria
Holiday Ceremonies Holidays and ceremonies add color to life and pro-
vide emotional experiences that punctuate the day-to-day routine. Hol-
iday customs unite the generations in a family or in an extended family
(such as a village, a movement, or a nation) in pleasant and uplifting mo-
ments. United societies are generally societies with a well-developed cul-
ture of celebrations in which everyone takes part, both physically and
spiritually. The educational leaders of the Yishuv understood the psy-
chological value of holidays very well and exploited holidays as an im-
portant ideological tool in the education of the Sabra. “The Hebrew hol-
iday” is “the starting point for all education,” wrote Baruch Ben-Yehuda.
“Our goal . . . is to exploit holidays and memorial days . . . in the school
as moments of optimism, to plant these experiences in the children’s
hearts, and to dedicate them to the needs of Zionist education.”59
The educational system was astute enough to give young people an
important place in their rituals—as is common practice in the Jewish re-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 51
Idealistic Euphoria :: 51
ligion. The child and the adolescent were at the center of the torchlight
processions, the choral singing, the marches, the dances, the public recita-
tions, the tree plantings, and the bringing of the first fruits. In the set-
tlements the finest talents were enlisted in preparing and conducting the
ceremonies, which moved the children as much as theater performances
and films did (it should be recalled that during this period professional
entertainment—films, plays, and radio—was very limited). The combi-
nation of elements of the ancient Jewish tradition (especially Biblical sym-
bols) and the new national-pioneer tradition, which so characterized the
Zionist holidays (especially the agricultural ones celebrated in the kib-
butzim, moshavim, and agricultural boarding schools), gave the holidays
a cast of Biblical romanticism, reinforcing the link between the Zionist
present and the Biblical past and infusing the holidays with an atmos-
phere of holiness characteristic of a religious-traditional holiday.
Moreover, Zionist holidays were observed according to their date on
the traditional Jewish calendar. Due to Western influences, the Hebrew
calendar fell out of use for day-to-day affairs, but it was institutional-
ized as the Zionist holiday calendar. This practice also preserved the tra-
ditional distinction between the Jews and the gentiles.
The education of the Sabra in Zionist values was accomplished
through cyclical duties that demanded regular expressions of belief. Con-
tributing to the JNF was one of these duties.60 Preschools and elemen-
tary schools had a “JNF corner” for the “blue box” in which contribu-
tions were collected. The box was surrounded by the pictures of the
organization’s founders, directors, and officials. On Fridays, during
the ceremony of welcoming the Sabbath, on the eve of holidays, and on
the first day of each Hebrew month, children would, one after another,
approach the table on which the blue box stood, slip in small coins, and
sing Y. Friedman’s song “A Dunam Here, a Dunam There” (“A dunam
here, a dunam there / Three clods of earth, a fourth / So we redeem our
nation’s land / From Negev to the north”) and A. Ashman’s song “The
Blue Box Anthem” (“A new month has come, a new month has come /
This day is sanctified / Let us be happy and rejoice / To the box we give
our tithe”).61
At the Herzliya Gymnasium during the 1940s, a school-wide Sabbath-
welcoming ceremony was celebrated in the school auditorium every Fri-
day during the last hour of classes.62 Each time, a boy or girl was ap-
pointed “cantor,” or leader of the gathering. He or she would welcome
the audience: “Welcome dear teachers, welcome dear parents, let us greet
the Sabbath.” The children would sing the traditional “Shalom Aleichem”
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 52
52 :: Idealistic Euphoria
hymn, and the cantor would invite one of the girls to light the candles.
First, the girl would put a coin into the JNF box and say, “Sanctified for
the redemption of the land, as our mothers did,” and then bless the can-
dles. As she lit the candles, all the children would light their own can-
dles on the tables in front of them. One child would read a section from
the weekly Torah portion, and in the end they would read “Borchi Naf-
shi,” an early Hebrew nature poem that is part of the traditional Sab-
bath morning service. In the summers they would also read from the
Mishnaic “Pirkei Avot.” The ceremony would conclude with the singing
of the Zionist anthem, “Ha-Tikva.” This common school practice of
melding the welcoming of the Sabbath ceremony with the ceremony of
contributing to the JNF was another example of how the shapers of Zion-
ist culture and education used elements of Jewish tradition that had mo-
tivated Jews for thousands of years to design a new tradition emphasiz-
ing Jewish nationalism on a Zionist foundation.
Contributing to the JNF was practiced within the family as well. On
birthdays it was customary to contribute a portion, or all, of one’s gift
money to the JNF. In response, the JNF would send the child a certificate
of appreciation, illustrated with pictures of agricultural pioneers at work,
which read: “To ———, who has in good time entered his ———th year.
You have remembered the JNF on your birthday and have contributed
to the redemption of the land. Take this blessing from us: may you grow
up into Torah, labor, and good deeds and be a delight to your parents
and a blessing to your people. Amen.”63
For teenagers, the duty to contribute was replaced by the duty to col-
lect contributions. On what was called “ribbon day” (after the paper
ribbon with the JNF symbol that the donor would receive), high school
students and members of youth movements would position themselves
with blue boxes on city streets and solicit passersby. Youth movement
members would also empty the blue boxes that hung in public institu-
tions and pass the money on to the JNF. The JNF would, in turn, grant
certificates to the best collectors and plant trees in their name. Members
of youth movements would paste JNF stamps (whose purchase was also
considered a donation) on every outgoing letter and on every notice that
appeared on the chapter house bulletin board. Likewise, a self-imposed
tax was instituted, collected in the blue box at the beginning of every
party.64 The youth movements maintained a steady correspondence with
the JNF on the matter of their contributions. Much of the youth move-
ment’s internal correspondence dealt with the issue of JNF contributions,
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 53
Idealistic Euphoria :: 53
including questions about how much the chapter house had collected and
why the chapter house had stopped collecting donations.
The blue box thus became a national charity box and a Zionist sacred
object. The important element in the ceremony of donating was not the
actual money but rather the active and voluntary participation in build-
ing the land and the Israeli nation, symbolized by the blue and white of
the box and the map of the country imprinted on it. “The coin that the
child gives or that he collects for the redemption of the land is not im-
portant in and of itself, . . .” said Menachem Ussishkin, one of the JNF’s
best-known leaders, “but it is important as a foundation of education—
it is not the child who gives to the JNF, but the JNF that gives him . . . a
hold on a sublime ideal for all the days of his life.”65
Contributing to the JNF taught the Sabra to put the noble Zionist ideal
above his private needs. Saving for the common future bolstered the
Sabra’s orientation to a future utopia. When the contribution came from
the young person’s own money (sometimes the painful surrendering of
allowance money or even birthday presents), it tested the expectations
that the national collective made of him. This symbolic first sacrifice was
meant to develop in the child the willingness to make many other sacrifices
that would be demanded of him in the future for the rebirth of the Jew-
ish people. The blue box filled gradually with small coins, not bills, which
symbolized for the child the ongoing nature of the redemption of the
country and the need to keep contributing to the general good over a
long period of time. According to the Zionist ethos, the Land of Israel
was “ransomed” coin by coin, “a dunam here, a dunam there, three clods
of earth, a fourth.”
The coins that piled up in the blue box also symbolized the partner-
ship and traditional solidarity of all Jews everywhere. Every Jew, even
the Jew in the Diaspora, made his modest contribution to help his broth-
ers, thus inscribing another letter in the scroll of Zionist redemption.
54 :: Idealistic Euphoria
Offerings to the Zionist Priest The Festival of the First Fruits—the traditional
holiday of Shavu’ot—was a classic example of the integration of ancient
Jewish symbols into Zionist ideology. The ceremony was generally held
out in the open. The members of the moshava, moshav, or kibbutz would
gather in front of a platform decked with bales of hay and agricultural
implements. Decorated wagons bearing children and the farm’s first fruits
would pass by in a procession, and the master of ceremonies would an-
nounce each wagon as it passed. The ceremony included the reading of
verses from the Torah describing the ancient ceremony of bringing in the
first fruits, as well as dances and holiday songs with a Biblical cast to
them. The Festival of the First Fruits was the holiday of agricultural pro-
duce, expressing Zionism’s success in putting down roots and the coun-
try’s economic growth. The basket, full of the settlement’s produce and
borne by its children, symbolized the plenty that the Zionist enterprise
had brought to the country and to its pioneers and the transformation
of the country into “a land flowing with milk and honey.”
In the cities, the children in the preschools and schools of the general
and labor styles tended a small garden in their playgrounds. On the Fes-
tival of First Fruits they and their teachers would bring a basket full of
“the fruit of our garden” to the festival organized by the JNF for city
and kibbutz children. The children dressed in white and wore garlands
of flowers or stalks of grain. (Sometimes, instead of fruits and vegeta-
bles, the children brought work they had done—another kind of first
fruits.) The ceremony, conducted on a large stage, was generally preceded
by a long procession in which the children would march in pairs, joy-
ously singing, with bands and choirs accompanying them along the way.
The link between the JNF and the Festival of First Fruits was not just
organizational, but symbolic as well. The ancient rite of bringing the first
fruits to the Temple was replaced by the procession with the basket laden
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 55
Idealistic Euphoria :: 55
with first-harvest produce, and the priest who received the offering was
replaced by the priests of pioneerism—the representatives of the Jewish
National Fund or the kibbutz and moshav elders.
The sentence about the nation (the beauty of the homeland) precedes
the sentence about the personal (the aspiration to build a sanatorium),
and that is immediately followed by another sentence about the nation
(loss and its national implications). Another Sabra expressed in his diary
his sense of guilt for being too involved in his private, quotidian matters—
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 56
56 :: Idealistic Euphoria
Idealistic Euphoria :: 57
to serve in the army, the moral right to the country, or the confiscation
of home and land from the Arabs.
The almost complete absence of criticism of the Zionist program or
how it should be accomplished testifies not only to the second genera-
tion’s profound identification with Zionist ideals, but also to their re-
luctance to challenge them. Any expression of doubt would have been
considered heresy. One may suppose that Zionist values received the force
of a holy writ and had a kind of absolute validity for the Sabra elite, as
if they were the Ten Commandments and thus inviolable.
This unitary voice in the youth media both reflected and reinforced
the homogeneity of thinking in that period. (It was most likely bolstered
not only by editors at newspapers and publishing houses in their selec-
tion of material for publication, but also by the young people themselves,
who read each other’s works.) The uniformity of expression formed an
ideological chorus, where the vocal and emotional power of the com-
mon voices hid and masked the voice of the doubting individual. The
common ideological subject drew everyone together; the common voice
created a generational “stream of consciousness” that expressed the com-
mon pulse of a collective mobilizing itself as a single body to achieve com-
mon goals. The poem, stories, compositions, letters, and diaries published
in the memorial anthologies, in the general press, in internal newsletters,
and in the young literature became something like an oral law or an ide-
alistic colloquy that again and again defined and reinforced a common
identity.
Unity of idea and of style is also evident in the literary works by well-
known Sabra writers and poets.70 Most of them, with a few exceptions,
depicted an Israeli reality with which they identified ideologically and
were involved emotionally. They were strongly influenced by—and in-
deed often imitated—the preceding generation of Zionist writers and also
the heroic and idealistic American and European, especially Russian, lit-
erature that the previous generation had translated into Hebrew.71 With
just a handful of exceptions, there is almost no social irony or ideologi-
cal criticism in the prose of the younger generation, and only minimal
anarchistic and anti-establishment elements. “Everything is right and
clear, and there is no place for conflict and for upsetting the balance,”
wrote literary scholar and critic A. B. Yaffe as early as 1950 on the works
of the Sabra writers.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 58
58 :: Idealistic Euphoria
Idealistic Euphoria :: 59
ity and provide profound expression of the inner workings of the indi-
vidual. In most of the stories only the “upper layer” of the protagonists’
souls is described, and the dialogues between the characters are in many
cases somewhat artificial and schematic and reflect collective modes of
thinking. This characteristic is so prominent in the literature of 1948 that
many literary critics in Israel commented on it immediately.
The literature of the 1948 generation is similar, in this sense, to the
institutional journalistic writing that preceded the “new journalism.” Re-
ality is generally described not from a cold and intellectual or bemused
distance, but as the report of a committed journalist who identifies emo-
tionally and ideologically with the event he is describing and with the
participants in it.
The protagonists in many of the stories (especially the war stories) are
stereotypical Sabra fighters—upright, with limitless devotion to their
people and their comrades, serious in their views, but facile in their col-
loquialism. The tragedy in their characters is an “institutionalized”
tragedy—that of people forced to sacrifice their lives in the struggle for
independence and to proudly pay the price of the national revival. It is
not a tragedy that comes out of the evil in man, out of alienation, or out
of internal conflict. Their suffering generally reflects collective, not per-
sonal and intimate, suffering. They are not all charismatic commanders
like Uri, the protagonist of Moshe Shamir’s He Walked in the Fields, yet
even the marginal figures are for the most part “good and dedicated boys”
whose heroism and altruism are revealed at the moment of truth in bat-
tle and after their preordained deaths, as the genre requires.
The War of Independence itself, which was bloody, is for the most part
described from an idealistic perspective rather than a critical or psycho-
logical one. The descriptions of the war include neither rejoicing over
the defeat and humiliation of the enemy nor victorious exultation and
militarism, no songs of glory or praises of the heroes of battle (the same
is also true of the soldiers’ letters home from the front). On the contrary,
the emphasis is on loss and grief. The justice of the war and utter
identification with the Jewish collective in its battle struggle are axiomatic.
Yet, though the loss and pain that the war produces is the central axis
of many of the stories, the writers do not touch on the war’s traumatic
side—the fears, the sense of helplessness, the uncertainty, the doubts and
hesitations that a traumatic event generally wakens.73
In their repression of emotions and lack of openness the writers are a
faithful mirror of their generation. The same repression is evident in the
letters the Sabra fighters sent home from the front (this includes unpub-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 60
60 :: Idealistic Euphoria
lished letters and letters written by Sabra volunteers in the British army
who witnessed horrifying human suffering). They wrote little—and gen-
erally did not write at all—about the experience of the war, even though
between the lines it is frequently clear that their hearts were churning
from what they had seen.
Whereas in the stories the ideological dimension is mostly implicit,
the works of the Sabra poets and songwriters (most prominently, Chaim
Guri, Zerubavel Gilad, O. Hillel, Shlomo Tanai, Didi Manosi, and Chaim
Cheffer) display ideology overtly and explicitly. Moreover, while a ma-
jority of the stories are based on the personal experiences of the young
writers, the poems and songs deal largely with ideas—mostly Jewish and
Zionist ones. Critic and scholar Shalom Kramer wrote of the typical Sabra
poet that he “is happy in the revelation of nature in the homeland, in the
building of the settlement, and especially in the conquests of the Hebrew
village in general and of the kibbutz in particular, and beyond this he
joins himself in his body and soul to these achievements.” Especially to
the point are Kramer’s words on the primary message in Sabra poems:
“the feeling that you live not as an individual alone but as a nation and
that your strength increases along with its strength.”74
The stylistic similarity among the poets is even greater than that among
the prose writers, the central reason being the decisive influence of the
Hebrew poets, whose poetry was studied and recited in the schools (Bia-
lik, Chernikovsky, Zalman Schneur, S. Shalom, Yitzchak Lamdan,
Yonatan Ratosh, Leah Goldberg, Avraham Shlonsky, and others) and es-
pecially the influence of Natan Alterman, who was much admired by the
younger generation.75 “Most of the generation’s poets were decisively
influenced by Alterman,” commented Ziva Shamir, a scholar of Hebrew
literature and poetry, “and there was almost no young poet who was not
‘accused’ of dragging Altermanian norms into his poetry.”76
This “mobilized realism” in both poetry and prose is founded on the
Sabra writers’ emotional identification with the object of their writing
(the Zionist organizations) and on their actual participation in the Zion-
ist culture they wrote about. But it also derived from the overt and covert
expectations that were, in a sense, hung around the neck of the young
writer of the 1948 generation by the directing hand of ideology.
The complaint that the Sabra writers and poets suffered from a “cas-
tration of fancy” can be explained by the fact that during a revolution-
ary period reality casts a shadow over imagination and to a certain ex-
tent paralyzes it. This has a sociological reason. In a revolutionary period,
when the individual is called on to lend a hand to the national effort and
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 61
Idealistic Euphoria :: 61
62 :: Idealistic Euphoria
letter to his mother from the outpost where he was stationed: “As for the
vision—after all, a genuine and good Zionist is founded on ‘inner fer-
vor,’ ‘a Jewish heart,’ and so on. May we all be blessed with these.”77
The force of the Sabra’s national feeling is also reflected in the high
frequency with which the word “homeland” is used in Sabra texts, and
especially in the warmth and fervor of its use: “There is no man too good
to die for the homeland. However, many do not have the privilege of
such a death. Whatever the case—if the Land of Israel is in danger, I want
to defend it with my life!”78 This outburst of patriotism, quoted from a
Sabra’s private diary, is not exceptional. Similar ones abound. Also nu-
merous are declarations of loyalty to the beloved native land, like: “To
you have we sworn we shall defend / All within you fully / O homeland,
we shall defend / So long as blood flows through our veins.”79
Personification of the homeland also stands out in Sabra texts. The
homeland is likened to a mother or a lover—imageries whose source is
European and which characterized the works of the Second and Third
Aliyot poets. One Sabra wrote: “Please stretch out your hand / O Mother-
land / Hold us close / Strongly / And we, your builders, your sons / To
whom suffering is known / Those who hate you we know / To repel.”80
Or, in the passionate lyrics of a lover: “My love, my homeland / I admire
all in you / Of homelands the smallest / For you my arms have strained /
My blood and my vigor are my gifts for you.”81
Comparing such compositions with the Bible’s Song of Songs is un-
avoidable. It should be recalled that the Song of Songs was interpreted
by the sages—even if their interpretation was forced—as a love song
between the Jewish people and their God. Certainly, the erotic meta-
phors of the writings point to the Sabra’s deep emotional attachment to
his country.
The Sabras’ written language is full of pioneer words and slogans.
“Privilege,” “homeland,” “we shall be worthy,” “the greatness of the
hour,” “it has fallen as the fate of our generation,” “the people Israel,”
and other such expressions are common—especially in the pieces writ-
ten for the newsletters of the kibbutz youth societies and youth move-
ment chapter houses. Yet they also appear in letters and in birthday cards.
This idealistic and patriotic vocabulary, full of explicit and implicit
exclamation points, is most notable in the many poems published by
Sabras in literary periodicals and youth movement newsletters, or found
in drawers and knapsacks after the deaths of the authors and then pub-
lished in private memorial booklets and in Scrolls of Fire. In fact, the
very inclination of the Sabras to write poetry testifies to the idealistic fire
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 63
Idealistic Euphoria :: 63
that burned in their chests. Pioneer coinages are indeed common in many
Sabra poems, and the Sabras seem not to have declaimed such expres-
sions merely by rote, but rather to have used them in outbursts of senti-
ment, as from believers’ hearts overflowing with waters from the spring
of faith. Clearly, not only the high language of these ideological messages
but also their emotional content was instilled in the Sabras and, it may
be said, became part of the language of the Sabra soul.
Spurring readers to action for the nation is also common in Sabra texts,
especially those written by counselors and commanders. Sometimes these
have the character of revivalist calls patched together from the usual Zion-
ist slogans. They contain the guidance and direction of those who have
seen the light of the (Zionist) faith and wish to pass it on to others, or
of those who feel obligated to impel others to follow in their footsteps.
A soldier wrote in a letter to his friend: “I hope that you, too, will join
those who will make up the ranks of the fighters. Remember always, that
there is no heroism—there is only the national duty. Goodbye!”82
Reproof and chastisement are directed at those whose ideological faith
has become a bit weak (these are not, of course, cases of apostasy but
only signs of indifference, or “low spirits”—such as anxiety and melan-
choly). Such words appear in some of the letters to the newsletters and
periodicals and also in more personal letters. For example, a Sabra re-
buked his girlfriend, apparently for having expressed sadness at his ab-
sence, because weakness did not befit the hour:
It is not right at all that you are feeling bad. You need to know how to con-
trol yourself. I must tell you that even I have felt bad, but now, since the mat-
ters with the Arabs began, that is, since the Hebrew state came into being,
there is no place for feeling bad. I know and understand that my place now
is not at home, but in the place they determine for me, and I must not make
special requests or complain. It seems to me that you should also feel as I do.
It is necessary, necessary that I not be at home, even if it is hard, even if it is
very hard.83
The letters also reveal the authors’ feeling that theirs is a momentous
era and that it is their great privilege to live in such times. “Sons are we
to a savage storm / A stage on which a land will form / In days of dread
and winds that rage / We are born—this is the age,”84 says one writer,
and another reflects: “When I think of the years that have gone by, of
the years that are to come, and of the present era that I live in, pride
flashes within me for being privileged to live in this time.”85
One of the linguistic codes that testifies to the sense of intoxication
and the idealistic enthusiasm and commitment that characterized the
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 64
64 :: Idealistic Euphoria
Sabras is the different forms of the word hagshama, as both a noun and
a verb, that appear again and again in Sabra writings. Translated from
the German word for a concept adopted from German culture, hag-
shama 86 carried a much larger set of connotations than its simple dic-
tionary definition—“realization” or “consummation”—would imply. It
functioned as a common code expressing idealistic commitment and the
emotional satisfaction of fulfilling a mission. It combined the realization
of a dream or ideal, that is, the actualization of a utopian idea, with self-
realization or self-actualization—a melding of the individual and public
domains. For the Sabras, hagshama was transformed from an abstract
noun to a concrete noun referring to specific actions, as if the action it-
self (joining an agricultural settlement) and the content of that action
(hagshama) had become one. This unification of action and meaning was
so routine that no one gave it any thought. The Sabra would say, “I am
going to hagshama,” just as he might say, “I am going to Haifa.”
striving to surpass
the pioneers’ expectations
Many Sabra fighters, especially those from kibbutzim and moshavim, ex-
press in their letters a strong identification with the world of their par-
ents, teachers, and leaders, and an admiration for the generation of the
founders. This is especially notable in the letters of the sons and students
of pioneer leaders.
Most of the letters to parents that were published in memorial an-
thologies and preserved in archives were written with great seriousness
and high pathos. This style derives, very likely, from the distance between
parents and children that was the norm at that time. But there seems to
be something else as well—a desire not to disappoint the parents, to meet
their high expectations in everything connected to what was dearest to
them—hagshama. A characteristic example is a letter written by Chaim
Ben Dor, then fourteen years old—a city child who had been sent to
school at Kibbutz Yagur:
Dear Parents!
I am proud that I am already an adult. I am fully alive, happy and joyous, sad
and depressed from different things. I feel happy that the yoke of the general
good has been laid on me, or more precisely, that I have placed the yoke of
the general good on my own back and bear it. And I scorn, as it were, or pity
my friends who are older than me and do not sense how much young people
need energy and desire to bear the yoke. For me, happiness is concern, not
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 65
Idealistic Euphoria :: 65
unconcern. Perhaps in the course of time the concern will be difficult, but
now . . . I desire, as they say, to put myself at the service of my people and
land and the world and the workers and everything, so that I can fix and re-
new things.87
Many of the Sabras express in their writings the sense that the previ-
ous generation is putting them to a great test. They aspire with all their
souls and might not only to avoid disappointing their parents and to meet
the test, but also to exceed their expectations. The explanation for this
lies again in the similarity between total ideology and religion. In the ide-
ological system, as in the religious system, the son turning away from
his parents’ values is not interpreted as excessive independence or toler-
able rebelliousness, but as a serious emotional wound to the parents—
as if spitting into the well from which they have given him water to drink
each day. Every parent has great hopes that his child will aspire to and
realize his expectations; but in the framework of a religion—and what
we have here, it should be remembered, is a secular religion—founded
on a rigid and conservative system of values, the expectations may well
be stronger and so may be passed on to the child in a more assertive way.
Religious parents want their child to follow in their footsteps and thus
implicitly validate and confirm their own path in life. The Sabra children
responded to this expectation with all their heart.
66 :: Idealistic Euphoria
Idealistic Euphoria :: 67
home and kin. This feeling was magnified because there were women in
the combat units on or near the front line, which constantly reminded the
soldiers that this was the fight of an entire nation and that their families
were close by. Many engagements were fought near or in settlements in
Galilee and the Negev and on the streets of many towns and cities, such
as Haifa, Safed, Acre, Jerusalem, and Jaffa. The Sabra was fighting not on
a distant front or in unknown terrain but within his familiar landscape,
and the reason he was fighting was very clear and concrete.
The awareness among the young commanders that they were fighting
a defensive war to save their own homes was no doubt one of the rea-
sons for the great popularity of the book Panpilov’s Men, which por-
trays the dogged Russian defense of Leningrad.91 We may assume that
this feeling was also the source of the Israeli army’s official name, the
“Israel Defense Forces.”
68 :: Idealistic Euphoria
examples of this. Nachman Raz of Kibbutz Geva told me that during the
war the leaders of his youth movement pleaded with him to continue to
work as a counselor in the Ha-Machanot Ha-Olim movement in Tel Aviv.
But being in the rear when so many were fighting, even though he was
performing a mission important to his movement and to the nation,
caused him great embarrassment and distress, and this only became worse
after the war ended. He was especially bothered by the fact that his
charges fought and were even killed while he remained in Tel Aviv. “For
many years,” he related, “I bore in my heart a sense of shame and dep-
rivation and found myself apologizing again and again—even though I
had no real reason to do so—to those younger than me.” Tzipi Dagan,
of the Regavim hachshara, related that during the war she worked with
members of the group on weapons manufacture. Even though she knew
that their work contributed to the war effort, and even though she and
her friends worked under extremely harsh conditions and with great ded-
ication, for years after the war ended she dreaded to tell people what she
had done and was ashamed to admit that she had not been in one of the
units fighting at the front.
As in every society fighting for its very existence, great renumerations
were awarded in the coin of personal prestige for actions taken for the
general good—especially when they involved sacrifice and risk, while
condemnation of and contempt for those who avoided national service
reached high levels. The natural inclination to seek prestige and social
recognition was channeled in altruistic directions—particularly toward
taking part and excelling in battle. Military volunteerism thus rose not
only out of idealism but also out of the aspiration to enter the social tra-
jectory that would bring the highest reward. This aspiration became much
more intense after the founding of the state and of the IDF.
The combination of the sense of duty to excel in public service (pri-
marily in the military) and the desire to win the recognition of the com-
munity is characteristic of charismatic Sabra figures of the memorial an-
thologies, such as Jimmy the Palmachnik and the early paratroopers
Yermi Bardenov and Gulliver. The wish to take part in every combat ac-
tion, not to miss any excitement, and to receive the most dangerous and
challenging combat assignment was common to the biographies of many
Sabra fighters, especially the commanders, even in later generations.
Many are described as battle-hungry, huddling in their coats next to the
unit headquarters waiting for an assignment. This is especially notable
in the early 1950s, with the beginning of the retaliation operations com-
manded by Ariel Sharon. So badly did they want to participate in the
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 69
Idealistic Euphoria :: 69
“male experience” that brought them prestige that sometimes they took
turns: “If you were on one operation, then you had to give up your place
in the next operation to your comrade.”92
The idealism of the Sabra reached its height during the War of Indepen-
dence. By 25 June 1948 a total of 1,432 Jewish soldiers had fallen in the
war. Of these, 451, or 31.5 percent, were from the Palmach, yet the Pal-
mach’s manpower in that period comprised no more than 20 percent of
the total forces of the Haganah and the IDF.93 In the end, one out of every
four fighters who fell during the war were from the Palmach, and 3,000
Palmachniks were wounded. Among the IDF commanders, most of whom
matched the Sabra profile, the proportion of casualties was even higher.
The high number of casualties gave a dark cast to the letters sent home
from the front by Sabra fighters. The sense that death was lurking every-
where also appears in their diaries and even in the poems found among
their papers. One of them secretly wrote:
It is so clear that I will see the end:
The dawn will smile (it always smiles, each day),
But what of that, if I now imagine
It telling me hello a final time?
The dawn is smiling and it seems to me,
Is it so very horrible to die?94
Even though the soldiers knew they had every chance of dying, fear of
losing their lives did not affect their willingness to continue to bear the
yoke, as is evidenced by a letter from a soldier to his girlfriend:
Today—our role in life demands of us complete willingness to give up our
lives. . . . Your letter took me out of my mood of accepting the necessity of
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 70
70 :: Idealistic Euphoria
dying. I will try to overcome the yearning for life that your letters awaken in
me. But today the thought of life and the fear of death are, in my opinion,
luxuries that we cannot afford.
The very appearance of this letter in the Palmach newsletter during the
war testifies that it reflects that generation’s attitude toward death. A cer-
tain resignation to death is evident not only in what is included in the
Sabra letters but also in what is absent from them. Nowhere in the in-
ternal publications, the diaries, or the letters—even the most personal
ones, which were not published in the memorial anthologies—did I find
any challenge by the Sabras to the horrible personal price they had to
pay, nor any reservations about the meaning of life in a “land that de-
vours its young people.”97 On the contrary, when the cost in blood is
mentioned, it is described not as meaningless, the result of blind fate, but
as the price to be paid for a higher purpose.
Even when death struck mercilessly at family, acquaintances, and
friends, the firm Zionist faith of the fighting Sabra was not shaken. A
letter written by a member of an agricultural training group to her par-
ents about the death of her boyfriend in battle does not remonstrate at
her bitter fate, but rather bolsters the spirits of her parents and comforts
them. This phenomenon of comforting and encouraging parents appears
again and again in the letters:
Is all well with you? It is hard for me to write because the pain has not left
my heart, and my soul still bewails the catastrophe that has befallen us. Have
you heard? Our Yehudele has fallen. . . . I still do not know all the details.
But one thing is clear to me: Yehuda died a hero’s death and knew why he
went and to what he devoted all his strength and energy. . . . My dear par-
ents, the loss is difficult for all of us, but for me doubly—and I have one re-
quest of you: be strong and do not cry much. He was one of many and the
role he filled requires us to continue to follow in his footsteps. Be strong and
of good courage! See, this is the request of your daughter, whose boyfriend
it was who fell.98
Clearly, for the Sabra, martyrdom for the homeland was parallel, in
many ways, to martyrdom for God. The demand to make a sacrifice,
even of one’s life, for saving the nation was considered a legitimate de-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 71
Idealistic Euphoria :: 71
mand, and combat service was considered not only a duty but a great
privilege. “I think that all who were with us that night on Mt. Canaan
will never forget us,” said Elad Peled of the conquest of Safed:
That Friday night, the fifteenth of April 1948, when the entire company stood
for inspection under the spotlights in the large cinema auditorium, I walked
along and selected the thirty-five men who would set out with me a short time
later to besieged Safed. All of us knew, even though we did not say it out loud,
that there was a chance that we would never return. Nevertheless, I will never
forget the gazes of the company’s soldiers as I walked past them to decide “he
will go” or “he will not go.” I am sure that many of those whom I did not
choose have never forgiven me. The initiative, the volunteerism, even at the
price of death, was an unquestioned rule of behavior.99
The scribbled wills that many fallen soldiers left in envelopes addressed
to their parents, girlfriends, or wives, inscribed “to be opened if I do not
return,” tell the story of the young fighters’ complete willingness to pay
the highest price and to go toward their deaths with complete resigna-
tion and without protest. One of the wills reads: “My going was neces-
sary and inevitable; I did not go at the behest of outsiders but consciously,
myself. After all, it was you who educated me to this. . . . To suffer? No
matter. To die? No matter.”100
These wills very likely created a social dynamic of their own and en-
couraged other Sabras to leave such notes in the same spirit to their loved
ones. The most famous will of this type was found among the papers of
Noam Grossman. He wrote: “. . . my salary and the compensation my
family receives—for the establishment of a fund to buy rifles for the or-
ganization. . . . Do not eulogize me—I did my duty!”101 The simple
words, expressing devotion and humility, were quoted several times by
eulogizers in memorial anthologies, and by Zionist leaders, including Ben-
Gurion. Grossman’s words were perceived as a continuation of Trumpel-
dor’s renowned “It is good to die for our country.” They became a sym-
bol of the Sabra generation’s unreserved loyalty and represented the
passing of the torch of heroism from the first to the second generation.
The death of friends reinforced the Zionist ideal by making it a matter
of conscience for those remaining to continue to bear the yoke—to pre-
serve the values for which blood was let and young lives cut off.
Zionist idealism and patriotism were not hurt by the deaths of the
fighters, but actually became stronger and more determined. This dialectic
of loss exists in many religions, including Judaism. In the Kaddish me-
morial prayer recited over the open grave, the mourners do not lash out
at God but rather praise him—“May his great name be magnified and
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 72
72 :: Idealistic Euphoria
sanctified.” In this way, the Jewish religion turns a purposeless and mean-
ingless death (and every death, when it comes down to it, is meaning-
less) into something meaningful, something that brings psychological
healing to the family of the dead person. Similarly, the idealism of the
Zionist religion served as a mechanism of comfort, mostly via the cul-
ture of memorialization. Faith in the Zionist destiny granted meaning to
random and cruel death in battle. The soldiers died in the name of Zion-
ist ideals, and at the same time the ideal endowed death with moral value.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 73
chapter 2
73
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 74
we gain the Land of Israel, our homeland,” Theodor Herzl wrote, “since
Zionism, as I conceive it, is not only the aspiration for a free and safe
refuge for our poor nation, but also includes the aspiration for moral
and spiritual perfection.”2 Many leaders of the Zionist movement con-
curred. “Our enterprise is not solely a national enterprise,” Nachman
Syrkin wrote, for example. “We wish to revive the Jewish people and es-
tablish, in the Holy Land, a high place for the entire human race.”3
Among the pioneers of the Second and Third Aliyot, who adhered to
the vision of a socialist utopia, the ideal of an exemplary Jewish society
had a concrete meaning—the creation of a just society based on the Marx-
ist principles of equality and brotherhood. Both openly and by implica-
tion, their writings express the feeling that they were a small band of the
elect who had been granted enlightenment and who had taken it upon
themselves to lead a historic social revolution. “From our very begin-
nings the awareness throbbed within us that we were the emissaries of
a poor nation. . . ,” wrote Berl Katznelson. “We believed that the labor
movement was created for great things; we felt the wind of greatness and
learned to extend lines that linked the smallest of our actions to the great-
est ones in the distance.”4 The term “pioneer” itself, perhaps more than
other terms, expressed the elitist identity of the Zionist settlers.
This sense of social superiority particularly permeated the kibbutz
movement, which considered itself the leading cultural force in the Yishuv
and a form of society that, while not great in numbers, was superior to
every other society known to mankind. The kibbutz practice of docu-
menting every last detail of the community’s life, the intensive preoccu-
pation with community history, the glorification of the achievements of
the founders and their children, the common use of the first-person plu-
ral (“our farm,” “our children”), all testified to the movement’s sense of
purpose and perception of its own uniqueness.
The belief that the Jews were a chosen people and that this status had
enabled them to survive the tribulations of their history was inculcated into
the Sabra’s education. From preschool through grade school, in the youth
movements, and during military service, the Sabra was taught the myth of
chosenness. Through textbooks, stories, and songs he learned to see him-
self as the scion of an ancient, exceptional nation whose story was etched
in the pages of human history. The author of one textbook, Figures and
Events in Our History, wrote in the first chapter, “The Eternal People”:
The existence of the Hebrew nation throughout the generations is one of the
wonders of human history. We are members of the eternal people. Egypt, As-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 75
syria, and Babylonia, the Canaanites, Tyre and Sidon, Persia and Media,
Greece and Rome—all the ancient peoples of great repute who gloried in their
power are lost and gone, but our nation endured seven circles of agony in the
shadow of three powers and remains young. . . . The history of our people
shines with deeds and creativity that give it a place of honor in the commu-
nity of nations. The Hebrew nation was more wondrous in ancient days than
all the nations that encompassed it.5
The effects of this education were soon felt. The idea that the Jewish
people were a chosen people, destined to be a light to all nations, pene-
trated deeply into the hearts of the young and took up residence there,
as can be seen in their compositions and letters. For example, a student
at the Herzliya Gymnasium wrote:
For this is the nation that has produced great heroes, zealous for freedom,
and from whom rose prophets who prophesied the rule of justice and hon-
esty in the world—because this nation is a heroic and noble nation and only
the bitter and harsh life of Exile debased it, and this nation is still destined to
be a light unto the nations. As the prophet said: “For out of Zion will go forth
Torah, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”6
The socialist Zionism of the labor parties, in whose doctrine the chil-
dren of the agricultural settlements and the socialist youth movements
were educated, taught the younger generation to see itself as an elite. The
labor Zionist ideal was presented as a new model of Jewish excellence
and as a social utopia that should serve as a prototype for others. The
children of the settlements learned to perceive their lives as the realiza-
tion of a sublime ideal of equality and concern for their fellow men, and
to see themselves as members of a priestly caste meant to set an exam-
ple for the Yishuv and for the entire world. This education produced a
class snobbery that will be discussed later.
The Jewish struggle against the Arabs, especially in the War of Inde-
pendence and the Sinai Campaign, reinforced the myth of the chosen
people in the Israeli public consciousness and in particular among the
Sabras—just as it reinforced the myth of redemption. The victories over
an enemy superior in arms and in numbers (or at least so it was perceived)
confirmed the moral and qualitative preeminence of the Jewish people
and as much as declared that “we are indeed foremost.”
The links between religion and holy war, militarism and messianism,
and victory and the tribal cult are ancient ones. Victory in war has al-
ways been considered a concrete expression of the superiority of the vic-
tor’s faith and community. The triumph of the conquerors was proof
of the power of their patron saint. So too, Israel’s victories also received
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 76
Zionism may have been founded primarily to solve the problem of anti-
Semitism, but it also grew out of the envy of the gentiles that developed
among European Jews during the Enlightenment era, when contacts be-
tween Jews and non-Jews became more extensive. The gentile seemed to
live an uncomplicated, unsophisticated life that held great appeal for the
Jew.7
A corollary of this envy was the rejection of the figure of the Dias-
pora Jew,8 a rejection sometimes so strong that, paradoxically, it resem-
bled anti-Semitic characterizations of Jews. Traditional religions often
create and then vilify a stereotype of values they reject. The religion’s
sense of superiority is based in part on the condemnation of the “other”—
the other generally being heretics or the strongest rival religion. National
religions are no different. In the South African national religion, for ex-
ample, the “other” was black, whereas in the Japanese national religion
it was the white race and in the American civil religion it was the Com-
munist.9 So also, the repudiation of the Diaspora and the Diaspora way
of life, and especially the stereotyping of the Diaspora Jew, indirectly
sharpened the boundaries of the Zionist national religion and stressed
its superiority over traditional Jewish religion.
The forceful rejection of Diaspora culture in order to underscore the
superiority of pioneer-Zionist culture is a phenomenon that recalls, in
its sociological characteristics, the process that took place between an-
cient Judaism and Christianity, which grew out of and rejected Judaism.
Indeed, as the institutional and spiritual roots of the Zionist religion in
Palestine reached deeper, the negation of the Diaspora became more in-
tense. This peaked in the 1930s and 1940s. The common use of the term
“Diaspora” (which implied that all the world’s Jews were a single en-
tity, without any differences from country to country) in the Yishuv pe-
riod was the most obvious sign of the conceptual distinction between
Zionist Jews living in Palestine and the reprehensible Jews who preferred
to live in other countries.
At the center of the anti-Diaspora ethos (which has been widely de-
scribed and analyzed in the research literature in recent years) was a moral
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 77
distinction between the Diaspora Jew and the new Jew—the Israeli Jew.
This distinction found symbolic linguistic expression in the Yishuv pe-
riod in the term “Hebrew” (which was really a synonym for “Zionist”)
and, after the state was founded, in the term “Israeli.”10
The view that a new and improved breed of Jew had been born in
Palestine was also a tool of Zionist propaganda and was deployed by
the Yishuv in the Zionist organizations in the Diaspora, especially in East-
ern Europe. When Nachman Raz, a young Sabra and one of the leaders
of Ha-Noar Ha-Oved, was sent by his movement to an international con-
ference of socialist youth movements held in Poland in 1948, his Jewish
hosts there were in awe. Everyone was dazzled at the appearance of this
representative of the new breed—a Palestinian Jew. In his journal he
wrote:
Our appearance here was for them a surprise and elicited great interest, es-
pecially after they learned that we are not just “regular” people from the
Yishuv but “native-born.” . . . They looked at us as if we were people not from
this world. By the way, we ran into this everywhere among the Jews of Poland.
When we were asked how many years we had been in Palestine and our an-
swer was, of course, “we were born there,” mouths would gape and people
would stare at us in wonder.11
anti-diaspora education
demning the Jews as passive victims. One scholar of these textbooks notes
that they are remarkable “in the tone of open contempt of the descrip-
tions of the pogroms, to the point that it seems as if the writers identify
with the aggressor more than with the victim.”14 “The chapters describing
the pogroms,” she adds, “create the impression that the writers believed
that the Jews of the Diaspora were punished justly for their refusal to
acknowledge the truth of Zionism, and they reverberate with the Yishuv’s
disappointment over the lack of response from Diaspora Jewry to Zion-
ism’s call to settle in Palestine.”15
Contempt for the “Jewboys of the Diaspora,” who were described as
simple-minded villagers, was steadily fed into Sabra consciousness. The
Sabra was educated to see himself as the opposite of the stereotypical
Diaspora Jew—as belonging to a better breed of Jews, as a prince of the
new Israeli kingdom. He was imbued with the sense that history had as-
signed him a decisive role in the realization of utopia: the creation of the
genius of the new Jew. Admired from all sides, the Sabra assimilated this
mythological image of a “more successful Jew,” and this reinforced his
self-confidence and especially the superior and patronizing attitude he
developed toward the Diaspora Jews and toward the new immigrant who
had just come from the Diaspora and so still stood for the old Jew.
The Zionists greatly admired the physical beauty of the native, the “Jew-
ish gentile” who had been anointed king of the new Israel, and they con-
trasted him with the ostensible ugliness of the Diaspora Jew. This adu-
lation was evident even during the First Aliya period. Writers of that
era—Ze’ev Yavetz, Hemdat Ben-Yehuda, Yehoshua Barzilai Eisenstat—
described the native as a robust youth with “gentile” characteristics, a
kind of Jewish muzhik, or Russian peasant—strapping, self-confident,
and strong-spirited, as opposed to the stereotypical Diaspora Jew, who
was pale, soft, servile, and cowardly.
Especially prominent in descriptions of the native are his masculine
vitality and health and his alienation from Judaism. The criteria are
European-Christian ones, which have their source in ancient Greece and
Rome: a body that is slender, lithe, sturdy, suntanned, and tall, with a
long neck, a head crowned with hair, high cheekbones, a turned-up nose
(in contrast to what the anti-Semites called a “Jewish nose”), and a clean-
shaven face with Slavic contours (the beard being a Jewish trademark).
As early as 1899, Shaul Chernikovsky used the terms of Hellenistic mas-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 79
culine beauty to express this Hebrew ideal in his poem “In the Presence
of the Statue of Apollo.”16 The poems of Uri Zvi Greenberg, Alexander
Pen, and S. Shalom also portrayed the new Hebrew in the vocabulary of
“gentile” male virility and as “the prime human product” of Zionism.
The male beauty attributed to the hero of the mythical culture of the
Land of Israel was also characteristic of the heroes of other national re-
ligions, such as the German, the Italian, the Soviet, the Japanese, and
the American. This standard of beauty is especially notable in the visual
arts. In posters and notices put out by the national institutions in Pales-
tine in the 1930s, and in the work of graphic artists, painters, and pho-
tographers of the Fifth Aliya, which brought many artists to Palestine,
the Sabras are generally sturdy, handsome, and erect men. The image was
first modeled after Soviet propaganda posters, which portrayed a stereo-
typical muscular Soviet laborer; later inspiration was also drawn from
Hollywood’s leading men, such as Gary Cooper, John Wayne, and Johnny
Weismuller.17
Envy of the gentiles, the desire to look like them, and the aspiration
to produce a new breed of Jew in Palestine were the basis for the great
amount of attention the founding generation gave to the physical ap-
pearance of the Sabra. So, for example, writes Ya’akov Cohen:
Many of the elements of our aspiration of seeing a new kind of Jew in our
land have been realized in part by [the Sabra]. Your first glance when you
meet a young native-born man will reveal a flourishing, muscular, tall body.
The hunched back and the bent gait that many scholars have identified as al-
most racial trademarks seem to have vanished, and the anxiety and fear of
the “gentiles” and the feeling of inadequacy and inferiority that were the lot
of the young Jew in the Diaspora seem to have been pulled out by the roots.18
For the pioneers, the difference between the physical appearance, ac-
cent, conversational style, and mode of dress of the first and the second
generations was proof of the successful Jewish metamorphosis that had
occurred in Palestine. It was a source of great pleasure to them. “I would
watch him from the side and think: That’s it! Something both new and
ancient is emerging, a pure Hebrew type of primeval days,” a pioneer
wrote in a memorial book for a young man born at Kibbutz Ein Harod.
“There was not a trace of the Diaspora in his character. He was like a
clod of the homeland’s earth in which the fertile forces of abundance are
inherent. What perfection and individuality!”19
The photographs of the fighters—male and female—that appeared in
the memorial literature, the daily press, the periodicals, and the albums
were generally of the most handsome and best-built Sabras. These along
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 80
with verbal depictions made beauty (largely male beauty) into a princi-
pal motif in the mythological image of the Sabra for the generations that
followed as well.
This is the place to clarify a fundamental point regarding the Sabra’s
physical image. Of course this adulation of the younger generation was
partially idealization. The influence of anti-Diaspora stereotypes and the
fantasies of the founding generation are evident. But there was also some
truth in the distinction between the typical young man of the Yishuv and
the typical young Jew of Eastern Europe. Many Sabras, especially those
from kibbutzim and moshavim, were raised in a rural environment and
in an open educational system that allowed and even encouraged out-
door activity and sports. Their physiques were built up through these
activities and through the hard labor of farming, in which they partici-
pated from a young age, as well as by the military training that many
underwent. Their active lifestyle and physical uninhibitedness (expressed
in the way they dressed—undershirts and bare feet) were fundamentally
different from the passivity and physical introversion that characterized
the Eastern European yeshiva student. The nutrition received by young
natives was also different from Eastern European food—there was less
meat and an abundance of fruits, vegetables, and dairy products. All this
had a physical effect and in fact created, to a large extent, a new “breed”
of young and sturdy youths.
Intuition suggests—and photographs seem to confirm—that while the
image of the rugged pioneer was inspired by socialist realism, the im-
age of the Sabra was based in part on the actual appearance of the new
generation. Well-known Sabra figures, such as Yigal Allon, Yitzchak Ra-
bin, Avraham Eden, David Elazar, and Chaim Bar-Lev—all of them later
generals in the Israeli army—indeed fit the often-repeated but difficult-
to-translate line in “The Song of Friendship”: they were yifei ha-blorit
ve-ha-to’ar—“of handsome forelocks and countenance.” They, too, had
Slavic features, but with the unique shadings of the Land of Israel.
The differences between the Sabra and the young Eastern European
Jew were indeed natural and universal, the result of different conditions,
even if the pioneers gave them mythic dimensions.
should be considered against the backdrop of the cult of youth that char-
acterized the Yishuv and early state periods. This cult was inspired by
European nationalism, which flourished at the end of the nineteenth and
the beginning of the twentieth centuries and reached its height with the
rise of Fascism. The rebellion against the feudal, aristocratic, and monar-
chic past in Europe was indirectly a rebellion against an autocratic es-
tablishment associated with images of dynasties and degenerate elders.
Nationalism gave a figurative kick to this world of the “elders” and em-
phasized the future. The young person symbolized the new blood that
was being infused into the social system—the freshness of modernity; the
optimism, effervescence, and dynamism of the technological-industrial
world; and especially, the quickened pulse of the renewed nation. The
mythical cultural heroes of the new world were rejuvenated; the Her-
culeses and Apollos shunted the Platos off the stage.
The influence of the European cult of youth was conspicuous from
the very beginning of Zionist settlement in Palestine, and with the birth
of the second generation it gained force. Youthful figures were empha-
sized in art and in literature, and great attention was given to the edu-
cation of the younger generation (for example, the establishment of youth
movements and other organizations for young people). Adulatory ex-
pressions were used to describe the young people—the “youth of the
dream” and the “wonder youth.” There were public discussions, arti-
cles, seminars, and conferences on the “youth of the future” and the “state
of youth,” “youth values,” and “the education of youth.” The word
“youth,” in all its Hebrew variations, was omnipresent.
The cult of youth was influenced not only by European nationalist
culture but also by Communism’s spirit of social revolution. Soviet youth
represented the blank social page that had been opened by the revolu-
tion and the liberated “new man” who was born of the revolution. Much
the same was true in Zionism. As Herzl wrote in 1901, “Join together,
young men. We need you. You must be strong and upstanding. We need
your strength and your knowledge. ‘Jewish boys’ was until now an in-
sult. Turn that around. Make it into a name of honor.”20 For this same
reason, many Zionist organizations and publications in Palestine and else-
where added the adjective “young” (tza’ir) to their names: The Young
Person’s Newspaper (Iton Ha-Tza’ir ), the Young Guard (Ha-Shomer Ha-
Tza’ir), the Young Maccabees (Makabi Ha-Tza’ir), the Young Workers
(Ha-Po’el Ha-Tza’ir), the Youth of Zion (Tze’iri Tzion), the Young Cit-
izen (Ha-Ezrach Ha-Tza’ir).
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 82
The admiration for youth was also inspired by the cult of fallen war
heroes that sprouted in Europe out of the compost of the vast killing
fields of World War I. The lithe, muscular young person, full of fight-
ing spirit, symbolized perfect humanity. “Dripping with the dew of He-
brew youth,”21 wrote Natan Alterman of the young Hebrew men and
women who presented the nation its independence “on a silver tray.”
Notably, the Sabras themselves fostered the image of the vibrant youth,
identifying with their role as Zionism’s “favorite sons” and wanting to
create a clear distinction between themselves and the older political lead-
ership. This was expressed, for example, in the epithet “the old man”—
first applied to Yitzchak Sadeh (who was only in his fifties at the time)
and then to Ben-Gurion.
The protagonists of Pack of Lies—Fat Chaim, Abed, Little Samuch
and Big Samuch, Jory, Benny, Ofer, Pishke, Sad Nissan, Abu-Lish’s
brother—as well as the protagonists of Puchu’s popular book A Gang
Like This, published in the 1950s, were all wild young people—children
dressed up as soldiers and soldiers dressed as children. The works of Sabra
writers made frequent use of words that emphasize youth, as in Shmuel
Bas’s song, popular in the youth movements: “Sing, Youth, the Song of
Our Future.”
ten from her base in Egypt. Even though she already knew something of
the dimensions of the catastrophe, she wrote:
Every time I think about the murder of the Jews a horrible trembling runs
through my entire body, and I frequently think of it. But it does not pursue
me every day, perhaps because I don’t actually know anyone there. But there
are so many of our people in the [Jewish] Brigade, and people that I know,
and I write to many of them and just think of them all the time. Aside from
that, Chaim, how many of those Jews who were murdered could have come
to Palestine and did not because they wanted a more comfortable life? Who
knows, maybe it is their punishment. When it comes down to it, Chaim, who-
ever wants to come to Palestine, nothing stands in his way, and I don’t think
I need to tell you that, right?23
This insensitivity, which has its base in the anti-Diaspora ethos, was
expressed in the letters of Yishuv volunteers in the British army who en-
countered Holocaust survivors. The general impression given by the let-
ters is that despite a sense of a common fate with the survivors and real
pain at the horrible suffering of European Jewry, there was no deep psy-
chological trauma, as the dimensions of the catastrophe demanded.
Instead, there was fairly restrained pity and empathy, sometimes accom-
panied by a pinch of embarrassment, suspicion, arrogance, or the conde-
scension of the proud soldier toward the “displaced persons,” “refugees,”
or “lost souls,” as they were called by the Yishuv. The letter writers de-
vote few words to the atrocities—perhaps in part because they were ac-
customed to keeping their feelings inside, and perhaps because of difficul-
ties in communicating with the survivors. They evince little interest in
the personalities of the Jewish refugees they met or in the hellish agonies
suffered in the death camps.
In the newsletters put out by the Jewish soldiers in the British army (Ha-
Chayyal Ha-Ivri and Ba-Ma’avak) one finds but a weak echo of the Jew-
ish tragedy, the emphasis being instead on the actions of the Yishuv fighters.
The very fact that the Jewish Brigade’s encounter with the survivors had
only minor reverberations in the Yishuv and none in the Sabra writings
published after World War II testifies to how cool the encounter was.
For the veteran members of the Yishuv, the catastrophe in Europe made
all the more stark the differences between the Diaspora Jew, who was
ostensibly led “like a lamb to the slaughter,” and the new Jew, the pio-
neer and Sabra, a proud and self-respecting Jew who heroically with-
stood the nation’s enemies and even defeated them.24 The view that if
the Jews of the Diaspora had done as their brothers in Palestine did they
would have not been slaughtered, or would have at least “died with
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 84
honor” as the ghetto rebels did, was expressed by many Yishuv leaders.25
“Had the entire Diaspora been taught to stand up in this way, perhaps
they would have changed something, saved something, at least their honor
and self-worth,” said Yitzchak Tabenkin at a youth convention in
1943.26 The subject of “loss of honor” was of great importance to the
Sabras. The Jews in the Diaspora had not acted honorably, and the sub-
liminal message given to the young people of the Yishuv was: “We ex-
pect you to act differently.” In his speech at a Ha-Noar Ha-Oved con-
vention in July 1943 in Tel Aviv, Tabenkin told his attentive audience:
“And I want to say to the convention of Ha-Noar Ha-Oved, to which
young people have come from the city and the moshava and from the
farm, from kibbutzim and moshavim: Do you hear? They have called on
you to stand up till the end for the honor of the remnant of the Jews. . . .
What is Jewish honor? War for the land.”27 This expectation that the
Sabras should reinstate the Jewish honor that had been sullied by the
Holocaust was of great importance in motivating the fighting Sabra in
the War of Independence.
The distinction between the heroic and honorable death of the He-
brew and the shameful death of the Diaspora Jew was expressed in veiled
terms. Those killed in the Holocaust were said to have “perished,” while
Jews who died fighting in Palestine had “fallen.”
A prominent vehicle for pointing out the differences between Dias-
pora and new Jews was the myth of the Jewish partisans, which became
an important part of school Holocaust Day ceremonies. (Teachers and
pupils alike were especially fond of “The Song of the Partisans” and “The
Song of the Rebellion.”) This myth was born after several of the ghetto
rebel leaders came to Palestine—Abba Kovner in 1945, Tzivia Lubetkin
in 1946, and Yitzchak “Antek” Zuckerman in 1947. Their speeches at
conferences of Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Me’uchad were emotional affairs. They
brought out the distinction between Holocaust and heroism and sharp-
ened the ignominious image of the “Jew who dug his own grave,” “who
did not rise up with the shovel that was in his hands to strike at the Ger-
man’s head.”28
Ostensibly, the myth of the partisans was meant to laud the heroism
of the Jews who had rebelled against the Nazis, and thus contradict the
charge of Diaspora spinelessness. But a close look at the elements of the
myth shows that it in fact reinforced the distinction between the deaths
of Jews in Europe and the deaths of Jews in Palestine and, indirectly, the
distinction between “Diaspora” and “Hebrew” personalities. This dis-
tinction was made in three ways.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 85
First, the partisans and the Warsaw ghetto fighters were presented—
especially in textbooks—as exceptions that proved the rule and com-
pensated for the actions of the majority.29 The myth of the partisans bore
the subliminal message that it was possible to act differently. The active
rebellion of the minority underscored the passivity of the majority of
Jews. “The victory in the ghetto, the victory of the Jewish person, was
to die with honor, weapon in hand, and not as sheep led to the slaugh-
ter,” said the order of the day issued to the Palmach’s soldiers on the fifth
anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising.30
Second, the partisans and ghetto fighters were depicted as having acted
differently from the typical Diaspora Jew because they had adopted the
Zionist ethos and Zionist values of active defense. They were compared
to Trumpeldor, Dani Mas, and other Yishuv heroes. (This was made eas-
ier by the fact that most of the ghetto rebels were in fact members of
youth movements.) Palmach corporal Elad Peled wrote toward the end
of 1945:
I see before my eyes the beaten Jewish child, the tortured woman, and the
cowardly man of the Diaspora at the time of the pogroms, and in contrast
Rozka and her friends in the ghettoes (you must have read “Flames in the
Ashes”). And she, Rozka, and Tzivia and Yitzchak Zuckerman and Morde-
cai Anielewicz and our nameless comrades, who do their deeds without ac-
claim, they are the blazers of the trail, theirs and mine.31
The distinction between the humiliating death of the Jew in the death
camps and the heroic death of the partisan, who acted in the new He-
brew combat spirit, was also expressed in the name of the national day
of remembrance for the Holocaust dead—a memorial day that became
a holy national “holiday” and a rite with its own fixed ceremonial ele-
ments. A siren sounds in the morning, during which the entire nation
stands at attention; the official memorial Yizkor prayer is chanted at the
official ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial; the radio sta-
tions play mournful songs, and schools and youth movements conduct
public recitations of relevant texts. Notably, it is not called Holocaust
Day, but Holocaust and Heroism Day. The strained conjunction of the
murder of the six million with the heroism of a small group of Jewish
underground fighters who carried the banner of the Zionist ethos—much
written about in recent years—was meant to create an association be-
tween the catastrophe of the Holocaust and the Zionist solution. That
link has made this national memorial day into the holiday of the Zion-
ist object lesson.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 86
Third, emphasis was put on the connection between the partisans and
the handful of Haganah fighters, most notably Enzo Sireni, Chaviva Reik,
and Hannah Szenes, who parachuted into Europe to aid them. The deaths
of these three paratroopers made them into martyrs, and they came to
symbolize the fraternal alliance of the “new race of Jewish heroes”—the
partisans on one side and the Sabras on the other.32 This was, of course,
reinforced by the fact that most of the organized ghetto fighters were
members of local branches of the same socialist-Zionist youth movements
that the Sabras themselves belonged to. This fraternity is evident in an
issue of Alon Ha-Palmach from 1944: “We felt the brotherhood—the
brotherhood in arms of the Jew fighting for his country, his honor, his
people, wherever he fights. In the heroism of the fighters in the Diaspora
we felt the single root, ours and theirs, the Maccabean root that lies so
deep in our history in this land.”33
Another aspect of the Holocaust that contributed to the value dis-
tinction between the Diaspora Jew and the Sabra was the heroic enter-
prise of getting the Holocaust survivors out of Europe and to Palestine.
In contrast with the myth of the partisans, into which the Sabras were
inserted in a somewhat superficial way, in this case Sabras—the mem-
bers of the Haganah’s marine branch—did indeed play a critical role.
The illegal immigration story as it is told in Zionist literature underlined,
even if indirectly, the contrast between the active Sabra and the passive
Diaspora immigrant Jew. It glorified the ship captains who evaded the
British navy and the mighty marine Palmachnik who bore women and
children on his back into the Promised Land (numerous photographs of
this type appear in the official albums).34 Until the appearance of Leon
Uris’s novel Exodus—written, not coincidentally, by a non-Israeli—the
vicissitudes and heroism of the illegal immigrants themselves were min-
imized, and the Palmach marines were made the heroes of the epic.
The rejection of the Diaspora also affected the Sabra’s attitude toward
the Holocaust survivors in Israel—a subject that has aroused great schol-
arly interest in recent years. A number of labels emerged confirming the
Holocaust survivors’ moral and social “inferiority” to the Sabras. One
of these (which in the 1990s would be the subject of sharp criticism) was
the label “human dust.” This expression, connoting people without spine,
without personality, who were blown hither and thither by the wind, was
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 87
coined by writer David Frishman in the 1930s and later applied by Yishuv
leaders to the Holocaust survivors. “A mixed multitude of human dust
without a language, without education, without roots, and without any
roots in the nation’s tradition and vision,” Ben-Gurion said of them.
“Turning these people of dust into a cultured, independent nation with
a vision will be no easy task.”35 Other labels applied to the Holocaust
survivors were agadim, from the Hebrew initials for “people of the
mournful Diaspora” and much used by members of youth movements;
sabonim, or soap bars, applied to the refugee immigrants because of their
white skin and softness, or with black humor, because of the soap that
the Nazis manufactured, so rumor had it, from the bodies of murdered
Jews. The term “surviving remnants” appeared in textbooks and in youth
movement guidebooks. Two other reasons for the perception of the Holo-
caust survivors as inferior should be noted. First, some Yishuv’s leaders
regarded the Holocaust as a process of reverse natural selection—it was
the worst Jews who had survived. Second, many of the survivors pre-
ferred an urban, capitalistic (and in many cases traditional or religious)
lifestyle to the collective, secular “life of consummation” practiced in the
kibbutzim and moshavim.36
As noted earlier, the image of the Diaspora Jew as weak in body and
mind in contrast to the strong and healthy Hebrew was rooted deep in
the pioneer ethos even before World War II. The poor physical condi-
tion of the Holocaust survivors, many of whom suffered from disease
and malnutrition, served to reinforce the old stereotype. These immi-
grants were perceived not only as strangers (like every immigrant arriv-
ing in a new land) but also as physically and mentally ill.37
The view of the Diaspora as a disease is reflected in the youth move-
ment newspapers and can be found in many pieces written by Sabras.38
“There is no need to go on at length about the negative aspects of the
Diaspora,” one of them said:
“In the Diaspora they will go into captivity”—this was always one of the most
severe punishments, in concrete terms. In the word “Diaspora” the Jew sees
riots, murder, and blood. For us in Palestine, who have not had the taste of
the Diaspora, just looking at those degenerate figures fleeing here each day
from the conflagration of the Diaspora is enough. But it is not the body only
that degenerates in the Diaspora; the Diaspora attenuates the people’s spirit.
Since the people are not close to and working the land, they wander; and it
is in this image of the beaten wanderer that we always see the “eternal Jew.”39
these injuries as products of the Diaspora itself, rather than of the Holo-
caust. Such a view can be seen in the statement of a Ha-Machanot Ha-
Olim counselor in 1937, before the Holocaust, regarding twenty young
German Jews who had been taken into her movement: “There is a kind
of self-hatred in them, against the Diaspora within them. . . . The child
educated in the German Diaspora has the character of that Diaspora im-
printed in him.”40 In response, educators and counselors considered the
absorption and education of the young immigrants in the labor-move-
ment melting pot as a process of not only medical, psychological, and
social rehabilitation but also cultural rehabilitation—a resocialization.
(It is important to emphasize that Israeli caretakers still had no psycho-
logical understanding of trauma survival and thus remained unenlight-
ened about the emotional state of the children under their care.)
The immigrants themselves were greatly influenced by those who took
them in. They saw themselves as needing physical and psychological
rectification, and not just because of the horrors of the Holocaust. One
immigrant wrote:
The Sabras were also angry that the immigrants seemed to have un-
justifiably received the prestigious status of Palmachniks. Many of the
veteran members of the Palmach considered the new enlistees like
stepchildren who have just joined a closely knit family or regarded them
as a threat to the internal harmony of Sabra society. The newsletter of
the Yiftach Brigade stated: “We miss the good old days, when our camp
was pure, when we could be friends and comrades of every single per-
son, and sit together around the campfire to sing and tell tales and have
fun. Today, what can we do with them?”44
Avraham Adan, a company commander in the Negev Brigade and later
an IDF general, told the following story about his first encounter with
the new soldiers from the Diaspora who manned his unit:
It was my first encounter with [such] soldiers. They spoke in Yiddish. . . . At
first they praised me—they had been in the country for two weeks and I was
the first one who had gathered them together for a talk. . . . Up until then they
had not been given a chance to express themselves, and no one had asked
how they felt, what they thought about the training, and how they were be-
ing treated. Afterwards they got to their grievances, which were many: they
said they were being treated in a humiliating way by the NCOs who were
training them. The young NCOs raised their voices at them and even threw
stones at them. Some remarked sharply that the way the commanders were
treating them reminded them of the way the Germans had treated them.45
As in the kibbutzim, the alienation between the Sabras and the im-
migrants in the army was the product of the cultural and linguistic gap
between the two groups. In the end, however, the military framework
proved to be the more efficient one for assimilating the immigrants. The
longer the newcomers stayed, the stronger their acquaintance with the
Sabras became. Fighting together in the War of Independence in partic-
ular was a unifying experience through which many immigrants became
Sabras in every sense of the word, even to the point of eventually reach-
ing high ranks in the IDF.
The rejection of the Diaspora meant that Israel was seen as something
like a factory for the production of the new Jew, the “standard model”
Israeli. This idea was captured in the expression “melting pot,” which
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 91
came into use during the mass immigration of the 1950s and reveals the
resemblance of the Zionist political hierarchy to a church hierarchy. The
Zionist national religion, like other traditional religions, sought to cre-
ate cultural as well as ideological homogeneity. (The transition from the
multitude of Diaspora cultures to a uniform Israeli culture is also evi-
dent in the phrase “the ingathering of the exiles,” which became a com-
mon idiom during the mass immigration.) A cultural melting pot osten-
sibly means smelting the material of the incoming cultures and casting
them into a new mold, which results in a blending of cultures; in prac-
tice, the immigrant cultures were cast in the favored Hebrew—that is,
Sabra—mold.
The melting pot concept is characteristic of all immigration societies,
including the United States in the mid-nineteenth century. In Israel, how-
ever, it took on the additional ideological meaning of erasing the Dias-
pora past. The immigrant understood that in order to be accepted into
Hebrew culture he had to abandon or keep in low profile his previous
Diaspora culture and faith, and had to fit himself into the Hebrew mold.
This indirectly signaled the advantage of the Sabra native, since the Is-
raeli mold had been made in his image.
It is hard to avoid a comparison between the cultural steamroller used
to imbed the immigrants in the Sabra community and the “personality
transformation” that new adherents to religions and cults undergo. The
cult or religion accepting a proselyte into its ranks demands that he re-
ject his previous beliefs and be “born again.” The emphasis on the im-
migrant’s inferior character, not just his cultural inferiority, was meant
to mark the chasm between the “authentic adherent” (the Sabra) and the
“convert” (the immigrant). The immigrant was expected to change not
only his habits but also the very structure of his personality.
The practice of giving native-born Israelis Hebrew names (first from the
Bible, later, names related to the land itself) and of Hebraicizing family
names began during the First Aliya. The new Hebrew names became a
Zionist symbol that distinguished between Jews from the Diaspora and
Jews from the Land of Israel. As Yudke says in Chaim Hazaz’s “The Ser-
mon,” one of the best-known Sabra texts and one that was taught in the
schools: “A man of the Yishuv is ashamed to be called by a common and
regular Jewish name and is proud to be called, say, Eretzyisraeli or Avnieli.
Chaimovitch, you will agree yourselves, is a Jewish name—too Jewish;
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 92
“Uzi and Co.” Uzi was the witty Sabra prankster, while Yerachmieli
(which means “may God have mercy” and thus has traditional Jewish
associations) was the ridiculous character, representing the anachronism
of the labor movement and the bureaucratic calcification of the regime
of the 1950s, in Keinan’s view. The name Zalman was identified with
the sloppily dressed Diaspora Jew.
The names Uzi and Dani, denoting Sabra buddy types, are also com-
mon in articles published during and after the War of Independence in
the newsletters of battalions and brigades and in the army periodicals
(Ba-Machaneh, Ba-Machaneh Gadna, Ba-Machaneh Nachal, Iton Ha-
Magen). They also appeared frequently in the skits of the army enter-
tainment troupes.
The symbolic role of the name as a Hebrew marker, creating a dis-
tinction between the Sabra (largely those born in the agricultural settle-
ments) and the immigrant, and even between the Sabra and his pioneer
father, is notable in the literature of the 1948 generation. Many of the
Sabra heroes of S. Yizhar, Natan Shacham, Chanoch Bartov, Yigal
Mosinzon, Moshe Shamir, Chaim Cheffer, Didi Manosi, and other writ-
ers and poets of their generation were given typical Sabra names, such
as Uri, Gadi, Dani, Tzvingi, or Avner. Others were given traditional names
with a diminutive suffix added to denote fondness—this serving to “con-
vert” the name into a Sabra one and expressing love of the Sabras. Such
were Rutke (from Ruth), Mishke (from Moshe, or Moses), Sheike (from
Yeshayahu, or Isaiah), Bentzi (from Ben-Zion), Rubik (from Reuven, or
Reuben), Tzvike (from Tzvi), Motke (from Mordechai), Yosefele (from
Yosef, or Joseph), Chaimke (from Chaim), Dudu (from David), and
Avrasha (from Avraham, or Abraham). Some of these names were in-
vented by the Sabras, and some were taken from Yiddish and Russian.
The immigrants appearing in the stories, on the other hand, were given
traditional names, almost always without diminutives, and were often
not given names at all.
Many of the immigrants’ names were classic Jewish names in their
countries of origin or were in languages other than Hebrew (such as Yid-
dish, Russian, Polish, Moroccan), so they symbolized Diaspora Jewish
culture for the natives. Thus, Hebraicization of the new immigrant’s name
was an important mechanism in the process of acculturation.50 It meant
one was closing the door to the Diaspora past and rectifying one’s old
“Jewish personality.” It was part of the “conversion” of the proselyte
into the Zionist national religion, a ceremony that required (as in most
religions) giving up one’s previous identity and adopting a new one.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 94
The story of Dahn Ben-Amotz, who would later become an Israeli cul-
ture hero, is a fine example. Ben-Amotz came to Israel with the name
Moshe Tehilimzeiger. He changed this to Moshe Sha’oni and then to Dahn
Ben-Amotz. By his own account, he came to feel that in order to be con-
sidered a Sabra by those around him and by himself, he had to change
not only his family name but his first name as well to something as typ-
ically Sabra as possible. The name, for him, was a symbolic entry ticket
into Sabra society.51
The importance of a Hebrew first name and, more important, a He-
brew family name was especially marked in the distinction between the
Sabras—the great majority of whom were of European origin—and the
young immigrants who came from the Islamic world or who were born
in Palestine of parents who had come from those countries. Out of a pro-
found sense of communal unity and adherence to Jewish tradition, these
Oriental immigrants remained faithful to their traditional Jewish first
names and to the family names that designated their clans in their coun-
try of origin (Wazana, Bokobza, Der’i, Ohana). In remaining so, they
unintentionally doomed their children to a culturally inferior position,
preserving their foreignness in a society whose social elite was largely
Ashkenazi. It is hardly coincidental, then, that one of the marks of class
mobility for these Oriental immigrants in the early 1980s was the
process of changing family names and giving new Israeli names to their
children.
One of the first markers of Hebrewness created by the pioneers was the
use of Hebrew as a spoken language. As elsewhere, the revival of the lan-
guage symbolized the revival of the nation. The national and ideologi-
cal importance of the language produced “language sentries,” such as
the Only Hebrew Association and the Battalion of Defenders of the He-
brew Language—organizations that worked to repress the public use of
foreign languages and instituted an unofficial boycott of Yiddish.52
The pioneers imposed on themselves the severe and unbending rule
of speaking only Hebrew, but made no great effort to get rid of their
Ashkenazi accents. They associated the Ashkenazi accent with the Di-
aspora, while considering the Sepharadi accent more authentically “He-
brew.” However, changing their accents was beyond their power. In the
end, the real revolution in accent was accomplished by the native-born
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 96
Sabras, who created an Israeli accent that is an amalgam of East and West.
The symbolic link between the revival of the language and the national
revival granted the Sabra—identified as “the first natural speaker of He-
brew in the last two thousand years”—a special social status. The Sabra
who grew up speaking the Hebrew language created the Israeli accent,
and thus his accent became a status symbol and a social resource. The
Sabra idiom became the new Israeli idiom.
Unlike names, which the immigrants could change immediately and
so provide themselves with a marker of Sabraism, they could change their
accents only with difficulty, if at all. This was detrimental in particular
to the immigrants from the Islamic world, who had trouble ridding them-
selves of their Oriental accent and adjusting themselves to the native,
Sabra accent. Biographies, as well as journalistic interviews with immi-
grants who came to Israel at a young age and were absorbed into Sabra
organizations, indicate that young immigrants felt that they had been
truly absorbed and had rid themselves of their “Diaspora hunchback”
only when they managed to adjust themselves to Sabra language, in-
cluding its accent, pronunciation, syntax, idioms, and word stresses.53
a strange culture with no means of their own, but also to serve as Zion-
ist missionaries and preach the Zionist gospel to young people who had
grown up in a backward and primitive culture.
The arrogant attitude toward the Oriental immigrants was a response
not only to their Diaspora origins and their foreignness, but also to the
fact that so many of them could not read and write. Moreover, most of
the Orientals were religious in both belief and lifestyle. Most of them
continued to observe their traditions and refused to accept secular Israeli
culture, despite the efforts of the secular establishment to wean them away
from their religion during the period of the mass immigration.57 The
young people were reluctant to adopt a secular lifestyle because it would
mean painful conflicts with their parents and relatives, and the Oriental
family structure was particularly patriarchal and traditional. Moreover,
these young people were deeply bonded to their religious traditions and
maintained emotional links to a family tradition that included food, mu-
sic, and special customs. One reason for these stronger ties to family and
tradition is purely demographic. While 46 percent of the Youth Aliya im-
migrants who came from Poland and Eastern Europe were orphans, less
than 1 percent of the Youth Aliya children who came from Morocco and
Iraq lacked both parents.
These cultural differences explain why only a few of the Oriental im-
migrants were absorbed by the kibbutzim and became Sabras in the full
sense.58 Even when they were welcomed with all good intention, the cul-
tural differences were very deep and the sense of foreignness remained.
It is important to emphasize that none of the Sabra organizations were
exclusively Ashkenazi and all of them included, to a greater or lesser ex-
tent, young people of Oriental origins. The Palmach, the most impor-
tant Sabra melting pot, had some soldiers from Islamic countries, and
because of their knowledge of the Arabic language and culture as well
as their “Oriental” appearance, some of them took an active part in Pal-
mach intelligence operations. Nevertheless, their cultural influence was
minimal (it was evident largely in songs and the culture of the campfire);
most of them adopted the dominant Western-Ashkenazi-secular culture.
The shunting aside of Oriental culture within the Palmach also de-
rived from the Ashkenazi profile of the great majority of its officers and
NCOs. This majority was also the reason that the military units that car-
ried on the Palmach tradition—Unit 101 and the Paratroopers—were also
largely Ashkenazi in character, despite the fact that many if not most of
the Paratroopers in the 1950s were Oriental.
The superiority that the Ashkenazi Sabra felt toward the immigrants
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 99
from the Islamic world and the Oriental youth’s sense of inferiority were
also connected to the sociological dynamic of social stratification and
power hegemony of earlier and veteran populations, which character-
izes young immigrant societies. The Ashkenazim had carried out the Zion-
ist revolution and established the new Yishuv, so by the very nature of
their precedence they held the key leadership positions and were the
guardians of the dominant, Ashkenazi culture. The issue of the ethnic gap
has been discussed at length in the sociological literature and this is not
the place to discuss it in detail. But since being Ashkenazi was one of the
characteristics of the typical Sabra—one of the elements of his image—
I will touch here on three of the points having to do with the Sabra’s elit-
ist consciousness and education.
First, when the pioneers, who were Ashkenazi, dreamed of creating a
“new Jew,” though some of them—especially at the very beginning of
the Zionist immigration to Palestine—dressed this new Jew in the ro-
mantic garb of the noble Arab sheikh, their model was more the Russ-
ian Cossack and the American cowboy. While they sought to eliminate
the Diaspora past, they did not want to cut themselves off from Euro-
pean culture. Their goal was to create a modern secular society in Pales-
tine, and the new Jew was meant to be secular, educated, and modern.
The Oriental Jew was the opposite. He was religious, an observer of tra-
dition, and uneducated (by European standards). Moreover, his exter-
nal appearance and culture resembled that of the Arab, who was con-
sidered by the Zionist leadership to be backward and, even worse, the
enemy of Zionism. The term “Sabra” thus became a synonym for
“Ashkenazi Sabra,” at least as regards the social images attached to it,
even though there was an Oriental minority among the Sabras. The mean-
ing of the term “Sabra” at that time, it should be recalled, was “young
people from good (that is, Ashkenazi) families.”
Second, a number of factors in Israeli culture reinforced the Sepharadi’s
sense of inferiority. The mass immigration from the Arab world, espe-
cially from North Africa, occurred after the establishment of the state.
The young Oriental immigrants were not part of the Israeli “Mayflower
nobility,” and their sons were not “native sons” like the Sabras of the
same age, nor did they benefit from the prestige of having pioneer fa-
thers. The parents of the Oriental youth came to Palestine with him or
were buried somewhere in a lost homeland. The Oriental youth felt that
“they”—the people of the agricultural settlements and their children—
had established the country, while “we” had come to something already
prepared in advance. This led to a sense of inferiority. This sentiment
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 100
mach, the kibbutzim, the labor parties) made the Sabra circle even more
closed.
The pioneer youth movements, more than any other framework,
played a decisive role as the first stage in the Sabra’s path of sponsored
mobility since they prepared the Sabras for their future roles. As move-
ment members, the young Sabras practiced personal responsibility for
others, team work, and democratic procedures such as meetings, debates,
and elections. They were equipped with the social resources necessary
for social advancement—Sabra slang, folklore, cultural knowledge, and
personal connections. The last was enshrined in a new Hebrew word,
protektzia, which denoted the connections that one needed to get ahead,
or in fact to get anything done. The youth movements thus filled the same
role as the English “public” school—they created a common infrastruc-
ture of culture and values for the members of the middle class and served
as training schools for leadership, producing the new Israeli elites and
“nobility.”63
The youth movements were almost completely closed to new young
Oriental immigrants, however, with the exception of Ha-Noar Ha-Oved,
which sought out working youth who were not in school. This largely
blocked the integration of Oriental youth into the elite. There were fur-
ther reasons for the low participation of Orientals in the youth move-
ments. First, most of the Oriental youth arrived in the 1950s, some twenty
years after the youth movements were established and after the estab-
lishment of their Ashkenazi-secular character, and this discouraged many
Oriental youngsters from joining them. Second, most youth movement
chapter houses were in affluent neighborhoods, close to the academic high
schools, and were thus more accessible to the middle class—meaning
largely veteran Ashkenazi families—than to Oriental youth, who lived
in poorer neighborhoods, in small towns in outlying regions (the devel-
opment towns), in moshavim established for immigrants, and during the
mass immigration, in transit camps. Third, the youth movements were
by their very nature designed for young people attending school who had
free time after school and whose families needed no additional income.
Many Oriental youth worked to supplement their family’s income and
thus could not participate in youth movement activities.
The cultural chasm between the young Ashkenazi native and the young
Oriental immigrant and the hegemony of the Europeans in the agricul-
tural settlements, the leadership of the Yishuv, and the early state sharp-
ened the Sabra’s sense of superiority in his own eyes and in the eyes of
both the Ashkenazi and Oriental communities. The latter felt that their
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 103
selecting candidates was strict, particularly during the first stages of the
organization’s establishment.66 Y. Libtrovsky, commander of one of the
first Palmach companies, testified that he chose his unit’s sixty soldiers
from among five hundred candidates.67
The image created by the selection process was no less important than
its military value. The connection between the Palmach’s small size and
elitist self-image attested to by the resistance and disappointment, espe-
cially among the veteran members, prompted by the opening of its ranks
to new immigrants and youth from “the [bad] neighborhoods” with the
approach of the War of Independence. The old-timers feared that the Pal-
mach would lose its uniqueness, and thus indirectly its prestige as a se-
lective and homogeneous unit.
Exclusivity—both military and social—was also the reason for the
Sabra’s attraction to elite units such as the Palmach, Commando Unit
101, and later also the Paratroopers, the Marine Commandos, and the
Air Force. Being a member of a small and intimate unit allowed the new
recruit to feel like someone who was destined to raid rather than to fight,
to attack rather than to defend, to be a fighter rather than just a soldier,
to be one of the guys rather than a cog in the military machine, to have
fun rather than just do a routine job.
Unit 101, which was set up in 1953 by Ariel Sharon to counter the
infiltrations of Arab terrorists, contributed perhaps more than any other
IDF unit to the institutionalization and sophistication of the army se-
lection processes that first arose in the Palmach period—and this despite
the very short period of about six months that the unit was active. The
unending sifting of the candidates, both at the time of acceptance and
during the course of their service, strengthened the sense of being an elect
among the veterans who “held out,” and made them see their service as
both a dream come true and a challenge.
In Unit 101 the screening was linked to an informal selection ceremony—
a kind of facetious hazing ritual in which the old-timers thought up arbi-
trary tests of courage. These ceremonies, which had their source in the
Palmach, the agricultural schools, and the youth movements, later became
very popular in elite units of the IDF (especially for basic training and “hell
week”). Such rituals were possible because of the informal character of
the units (which began with the Palmach), the sense of superiority of the
experienced soldiers, and the candidate’s fierce desire to be taken into the
unit—for which reason he was willing to cooperate with those who were
putting him to the test. This practice created an intimate family atmos-
phere among the soldiers and distinguished them from the general rank
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 105
Because of their stringent selection processes, the elite units and the
combat officers corps became Sabra incubators, as it were, with an al-
most homogeneous population (one fifth of all pilots were kibbutzniks
and the decided majority of them were Ashkenazi graduates of academic
high schools). Also contributing to this homogeneity were the “tribal-
clannish” practices that grew up alongside the formal selection process—
one soldier bringing his friend in and another recommending a member
of his kibbutz or moshav. The ranks of these units were filled with young
people from the educated, economically comfortable stratum who had
been permeated with Zionist education. As a result the public saw an al-
most complete identity between the Sabra and the elite Israeli fighter.
Songs of praise for these soldiers were thus indirectly songs of praise for
the Sabra. The propaganda slogans “The finest to the Air Force” and
“Follow me to the Paratroopers,” coined in that period, included a gen-
erous dose of Sabra elitism. After all, if “the finest” were Sabras, then,
by implication, the Sabras were the finest. The insignia of the army’s units
became marks of belonging not just to elite military organizations but
also to a restricted stratum of young people—“the best of the youth.”
Those who won a place in one of the elite units were admired by their
friends and indirectly brought renown to the institutions in which they
had grown up and been educated (the youth organization, the kibbutz,
the boarding school, etc.). In this way a military aristocracy of young
people with a manifestly Sabra cast continuously developed, and in time
it became a political aristocracy.
The congruent cultural background of the members of the elite units
also contributed to the internal social dynamic of the group. The inten-
sive contact among the members of a homogeneous group of young
people functioning as a total institution turned these units into social-
ization workshops that heightened the typical Sabra trademarks of lan-
guage and dress among their members. This furthered the identification
of the figure of the Sabra with the figure of the fighter in the elite army
units.
In the period of the War of Independence and the establishment of the state
everyone in the country had a huge desire to be in the know, and your im-
portance was measured by how close you were to knowing. But I knew [things]
that no one else would ever know, I really, really felt myself in the know . . .
it was really doing something for the homeland. That I understood. That was
really being a member of the underground.74
The elitist function of the culture of secrecy could explain why there
were secrets in the youth movements also, even though they generally
served no practical purpose. This was especially the case in the group
from which the Ha-Machanot Ha-Olim movement grew. This circle of
graduates of the Herzliya Gymnasium was organized at the end of the
1920s and was later called “the old circle.” It surrounded itself with the
secrecy and intimacy of a monastic order. Covert swearing-in ceremonies
in caves and interring scrolls in secret locations also added an element
of contrived surreptitiousness to many ceremonies of the Scouts and Ha-
Shomer Ha-Tza’ir. There was a folklore of secrecy at the agricultural
schools as well. At the Kadoorie School, for example, the students would
conceal a secret book containing their writings in a location known only
to the seniors. This fondness for the clandestine was also the result of
exposure in childhood to a genre of mystery fiction that was popular at
the time75—in particular The Detective series by the journalist Shlomo
Ben-Yisrael (Gelper) and his colleagues,76 in which the protagonist, David
Tidhar, was a kind of Sherlock Holmes of the Yishuv.
Secrecy glamorized the halo surrounding the secret units in which the
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 108
establishment-approved mischief
Sabra elitism was also expressed in the tradition of practical jokes and
collective misbehavior and the practice of recounting these pranks to each
other. This lighthearted “gang” folklore developed in the Palmach’s mo-
bilized hachsharot and was passed on to other youth groups, such as the
youth movements and agricultural schools, reaching its peak in Unit 101
and in the Paratrooper Brigade established in the 1950s. It included pil-
fering products from the kibbutz food stores and moshav warehouses;
stealing chickens from the kibbutz chicken coop for roasting at campfires;
sneaking into cinemas; stealing signs off city streets and army bases to
decorate the headquarters of one’s own Palmach unit; raiding orchards
and watermelon fields; outwitting sentries for the fun or the challenge
of it; conducting hazing rituals for basic trainees and new members of
the youth movements; fooling teachers, commanders, military policemen,
and new members of the youth movements; breaking into bases and
offices to steal equipment needed by the unit; and misbehavior by sol-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 109
diers while off duty (trespassing, throwing smoke bombs, doing target
practice on various civilian items).77 All these were fundamental experi-
ences that a “real” Sabra had to have and, even more so, had to tell.
The prominence of mischief-making in Sabra culture is attested to by
six “cultural words” (words, generally slang, unique to a given culture and
difficult to translate into another language) that are all contextually related:
These pranks and jokes were natural outbursts of energy and youthful
playfulness—a part of the youth culture—and they characterize unified
groups of young people everywhere who spend most of their time to-
gether (and who are often, as with the Palmach hachsharot, cut off from
their external environment). In the Palmach, such actions kept up morale
through days of fatiguing routine, especially the waiting period during
World War II, when the Palmach was not active militarily.
The petty thefts and other pranks worked to break the boredom of
the inactive periods, to tighten the bonds of the adolescent band (a shared
delinquency creates a kind of common secret that unites the group), and
to sharpen the adventure in national service. But they played an addi-
tional social role. Like the selection ceremonies and the secrecy, they de-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 110
marcated the class separation between the elect Sabra organizations, with
their special style, and non-Sabra or noncombat groups, which were per-
ceived as inferior. As with the jokes about immigrants, here too the un-
stated purpose was to build up the elitist Sabra image by caricaturing
other groups, such as soldiers in service roles. The military police (who
represented the conventional discipline of the institutionalized army) and
the guards at the gates of army bases symbolized to the Sabras the infe-
rior noncombat soldier, later called “jobnik.”79 During the evening get-
togethers, when the Sabras told their tales of how playing tricks on these
other soldiers—setting “ambushes” for them, evading them, and so on—
their victims were described as simpletons and idiots who could be toyed
with by the cunning, conniving Sabra fighter and ever so easily be made
into the butt of a good joke.
Unit 101 and the Paratroopers played an important part in fostering
and institutionalizing Palmach-style mischievousness within the IDF.
These units also played pranks and tricks as a way of expressing the su-
periority of the combat soldier to the jobnik, and thus indirectly of the
Sabras to other groups in Israeli society. “Because of our feelings of su-
periority, which we overstated to no little degree, we sometimes permit-
ted ourselves to say things that are better left unsaid today,”80 related
Meir Har-Tzion about his period of service in Unit 101.
These escapades and “petty” offenses were characteristic of an elite
that felt it was permitted things forbidden to others because it was
sacrificing more than others. Walking the thin rope between the permit-
ted and the forbidden was also a way of putting the establishment to the
test, a constant reclaiming of the special rights that the Sabra group de-
served as an elite serving its country. The pranks expressed the anti-in-
stitutionalism of an intimate and exclusive guerrilla unit—its right to act
autonomously within the larger organization as an elect group with spe-
cial rights.
The stories and chizbatim about these pranks took root in Sabra cul-
ture and became part of the culture of discourse. They created an im-
mediate, somewhat artificial nostalgia, and a romantic group image. The
night raids for food and the tricks played on the sentries and military
police were meant to assert the self-confidence, intrepidness, and ad-
venturous spirit of the young fighters—these “hoodlums and outlaws,”
to employ the terms that labor movement leader Levi Eshkol used fondly
for IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan.
This piratical adventurousness was influenced by heroes of war and
adventure literature as well as the protagonist of Hemingway’s For Whom
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 111
the Bell Tolls (a very popular book among Israeli youth) and the stars of
Westerns, action films, and war movies—the noble savages, irresistible
to women, who populated the postwar Hollywood films. The Sabra
wanted to be a bit like the fun-loving and crafty heroes of these stories,
whose fundamental morality and noble purposes allowed them, on oc-
casion, to violate the dry letter of the law.81 In the works of the “mouth-
pieces of the generation” as well—the songs, chizbatim, stories, and po-
ems of Sabra writers—the Sabra prank was a primary expression of a
rowdy and winning youth culture, one of the facets of the “Huckleberry
Finn-ish” Sabra bad boy.
It was not just the Sabras who viewed their pranks as the legitimate
privilege of an elite—most of the adult representatives of the establish-
ment and the moral norm-setters (teachers, commanders, political lead-
ers) did so too. As far as they were concerned, these were venial sins—
even positive character attributes—that expressed the lovable, playful,
cunning, rough-hewn, anti-establishment character of the native, his
youthful charm and grinning sociability. This is evidenced in the slang
terms listed earlier, which denote a forgiving attitude toward communal
transgressions of thieving and lying, and which were absorbed into the
Hebrew language and warmly received by political leaders, educators,
and literary critics.
Officially, the Palmach command frowned on pranks, especially the
thefts from the kibbutzim that hosted the hachsharot—most likely out
of fear that the kibbutzim would not want to host the Palmach groups
any more. “It is best to know that the people on the farms take a dim
view of [these pranks]. . . . Where is the line? . . . The line is to not be-
gin,”82 states an article in one issue of Alon Ha-Palmach. But this was
largely lip service, because in practice everyone in the Palmach was de-
lighted with the folklore of these youthful pranks, and the practical jokes
and petty crimes were viewed like the scratches given by a cute little
puppy.83 The older generation called the youngsters “clowns” and
scolded them for being “naughty”—words that conveyed a kind of smil-
ing reprimand by fathers against their bold and impertinent offspring and
thus indicated the Sabras’ special status in the eyes of the establishment
and the high social credit given to them.
Sabra misbehavior was also forgiven because it expressed, for the older
generation, the instinct for freedom and independence attributed to the
“new Jew,” the natural joy of life of the mythological Sabra, and perhaps
also the raw, dross-like roughness of the “untrained” native who grew
up, so the myth said, in nature. “A girl like most of our Sabra girls. . . .
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 112
She was proud and solid of character. The girl was independent and
rebellious—like a symbol of that native generation of the homeland,”84
wrote Anda Pinkerfeld-Amir about a Palmach girl. This vitality, spon-
taneity, and warm-bloodedness had been part of the mythological profile
of the new Jew as far back as the time of Ha-Shomer, whose members
were influenced by romantic images of Russian muzhiks and Cossacks.
A further reason for absolution was that the pranks were a kind of
escape valve for the pressures felt by young people who bore the bur-
den of their community’s defense. The establishment sanctioned Sabra
practical jokes as part of an unspoken contract—this elite was granted
special rights in exchange for accepting the role of the new Jew and the
yoke of defense (perhaps this also explains the later leniency toward the
antiquities thefts of one of the senior Sabras, Moshe Dayan). In fact,
the normative distance between sechiva and theft and between a meticha
and a lie was the distance between the way in which society forgave the
transgressions of Palmach or IDF soldiers and the way it condemned the
same kind of actions performed by young people from the marginal cul-
ture (for example, from the transit camps).85 The Sabra had a license to
be outspoken and to misbehave, but it was a very constrained kind of
misbehavior.
The jeep and the pickup truck were of special symbolic importance
and figure in any number of popular nostalgic songs written by Chaim
Guri and Chaim Cheffer.86 Like many other popular heroes, the mythi-
cal Sabra had a (motorized) war horse. The jeep symbolized the class
privilege of the modern cavalry87 and reinforced the romantic image of
the fighting Sabra. The open vehicle, with its horsepower and maneu-
verability in the field, also expressed the freedom, machismo, and power
of the fighting Sabra—the cowboy of the Israeli wilderness.
Linguistic Expressions
of Elitism and Narcissism
davka, kacha, betach, and smoch
The elitist tone of colloquial Sabra speech lies in its stresses, its syntax,
and especially in its typical mode of response. The response is imperti-
nent, cocksure, and arrogant, and often expresses contempt for the ques-
tioner and disregard for the question. It is expressed in common words
that are difficult, if not impossible, to translate into another language.
While some of these were adopted from other languages (largely Yid-
dish, Arabic, and Russian) rather than invented by the Sabras, in Sabra
parlance they received special connotations. The most common of them
follow:
Azov shtuyot and Literally, “leave off the nonsense” and “don’t
al tebalbel li et mix up my balls.” The meaning is a con-
ha-beitzim temptuous: “You don’t understand a thing
about it.”
Smoch alai Literally, “trust me,” short for: “Don’t
worry, you can be absolutely sure that I’ll
solve your problem very soon and very
easily” or “Don’t panic, everything will
work out in the end.” Other similar expres-
sions are yihiyeh be-seder (“It’ll be okay,”
but with a large measure of self-confidence);
ala pata (“I don’t care,” “I don’t give a
shit”); ma’alish (“it doesn’t matter”); meila
(“so what”); and dahilak (be-hayecha!, “on
your life!”).
buddy humor
at the expense of non-sabras
An important tool for fostering the Palmach’s elitist image was the in-
vention of romantic and humorous nicknames for its members. So, for ex-
ample, a red-haired soldier would be called by the slang term for that con-
dition, “Gingi,” and other physical traits might lead to others being called
“Sini” (Chinese) or “Kushi” (black). Company commander Rechavam
Ze’evi’s dark skin and thin frame prompted the epithet “Gandhi.”
Palmach units and IDF units with a Sabra image were called by names
with geographic or historical connotations. Examples are the Yiftach
Brigade, named after the military leader of the Book of Judges, and the
Negev Brigade, named after Israel’s southern desert. Other units had ro-
mantic titles with a Hollywood flair: the Palmach itself, whose name was
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 119
Battle sagas appeared among the Yishuv immediately after the first clashes
between the pioneers and the Arabs. These war stories were important
as milestones in the national biography—mythological kernels from
which grew not only military ethoses and myths (such as fighting at any
cost and caring for the wounded), but also national ones (love of coun-
try, national solidarity). Furthermore, they produced cultural heroes; the
fighters who sacrificed their lives and the commanders who led their units
to victory were exemplary figures in whose deeds the young generation
was educated.
The battles etched into the national memory were largely battles over
strategic points or places of national historical importance, and most of
them were bloody. The Palmach battalions, which were considered the
elite fighting force in the War of Independence, were sent to win the strate-
gic points around which the major portion of the war mythology and
nostalgia grew—the Nebi Yosha police station, the road to Jerusalem,
Kibbutz Negba, Safed, Be’ersheva, and Eilat. The prominence given to
these battles made their commanders (most of whom were Sabras) fa-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 120
mous, and also celebrated the role of the fighting Sabra in the campaign.
In the same measure this minimized the importance of other units and of
non-Sabra soldiers. The role of the fighting Sabra was also emphasized
because of the Palmach milieu, which was familiar to the public even
before the war, thanks to the poets and writers who served in the force.
In the Sinai Campaign, the army was led by the Paratrooper Corps,
which was perceived as the heir of the Palmach. Their landing in the Mitla
Pass, at the enemy’s rear, became a military myth that to a certain ex-
tent upstaged the important role played by the armored corps (whose
soldiers were considered less colorful, “squarer,” and thus less Sabra).
The Air Force deployed jets for the first time and with great success, cre-
ating the mythology of the Hebrew pilot that is part of Israeli folklore
to this day. The victories in the War of Independence and in the Sinai
Campaign were thus viewed largely as victories of the Palmachnik, the
paratrooper, and the pilot—and indirectly of the Sabra. The role of other
army units and other cultural groups was minimized.
Identification of the fighters with the Sabras was expressed in the
memorial at Kibbutz Negba designed by Natan Rappaport, a designer
and sculptor of many such memorials. It depicts three fighters of man-
ifestly Sabra appearance (a young farm worker wearing the standard
cloth hat that the Sabras called a “dunce cap,” a young fighter, and a
girl bearing a first-aid kit). Associating the fighters with the Sabras was
also the topic of the famous cartoon of 16 April 1948 by Arieh Navon,
who drew a Palmach stocking cap on top of Kastel, the hill on the way
to Jerusalem that was the site of an important War of Independence
victory.
The photograph of the raising of an inked Israeli flag at Um Rash Rash
(later Eilat), marking the end of Operation Uvda, became, on publica-
tion, part of the mythology of 194890 and is probably the most out-
standing example of a war symbol instilling in the public an identification
between the Sabra and the victorious troops of 1948. The commanders
of the Negev Brigade and the Golani Brigade sent a cable to the com-
mander of the southern front: “Announce to the government of Israel.
For Haganah Day, 11 Adar, the Negev Brigade [of the Palmach] and the
Golani Brigade present the Gulf of Eilat to the State of Israel. Eilat (Um
Rash Rash) 9 Adar 1949.”91 After the fact, however, it was not the co-
operation between the two brigades that was emphasized, but rather
the stunning victory of the Negev Brigade (with its Sabra image) over
the Golani Brigade (which was not part of the Palmach) on the presti-
gious race to conquer Eilat. The victory in battle that ended the War of
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 121
Independence was thus also made to symbolize the primacy of the Pal-
mach units and thus, indirectly, the Sabra.
It is important to stress that the war glorified the mythological image
of the Sabra not only because of the symbolic way the Israeli elite de-
signed the events, but also because of the heroic deeds of the many Sabras
who fought on the front line. War creates myths not only because the
nebulousness of war allows the imagination to fill in the gaps in people’s
knowledge, but also because it fosters individual acts of heroism and ded-
ication. The characters in the mythological narrative emerge from bat-
tle larger than life, raised above quotidian drabness—not just artificially
but also because there are times when a man’s greatness is revealed in
emergencies.
War is not part of the regular course of human life. It is a sui generis
reality that annuls the soldier’s normal sense of time and place. It “cuts
him off from all his previous connections, swallows him up, changes his
identity, takes over his consciousness.”92 Only a period of turbulence and
war, it seems, with its unique circumstances, has what it takes to evoke
in a man the complete devotion characteristic of many Sabras and bring
him to a once-in-a-lifetime epiphany. Bearing a wounded man under a
hail of bullets does not testify to dedication to one’s friends in peacetime,
nor does leading a charge guarantee that a man will be brave in his civil-
ian life. The fury of battle engenders special powers that are not revealed
in normal times.
To a large extent, the war disclosed special traits in an entire genera-
tion that found itself thrown into the fray. It removed—almost forced—
many young people out of their anonymity and created the soil in which
the Sabra heroes grew. “Only wars can turn their heroes into legends and
hand them the story of their lives in poetry, as a great gift,” poet Yigal
Lev would later write.93
Another reason for the idealization of the fallen Sabra was that by
praising and exalting the Sabra generation, the Zionist leaders—the
founding fathers of the agricultural settlements in particular—were glo-
rifying themselves and their pioneer enterprise. Their praise for the fallen
soldier implied praise for those who had educated and fostered him.
Mythologization of the fallen Sabra in turn mythologized the entire
Sabra generation through a motif common in memorial literature—
linking the fallen soldier to the rest of his generation through the fre-
quent use of that word, and linking his exemplary figure to the exem-
plary figures of his living comrades. A fascinating example of this motif
can be found in the introduction to the Scrolls of Fire anthology written
by a mourning father. Its title is “This Generation . . .”:
Since taking on the editing of the papers of the members of this wonderful
generation, which gave its life in joy and sanctity so that the entire people
could walk tall and proud, I have spent days and nights in the shadow of that
glory, diving into the inner recesses of its soul and conversing with its spirit,
and sometimes also silently heeding the voice of its blood. . . . Here the gen-
eration has risen—and it has taken on vitality and vigor! . . . Here, the self-
portraits come together into a single figure and picture, etched with a human
quill dipped in the inkwell of truth.103
The link between the fallen and their living comrades was made by
common use of the general terms “sons,” “boys,” “young men,” “our
dead,” “our boys,” and “our youth” in the eulogies and the dirges for
the fallen (largely those by the 1948 poets). Especially common, of course,
is the general term “Sabra” or “Sabras” (which became very common,
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 125
perhaps more so than any of the other terms, after the War of Indepen-
dence), as in this example: “His figure was that of a typical Sabra, a man
of action and reality.”104
The artists who illustrated some of these anthologies, such as Nachum
Gutman and Arieh Navon, also contributed to the identification of the
fallen with the rest of their generation. They drew the fallen wearing
typical Palmach dress, such as work shoes, a stocking cap, and a ruck-
sack, and so created an associative link between the fallen soldier and
the Palmachnik.
The use of generalized terms while emphasizing the link between the
individual fallen soldier and his group increased the homogeneity of the
collective image of the Sabras. They were perceived as being all made of
the same psychological, ethical, and especially ideological material. As a
result, the writings of the talented fallen soldiers included in the memo-
rial anthologies became exhibits of the talents of their living relatives and
of the soul of the entire generation. As one eulogist wrote: “May this me-
morial stone of his spirit be yours. The youth will pore over it, turn its
pages, walk the paths of his thinking like the paths of their own think-
ing; for they are indeed of a single cloth, and his words are theirs.”105
Associating the fallen soldier with the members of his generation also
created a connection between his exemplary image and those of his com-
rades in the youth movement, hachshara, and army unit. Idealizing him
also idealized his living comrades who had grown up in the same youth
groups.
It is worth remarking that, despite the natural tendency of the me-
morial anthologies to emphasize the positive and beautiful side of the
fallen soldiers’ characters, and although the published letters were care-
fully chosen to present only the aesthetic and sublime,106 the writers and
anthology editors did not make things up or glorify the fallen soldiers in
an exaggerated way. There were indeed many acts of heroism and
sacrifice, and the many Sabras who fell did indeed exhibit the best hu-
man traits, such as concern for others, humility, creativity, and a touch-
ing youthful innocence.
An additional factor in the mythologization of the Sabra in the me-
morial literature is connected to the structure of the memorial antholo-
gies and to the cult of revealing the “real character” of the Sabra. These
anthologies contained not only glorification of the fallen soldier and sto-
ries about him by friends, acquaintances, and family members, but also,
and usually principally, songs, compositions, letters, and diaries that he
wrote. These revealed to the entire community the hidden talents of the
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 126
fallen Sabras and their unreserved loyalty to the common good. The pub-
lication of private writings became a kind of verbal national ceremony
meant to open a window into the inner world of the Sabra sons and
daughters. It was meant not only to create a monument to the fallen, but
also, and perhaps primarily, to present their pure and noble souls while
taking fond pride in “the young generation that has grown up here,” sig-
naling a tacit message to the generations that followed: we have these
expectations of you as well.
These creative works and intimate letters left behind by the fallen
Sabras made a huge impression on the public. “Anyone who reads these
pages finds that his heart pounds from the rush of a great spirit, the spirit
of a man from Israel, new and original. A sacred spirit emanates from
them,”107 one of the readers wrote. Reading the works of the fallen Sabras
created a feeling that young men of great soul and talent, having great
promise, had grown up here in Israel and given their lives for their coun-
try.108 This ritual of revelation reinforced the mythological image of the
Sabra as rough and thorny on the outside but sweet and delicate on the
inside. The ostensibly rugged Sabra turned out to be a secret poet, a sen-
sitive man of the spirit, a devoted family man. “Unseen by strange eyes,
perhaps unseen by themselves,” David Ben-Gurion wrote of the Sabras,
“there were hidden chambers of innocence and beauty in the lion cubs
of Israel—of heroism and love, softness and daring—and perhaps only
their mothers knew just a bit of them.”109
It was the Scrolls of Fire anthology that in particular painted the pic-
ture of the Sabra as a reticent poet and writer and as a potential philoso-
pher or scientist. This entire book was compiled from the works of the
fallen. Its very name suggests a newly revealed primeval work or the sa-
cred scrolls of the Torah. The title also evoked the Torah scrolls in which
Talmudic martyr Hanina Ben Tardion was wrapped by the Romans when
they put him to the stake, described poetically in the traditional Yom Kip-
pur service: “the scrolls that burned as their letters flew skyward.”
The ceremony of revealing the sublime character of the fallen Sabra
(and indirectly the members of his generation) also symbolized the great
modesty of the Sabra hero. “Modest and great” was what poet Yehuda
Karni called them in one of his paeans to the Sabras.110 Many of the eu-
logists noted this modesty—the Sabra kept his talents hidden and did
not publish his writing despite its excellence—and claimed it was the
fallen Sabras’ most important trait. Since the Sabra papers also revealed
an unusually intense love of the homeland, they also represented a kind
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 127
Nun). The Hebrew commander was the polar opposite of the Diaspora
Jew: he was self-confident, proud, and brave, knowing what lay before
him; a leader, not a subject. The admiration, over many years, for Yigal
Allon and Moshe Dayan, two of the most famous commanders who pro-
duced the Zionist revolution, was the veneration of a dream come true.
Fifth, the figure of the commander fulfilled the revolutionary society’s
need for exemplary figures, for normative “lighthouses.” The com-
manders who served as personal examples in their professionalism and
their patriotic devotion, who charged at the head of their forces and
united their soldiers around them, were models of excellence and were
perceived as the nation’s emissaries.
The virtues typically attributed to the commander are instructive not
only about the character of the mythological Sabra, but also about the
Israeli combat culture’s system of values and, because of the importance
of the commander in a society at battle, also about the Zionist elite as a
whole. The following are the major ones.
a spiritual shepherd. His nobility indirectly increases the luster of the re-
ligious or revolutionary doctrine among his soldiers, whose love for their
commander leads them to love the ideology he represents. The com-
manders’ natural leadership indicates that they are indeed the commu-
nity’s elected and beloved leaders—the cream of the crop.
water was handed out by the spoonful—he was last. And only what was
left,” related Chaim Cheffer in his poem “The Platoon Commander.”114
The commander was not satisfied with preserving the existing norms and
values, but constantly set higher standards.
The figure of the commander leading his troops into battle became
rooted in the public consciousness. The commander’s cry, “Follow me!”
verbalized the intrepidness, determination, responsibility, and leadership
of the Hebrew officer—and in fact of the entire defense force. It made
him into the very personification of the model revolutionary leader—the
vanguard of the vanguard of the Zionist cause.
The commander who charged into battle crying “Follow me!”—thus
putting himself in greater danger than he put his soldiers—was also a
symbol of the unbounded self-sacrifice of Sabra youth. The “Follow me!”
tradition of Palmach commanders later became a moral trademark of
combat and command in the Paratrooper Corps and in the IDF as a
whole. “Follow me!” stories became central components of IDF combat
legends and the IDF’s self-image—and thus indirectly, of the self-image
of all of Israeli society. “The commander is always the first to surge
forward / ‘Follow me!’ he lets out a cry / Like a pillar of fire rising and
shining / Like the pillar of God in Sinai,” wrote Dan Almagor, for ex-
ample, after the Sinai Campaign in a song meant to express the spirit of
the IDF’s command.115
The “Follow me!” ethos served a functional need. It not only was a
model of patriotic behavior and sacrifice on the battlefield and an ex-
pression of equality between the officer and his soldiers, but also offered
the soldiers personal and emotional motivation for self-sacrifice and
tenacity. When soldiers revere their commander, they want to do as he
wishes, “to follow him through fire and water.” Translating this into re-
ligious terms, the Zionist religion succeeded in motivating its believers
through the charisma of “spiritual shepherds” who were army com-
manders rather than ecclesiastics.
The Good Parent Parental attentiveness is perhaps the most notable trait
in the myth of the commander. Regarding this trait too, Panipilov’s Men,
in which the commander is a father figure, was a great influence. The de-
piction of the platoon commander as a compassionate and understand-
ing father who treats his soldiers as if they were his children is especially
common in the memorial anthologies: “He served as a father to his pla-
toon, and with what devotion he took care of each one, knew each one’s
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 131
private problems, and saw that each one received help from the platoon
kitty and from the other men.”116
The motif of the father protecting his children is connected to the mo-
tif of standing in the breach, which is also prominent in the myth of the
Sabra commander. In many battle stories the commander encourages and
urges his soldiers on in times of trouble. He is the ideological axis that
holds the ranks together in difficult times and prevents them from buck-
ling, as Moses held together the Children of Israel in the desert. He bears
the national mission on his back even when his soldiers’ backs give way
because he is imbued more than they with consciousness of the great-
ness of the hour and the weight of historical-national responsibility.
The myth of the commander-father in its broad application is one of
the characteristics of a revolutionary society. Most social revolutions try
to reach the individual’s heart and save him from his alienation. Their
central messages are of human brotherhood and lofty altruism. For this
reason, the revolution generally presents leaders in emotional terms—as
fathers, mothers, or loving brothers. We love the hero because the hero
“loves us” and “looks after us.” Here also a social revolution resembles
a religion—a religious leader is presented not as a distant and arrogant
political leader, but as a paternal figure for his community, like a Catholic
priest, who is referred to literally as “father.”
self, because his sacrifice is then made for the general good, not just for
a hierarchical leadership.
Scholar of the Military Torah The role of the leader in a revolutionary pe-
riod is to spread confidence, because in a state of war and danger, feel-
ings of anxiety and uncertainty naturally proliferate. A leader (especially
a military leader) who knows what lies before him, who is sure of him-
self, who knows his way around, and who radiates calm will dispel anx-
ieties and instill confidence and security—expressed by the Sabra ex-
pression smoch discussed earlier. This is one of the reasons that military
professionalism is an element in the mythological profile of the Sabra
commander. “He remembers dozens of things, from maps to shoelaces,”
is Chaim Cheffer’s description in his song “The Platoon Commander.”
In the memorial anthologies the Sabra commander is presented as a kind
of scholar of the Torah of battle. He is expert in all its details, knows
what tomorrow will bring, is well versed in the ways of a good soldier
and in strategic planning, and his maturity and composure allow him to
get to the root of any matter and to distinguish the important from the
trivial.
It is important to recall the mutual reinforcement of myth and real-
ity, evident also in the case of the Sabra commander. The elements of the
myth were drawn not just from Zionism’s abstract ideals and utopian
values, but also from the very real figures of the commanders. Conversely,
the commanders themselves were educated in the values of the myth and
tried to meet those standards—and frequently succeeded. In other words,
in practice, myth and reality coincided to a great degree.
In the wake of the sweeping, swift victory and the small number of
casualties, the Israeli public’s elation and especially its pride knew no
bounds. The press emotionally described the Israeli tanks and armored
personnel carriers dashing through the legendary Sinai Desert, with tank
commanders directing fire while bravely standing half-exposed above
their tanks, shelling the enemy in all directions. The imagery (conscious
or unconscious) was that of the cowboy galloping over the prairie in pur-
suit of Indians. The reserve that had characterized the War of Indepen-
dence was replaced by national swaggering of the following type:
Since the time that Hannibal crossed the snowy Alps and Genghis Khan the
mountains of Asia, history has recorded few military operations that can
compare—in the force of the surprise, in the passage of natural barriers, and
in military success—with the heroic march of the Ninth Regiment in the Sinai
Campaign.119
The superiority of the Israeli army, which defeated the huge Egyptian
army, was at times perceived and described in metaphysical terms, and
the same language was used to describe the soldiers, especially the young
commanders. They were regarded as Biblical conquerors—like Joshua
and Judah Maccabee—defending their people, liberating territories un-
der divine sponsorship, and leading a new Jewish march into Canaan.
The Sabra fighter was again, as in the War of Independence, magnified
as the people’s emissary in the performance of the divine will, a warrior
guided in all his actions by divine grace. The fact that it was the con-
quest of Mt. Sinai reinforced the Biblical image of the victory. This was
captured in the words of the song written after the war that became the
victory’s anthem: “It is no legend, my friend, and no passing dream, here
facing Mt. Sinai, the bush, the burning bush.”
With the Sinai Campaign there was something like a mythological
changing of the guard between the Palmachnik of 1948 and the para-
trooper and pilot. The heroic battle of Mitla produced the war’s chief
martyr, who was, not coincidentally, a paratrooper.
The Sinai Campaign was the first Israeli war in which regular armored
units fought and in which jets were deployed and the Air Force played
a decisive role. The Israeli pilot was a Sabra in the eyes of the public, and
the war plane was his war horse. The front cover of the issue of the Gadna
magazine, Ba-Machaneh Gadna, that appeared after the war displayed
a huge drawing of an Israeli pilot, a young man with a nonchalant smile
and a cigarette in his mouth, mounted on a jet plane with reins in his
hand, like a cavalryman on his horse. Below him an enemy plane plum-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 136
meted in flames while he made a third X next to two others he had pre-
viously recorded. Underneath, in large letters, were the words “one less.”
Inside the magazine, an article on the Air Force stated:
The jet. Ancient peoples admired the bow. The Romans feared the mounted
warrior. We bow before the jet pilot, a term that demands respect, representing
the twentieth century and its amazing innovations. Admiration for the pow-
erful machine and for he who controls it. The jet pilot: Taut and in control.
Split-second response. Top physical condition. Imperturbability. Decisive and
correct command. These must be the traits of he who climbs into the cock-
pit of a jet plane, who ignites its rumbling, whistling roar.120
The aerial superiority of the Israeli pilot represented to the public the
human superiority of the Sabra, a perception that intensified over time.
The superlatives attached to him were inspired not only by the great vic-
tory in the Sinai Campaign, but also by the myth of the “conquest of the
skies” (the “knights of the skies”), which had its origin in World War I
and reached its height in World War II (as attested by the multitude of
American stories and films of that period about the heroism of British
and American war pilots).
“Today is not the day to wear the scarf of modesty,” said the com-
mander of the Air Force (a Sabra himself) just before the conclusion of
the Sinai Campaign. “Our unit caused [the enemy] the most damage, car-
ried out the largest number of sorties. Not only did it not suffer any ca-
sualties, there are now more combat-ready planes than there were at the
beginning of the combat.”121 This was not just a military declaration; it
was in large measure also a social one. “We are the Palmach” meta-
morphosed into “We are the pilots and paratroopers.”
The negative image of the Arab fighter during the Sinai Campaign also
strengthened the mythological image of the fighting Sabra. The picture
etched in public consciousness was of the shoes that the Arab soldiers
left behind in their hasty retreat. The Egyptian soldier who had cast off
his shoes and ran in panic from the battlefield was treated with contempt
in the Israeli press—especially given the boasts of the Arab dictator be-
fore the war. This intensified the “children of Israel’s” sense of cultural
and moral superiority over the Arabs.
In the years that followed the Sinai Campaign, the IDF became a ma-
jor sociocultural institution in Israeli society, and a new media and art
genre, kol ha-kavod le-Tzahal—“congratulations to the IDF”—began to
thrive. It reached its peak after the Six Day War. The foci of attention
were the Israeli paratrooper and pilot, described in the press like Holly-
wood heroes in an action-suspense picture with a happy ending. Simi-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 137
larly, many of the war stories were constructed as classic adventures, with
a noble hero, an evil nemesis, increasing suspense, and a dramatic and
happy denouement in the last act. Battle was portrayed as a masculine
sport or a duel. This genre reinforced the image of the army as the glory
of Israeli society and made the military profession the pinnacle of the
ambition of the new generation of Sabras.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 138
chapter 3
Dunce Cap
A chizbat:
With regard to my education and general intelligence, I’ve never heard of an-
other Palmachnik who studied as much as I did (three or four years in each
grade, including several years of advanced preparation in kindergarten . . . ).
The fact that I studied most of the time in a high school (of five or six stories)
speaks for itself. . . . Once, for example, a delegation of inspectors from the
education department sneaked into our school in order to check out the stu-
dents’ intelligence, which was, as you know, in steep decline. . . . As soon as
they stepped into the classroom they saw that I was bright, so they called me
up to the blackboard and asked me in a low and threatening voice: What does
it mean to study Torah on one foot, boy? I didn’t get flustered and on the spot
answered that that is the normal state of affairs: the teacher gives the lesson
and the pupil already has one foot out the door. . . . One of them was so en-
chanted by my personality that during the first recess he came up to me and
slapped me a few times on the shoulders. When I asked him what he wanted
he said emotionally: “You, kid, there’s no one else like you!” . . . And a few
seconds later he added: “Lucky for us.”1
138
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 139
Along with directing education toward physical labor, the labor move-
ment also set itself the goal of training the younger generation for bat-
tle and heroism, for both ideological and practical reasons. In this it suc-
ceeded beyond its own expectations. “Do you know to what our children
in the Upper Galilee aspire? To the bow and arrow,” wrote one of the
educators at Kibbutz Kfar Giladi.8 The first Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir man-
ual, published in 1917 in Warsaw, stated: “Our intention is—to educate
a young Hebrew of solid muscles, strong will, healthy and normal thought
without convolutions or sophistry, disciplined, a Jew with all his heart.”9
Health and physical vigor became key values in Zionist education not
only because of the practical need to cope with real difficulties and the
defense requirements of the Zionist enterprise, but also because they sym-
bolized the pragmatic and brave new Jew who shed the “pale” skin of
the Diaspora and rooted himself in Palestine.
Like education for a farmer’s life, education for a soldier’s life began
during the First Aliya. The ethos of combat and physical prowess was
instilled in the moshava schools (and later also in city and kibbutz
schools) through myths of heroism from the Jewish tradition. Lessons in
the Bible and Jewish tradition gave prominence to the figures of military
leaders and heroes such as Samson, David, Gideon, Judah Maccabee,
Elazar Ben-Yair of Masada, and Bar Kochba, rather than to outstand-
ing spiritual figures such as Rashi, Maimonides, Nachmanides, and the
Maharal of Prague.
Plays and pageants presented in the schools—first in the moshavot and
afterward in all the Zionist schools—glorified Jewish heroes,10 and songs
for preschoolers made the heroism of the Maccabees, not Jewish wis-
dom, the central educational value.
Again, education for militarism was motivated not only by ideology
but also, and perhaps first and foremost, by the pragmatic needs of a so-
ciety that had to fight. Training fighters through the educational system
was given great impetus when defense needs became more acute in the
late 1930s and early 1940s. It was then that premilitary groups were set
up in the schools—initially the Chagam, and then the Gadna.
The Chagam—the first incarnation of the Gadna—was founded by
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 142
Arthur Biram, principal of the Reali school in Haifa. The concept be-
hind it (influenced, perhaps, by Biram’s own German education) was
the training of a coterie of young and disciplined fighters with stamina
and physical strength, rather than a reserve of studious scholars expert
in the Bible and Jewish texts. In February of 1940 the Chagam Com-
mittee published its program and goals. The Chagam, the program
stated, would “educate people of discipline, responsibility, courage, and
precision in their movements, decisive in their actions, who prepare
themselves for maximal physical exertion and who can withstand cold,
heat, deprivation, and fatigue; who will be prepared to make every ef-
fort and to endure any suffering for the rebirth and liberation of the
nation.”11
The youth movements and Gadna took high school students to train-
ing camps of a few days’ length out in the field, in the spirit of the Pal-
mach. These camps were meant not only to “season with romanticism
and add color” to the children’s activities, but also to build the young
Sabra’s character.12 The activities were aimed at strengthening the body,
developing stamina and dexterity, and accustoming the Sabra to face dan-
ger courageously. Typical exercises included jumping from heights, ob-
stacle courses, nighttime infiltration, and especially, difficult marches, of-
ten in dangerous areas.13
Just as the anti-intellectual ethos led educators to uphold the manual
laborer and farmer as ideals, so it prompted them to present the fight-
ing man as superior to the thinking man. Social history teaches that a
society generally enhances the prestige of the professions that supply its
current needs, thus making them attractive. The resulting demand to en-
ter these professions in turn creates competition. This social principle be-
comes particularly operable in a revolutionary era, when a great social
mission is at stake. This is apparently one reason why in the Yishuv and
early state periods, a military command was so prestigious and was pre-
ferred by the Sabras (at least during their young adult years) over civil-
ian professions that required a period of study.
A military career did not necessarily mean neglecting one’s education,
but that was indeed the case during the early stages of the Israeli mili-
tary. Higher education was not a prerequisite for promotion in the Pal-
mach, and the IDF commanders were selected on the basis of strict stan-
dards of human quality; but objective constraints meant that higher
education—one of the criteria used in modern armies—could not be re-
quired by the Palmach and the early IDF.
Minimizing the importance of education in choosing candidates for
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 143
The field, the mountain, and the desert formed the backdrop against
which the Sabra in action was portrayed in words and in photographs.
A dust-encrusted, sunburned youngster, marching or sitting with his com-
rades in the open air or engaged in construction, farming, physical train-
ing, or the repair of mechanical tools is a figure that appears again and
again in the large collections of photographs of the period that lie in
archives. Even if some of the photographs are certainly posed, the im-
pression is that the Sabra was a man of the open spaces—someone for
whom the field was home and for whom physical activity was a habit
and even a joy.
Letters and diaries also demonstrate that manual labor, mechanical
expertise, and physical exertion were “ecological” as much as “ideo-
logical” for the Sabra (especially for the young person living on a kib-
butz or moshav, but also for the urban members of youth movements
who spent time at kibbutzim). Many of them wrote from the army to
their loved ones about how much they missed the work they had done
since childhood in the barn, the field, and the sheep pen.
It was the actual work on the farm, more than the work-oriented edu-
cation, that tightly bound a practical approach to life and a great love
of manual labor to the Sabra’s soul. “I was born in a farming village
and I live with agriculture. Unceasing daily labor is for me a fact and a
necessity—that is, not a matter of choice. I have in any case been edu-
cated to desire it and see it as a good life. Without such education it would
be very difficult for me,” wrote a young man from Nahalal.14 Farming
by nature required complete devotion and hard labor. The kibbutz or
moshav youngster thus had to adapt himself to physical work from a
young age. The tangible link between “sweat” and “result” fostered a
predilection for the field and meadow. The Sabra’s love of physical labor
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 144
was thus not only the ideological love of hagshama, but also the love that
instinctively binds the farmer to the earth he has cleared and plowed, to
the kids he has nursed, and to the machinery he has repaired.
This point reveals one of the fundamental cultural distinctions between
the pioneer and the Sabra generations. The pioneer adjusted himself to
manual labor out of ideological consciousness, while the Sabra was a
born farmer.
for the Sabras. Once the roots of the Diaspora languages were severed,
the Sabras were disconnected from the culture contained within the folk
language.
An examination of the common words of the period as they appeared
in chizbatim, in slang dictionaries, and in dialogues in plays and books
reveals that Sabra language was emphatically instrumental and was rich
in terms that describe everyday experience, as well as in technical and
mechanical vocabulary. The source of the Hebrew spoken by the Sabras,
according to critic Shalom Kramer, was a “renewed positive approach
to the world.”15
This trait noted by Kramer is perhaps the principal distinction between
the “holy tongue” and the new Hebrew of the Sabras—the former was
the language of imagination, formal pathos, and story, while the latter
was a language of practical and succinct communication about the mun-
dane and the common. The Sabra had to be a linguistic improviser be-
cause all he had at his disposal was an ancient language that lacked terms
for the modern world. This was apparently one of the reasons for the
robust slang in Sabra culture—slang supplied the missing day-to-day
words.
The most prominent anti-intellectual linguistic phenomenon in Sabra
culture was the development of dugri language—an unpolished, utili-
tarian, simple, and direct idiom. Like many other words, dugri itself was
borrowed from Arabic, in which it means “straight.” It means telling the
truth straight to someone’s face, without equivocation—the opposite of
hypocritical, behind-the-back talk.16
Over time, dugri acquired broader meaning, until it became a typical
Sabra word. It gained the connotation of talk that was simple, not ab-
struse, not “prettified,” outspoken, sometimes impertinent, arrogant, not
diplomatic, and not manipulative. Dugri also contained an element of
pride and irreverence. A person who spoke dugri was declaring that he
was a Sabra who said what he thought without fear and without the ab-
jectness of the Diaspora Jew speaking to the gentile noble or master. Dugri
was a sign of honesty, the courage to speak boldly, without embellish-
ment, without prevarication, on a high moral level.
For our purposes, what is important is the practicality of the Sabra’s
dugri language. The long periods spent in military frameworks required
rapid speech with an instrumental cast to it. In battle or in a briefing be-
fore battle there was no place for intricacy or long “academic” debates.
Dugri language became speech under fire—concise, pointed, and dry.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 146
and sign on for another term of service in the military. In general, their
consciences forced them to follow their calling to the Zionist imperative
and remain soldiers. So, for example, Yitzchak Rabin wrote:
The world war had ended. The possibility of going to study at Berkeley pre-
sented itself again. I wanted to go. I spoke with my father. I went to Yigal Al-
lon. “Absolutely impossible,” he said unequivocally. “The world war is over,
but our war is just beginning.” I knew that Yigal was right. A week later I re-
ceived the command of the Palmach’s second battalion.20
Sabras gave up formal education not only for ideological reasons but
also because of the lure of the great challenges outside of school that the
period presented to young people. Attending high school or college at
such a critical time seemed like a boring thing to do and meant missing
the “real” experience—the exciting national service that awaited the
young recruits. Adolescents tasted something of this by pasting up
posters, serving as couriers, and so on, and this only encouraged them
to enlist.
Young people also preferred the kibbutz, the Palmach, and the army
to the university because the more practical frameworks were a compli-
ment to their maturity. Students were perceived as adolescents, while
young people in the Palmach or at a kibbutz appeared as independent
adults who were bearing great responsibility.
It is important to emphasize that as was the case with the pioneers,
there was a certain discontinuity between ideology and reality among
the Sabras—especially those from the cities. There was constant tension
in particular between the ideologically committed youth movement lead-
ers and the rank-and-file members, just as there was between the army
commanders and the rank-and-file soldiers. This lacuna grew wider in
the 1950s, when the state of emergency had passed and more options
for employment and studies presented themselves. This was expressed
as a dichotomy between “career” and “calling” (meaning the dichotomy
between individualism and egoism on the one hand and collectivism and
altruism on the other), which gradually became part of the discourse.
In practice, most Sabras did not devote their lives to only agricultural
labor or military service. The majority did not stop their high school stud-
ies, and many—after a preliminary pioneer experience at a kibbutz or in
the army—even went on to a university education and a civilian career,
becoming part of Israel’s urban bourgeoisie.
On the other hand, quite without predesign, the Sabra created one of
the most remunerative career paths in Israeli society—the military ca-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 148
reer. For some this provided an optimal match between personal achieve-
ment and ideological sacrifice and so resolved the dilemma of career ver-
sus calling.
It could be said that from the 1940s, and with redoubled force in the
1950s, there was a tacit agreement between the political establishment
of the labor movement and the Sabra fighters—promotion in the army
and high military status in exchange for giving up high educational sta-
tus and a professional or political civilian career.21 This arrangement
strengthened the sense that minimal education would not be a detriment
to a Sabra’s future and was almost certainly one of the reasons that many
Palmach veterans put off their university studies.
among the leadership), in their fervor “to take action” for the Yishuv,
condemned the school administrators for the decision not to eliminate
the twelfth grade, terming this decision “heresy.”
One of the more remarkable examples of the attitude of these young
people was the “Twelfth-Graders’ Letter”—written by a group of teen-
agers at the Herzliya Gymnasium and published in the Ha-Machanot Ha-
Olim newsletter in 1943. The letter called upon twelfth-grade students
to abandon their studies, give up their high school diplomas, and enlist
in the army in order to serve the national cause.
Other letters appeared in the wake of this one,24 containing sharp
protests against studying “at this critical time.” The writers of the let-
ters cannot be suspected of simply seeking an excuse to get out of school,
since they also called on their fellows to give up their Pesach vacations
for “the general mobilization.”
When these demands were not met, some of these young people
(largely members of Ha-Machanot Ha-Olim, who were the most vocif-
erous in making this demand, perhaps because they were urban youth
living in a bourgeois atmosphere that directed them toward higher edu-
cation) took matters into their own hands and volunteered for agricul-
tural labor and military service despite the opposition of the educational
establishment and the censure of their teachers. Some declared their will-
ingness to forego higher education then and there, and even to interrupt
their twelfth-grade studies, which were the most important for earning
a high school diploma.25
Notably, in this controversy the members of the youth movement
showed themselves to be stricter in their adherence to the national cause
than their parents and teachers. Apparently, this “miniature rebellion” was
a manifestation of a concept found throughout Sabra culture—fighting
for a total rather than a qualified realization of Zionist ideals. This sen-
timent was also behind the establishment of organizations like the Pal-
mach. This may be termed “nonconforming conformity” or a “mini-re-
bellion within a strict revolutionary framework.”
The “excess piety” of the Sabras and their tacit defiance of the older gen-
eration were also expressed on the symbolic-linguistic level in their op-
position to the idealistic language of their leaders. This was a kind of rit-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 150
tablished itself and the state bureaucracy developed, and as urban cul-
ture broadened and the peripheral cities grew, the old-time labor move-
ment public began to sense that the country was declining ideologically
and becoming fatigued. This derived from the fear of the old-timers and
the leadership that they were losing their cultural and political hegemony
because of the mass immigration and the increasing shunting of social-
ist principles to the sidelines. It also grew out of an apprehension that
the attraction of the national ethos was waning and the country was un-
dergoing “premature normalization”—a common phenomenon in ide-
ological societies.30 This fear found expression in newspaper articles con-
demning the appetite for property and the pursuit of luxury. Wrath (both
written and oral) was visited in particular on wayward young people who
had ostensibly been infected by moral dystrophy. This preaching by party
leaders and officials, which became a kind of periodic verbal ritual, cre-
ated a sense of disgust among the Sabras, especially the older ones.
Clearly, the Sabras were not sick of Zionist ideology itself; they were
only disgusted with ideological, patronizing preaching. There was also
very likely a kind of youthful rebellion at work here, reflecting the Sabra’s
discomfort at being a “good boy.” The Sabra condemnation of the es-
tablishment concealed a generational struggle—the aspiration of the
Sabras to shake themselves free of the paternalism of the older genera-
tion and win independence. Their anti-style language, like their military
service, thus allowed the sons to engage in the traditional generational
rebellion—the “parricide,” in Freud’s language—through a channel that
did not break the backbone of Zionist conformity.
The Sabras’ anti-establishment attitude was also linked to other pro-
cesses of institutionalization and erosion that were underway in Israeli
society. For instance, in turbulent periods high language is often used to
describe events. The newspapers, books, and poems produced in the
1940s and 1950s were indeed laden with emotional verbiage, and this
slowly cheapened the formal idioms in the ears of the Sabras. As the lan-
guage of pathos was eroded, largely by the leadership, the Sabras found
it more and more difficult to describe the emotional events in which they
participated and the experiences they had undergone, such as the death
of friends. High pathos was ground into fine dust, losing its emotional
value, and could no longer encompass an ecstatic and profound situa-
tion. The solution to the erosion of words was either silence or simple,
economized speech. Small and introspective gestures became a symbolic
surrogate, an internal code of authentic pathos, in which an element of
Sabra anti-style replaced pioneer style.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 152
Rachel’s lyricism and economy matched the Sabra style, and the great
love that the Sabras had for her poetry grew largely out of her ability to
express “in a few short lines, and with the simplest words . . . the com-
plete identification of a young Jewish woman with her homeland.”32
This may give the impression that Sabras avoided high language com-
pletely. But in practice it turns out that there was a huge gap—a para-
doxical one—between the way the Sabra spoke and the way he wrote.
This sharp contrast can be seen in youth movement correspondence, es-
pecially between counselors and the national leaderships, and in the pub-
lic calls to action published from time to time on a variety of subjects in
the youth movement periodicals. It also appears in letters, and especially
in the compositions and poems written for the desk drawer or published
in the internal youth movement pamphlets and newsletters.
How can this gap between the spoken and written languages be ex-
plained? Beyond the usual stylistic gap between written and spoken lan-
guage, this seems to be another manifestation of “rebellion within a
framework of obedience”—the revolution of the sons against the fathers
is not total, but is an expression of the sons’ uniqueness within a frame-
work of absolute acceptance of the fathers’ values.
While discussing the intellectual side of the Sabra, one should examine
not only the sources of his education and the level and character of his
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 153
writing but also the subjects that were important to him. An examina-
tion of the youth movement guidebooks; the pamphlets put out by the
youth movements, the Palmach, and the army; and school newspapers
shows that the major topics of interest were intra-movement and intra-
Israeli. The theoretical, political, and moral discussions appearing in these
forums also revolved around the local culture and its problems. Subjects
such as cinema, art, economics, world politics, modern technology, en-
tertainment, fashion, and even youth cultures in other places were al-
most never discussed, or were referred to only briefly and often from a
Zionist point of view and within the local context. Even when an apoc-
alyptic war raged around the world, full of catastrophes and bringing
huge changes, the youth press (and for that matter the general press)
largely addressed internal issues, such as labor camps, conventions, meet-
ings, and problems within the local chapter of the youth movement.33
The humor in the stories, articles, and jokes that fill the youth publi-
cations was also local, very much rooted in the experience of the kib-
butz, the youth movement chapter house, the army outpost, and the new
settlement. Sabra society thus appears as an isolated cultural island en-
tirely involved with itself. This cultural ethnocentrism characterizes both
revolutionary societies and societies under siege, and so, it goes without
saying, a society that is both revolutionary and under siege. There are,
however, some further reasons for this trait in Sabra culture.
Roots in the Air The roots of Sabra provinciality lay not only in his geo-
graphic and cultural isolation, but also in the spiritual isolation that was
imposed on the Sabras, to a certain extent, by the generation of their fa-
thers. The anti-Diaspora ethos prompted the pioneers to obliterate the
traditional culture in which they had grown up, thus cutting the Sabra
off from the Jewish cultural legacy.35 Moreover, the absence of grand-
parents in most families seriously hampered the transmission of tradi-
tion. Everything was intentionally focused on the present in this culture
that had just been created, and the culture of the Diaspora past was si-
lenced, as is the practice in many revolutions.
The Sabras were also condemned to cultural isolation because they
were the second generation of immigrant families—families that, as so-
ciological research shows, tend to prefer their new culture to the old one
they left behind. The pioneers, as well as the immigrants of the Fourth
and Fifth Aliyot, displayed the classic immigrant syndrome: they wanted
their children to become rooted in the new homeland and to assume a
new identity, and at the same time they were pained by their children’s
disconnection from the cultural roots of the old homeland. The parents’
sorrow at their children’s lack of roots in the old culture was enhanced
because the anti-Diaspora ethos commanded them to efface the past and
to leave behind a spiritual world and a rich cultural tradition. As Ezriel
Uchmani wrote:
They [the Sabra generation] never saw their grandmother, much less their
mother, light Sabbath candles, stretching out her hands and covering her eyes
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 155
with them, her heart bathed in tears. Their grandmother was far away and
the Sabbath candle was even farther, since we concealed from them—from
our children—the reality of grandmother and Sabbath so that it would not
arouse in them what we called “religious wistfulness.”36
nor part of its spiritual leadership, and so did not find itself making the
same kind of ideological and emotional pronouncements that the pio-
neers made. The sons were required to see to the execution of the hopes
and dreams of the pioneer generation that preceded them. The fathers
were acutely aware of the difficulty they thus created for their sons. The
result was a paradox: on the one hand, the pioneer leadership gave its
blessing to the natural and naive conformism of the second generation,
but on the other hand it feared that the children were accepting the values
“mechanically” and so not deeply.
There was another fear as well: making the younger generation de-
pendent on the older generation to the point of paralyzing it (as some-
times happens to the children of great creative artists). In an article in
1937, Baruch Ben-Yehuda, the principal of the Herzliya Gymnasium, la-
beled this phenomenon the “second-generation complex”:
This is the tragedy of the “second”: it is not at peace, it is torn in two. Its
heart will not allow it to continue what the “first” began, for it too is “first”
in its own eyes. And it cannot be “first.” It sets its eyes forward, but the fear
of the “first” chases it. Its independence is taken from it. All its life it does
not stand on its own, but hangs.42
really ignorant?
All this may give the impression that the Sabra grew up to be a kind of
rough-hewn boor. Chaim Guri called the members of his generation
“Gavrushes,” after the name of the soldier son of Kibbutz Beit Alfa’s Dr.
Eliahu Rappaport, an artist, thinker, and colleague of Martin Buber.
“Among those born here there are also the Gavrushes, the sons of the
Rappaports, the friends of the Martin Bubers, who startled the midwives
who saw them being born with a monkey wrench and pistol in hand,”
Chaim Guri wrote.45
The idealistic conformity, the culture of dugri, and the aptitude for
technical and military professions gave the younger generation the im-
age of simple farmers of narrow horizons and a somewhat simplistic per-
ception of reality. But this image is a bit misleading, especially when one
takes into account all the facets of education and intellect present among
the Sabra (and also because “education” and “intellect” are vague con-
cepts that cannot be measured quantitatively).46 While the Sabra was an
ethnocentrist in his worldview, averse to high language, and chose to pres-
ent himself as a man of action rather than as a man of thought, he was
not uneducated. His formal high school education was of a high level,
according to the standards of other Western countries. The Sabras were
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 158
But above all else, the military world is commonly regarded as a prac-
tical arena, by nature opposed to the world of intellectual creativity. In
fact, it requires a great deal of intellectual creativity. While the 1948 gen-
eration made no ideological innovations in Zionism, it was very inno-
vative in the area of military thinking and strategy, which require in-depth
study, analytic ability, and creativity. In fact, this is what produced the
IDF, today considered one of the best armies in the world.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 160
chapter 4
The Stamp of
His Country’s Landscape
160
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 161
Teaching the love of nature and of the country’s landscape was central
to Zionist education from the turn of the century, but it became more
formalized, more extensive, and took a more important place in the cur-
riculum starting in the 1920s. During this period a number of Jewish nat-
ural scientists immigrated to Palestine, many of whom became school-
teachers. The Hebrew University was also founded in Jerusalem, and the
labor movement consolidated its system of education—the schools in the
kibbutzim and moshavim and the labor-oriented schools in the cities. At
the same time Zionist writers were churning out songs and stories for
children and young people, and most of these were about the link be-
tween the Zionist pioneer and the landscape of his homeland.
In the 1920s a number of textbooks and reference books on Pales-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 162
tinian geography and natural history for adults and for young people
were published. There was also an abundance of guidebooks for the He-
brew hiker and traveler, most of them put out by the Jewish National
Fund and the Histadrut labor federation.5 The assumption of the authors,
as well as of the educators who used the books, was that Jews in Pales-
tine should learn about the land not only for intellectual and practical
purposes, but also for ideological reasons. They believed, almost certainly
correctly, that there was a connection between knowledge and sentiment—
between knowing the land and loving the land—and that instruction in
Palestinian geography and natural history was a pedagogical tool for cre-
ating identification with the land and a sense of partnership in the pio-
neer enterprise.6
This approach, which integrated science and ideology (and which was
employed elsewhere, as in Communist societies), could be seen clearly
in “knowledge of the land” books. These works both overtly and co-
vertly linked knowledge with emotion, scientific facts with Jewish and
pioneer legends.7 The very term “knowledge of the land,” which was
coined during the First Aliya and later institutionalized in popular
knowledge-of-the-land quiz contests, indicated the emotional content of
these geography books; in Hebrew, “knowing the land” bore a conno-
tation parallel to the Biblical sense of “knowing a woman.”
The teaching of natural history and geography in the Yishuv thus
served as an ideological tool for instruction in Zionism and especially
for attaching emotional meanings to the country’s landscape. This was
clearly expressed in the name given to elementary school geography les-
sons: “knowledge of the homeland,” later shortened simply to “home-
land.”8 The homeland was a major academic subject in the curriculum
of the education department of the National Council as early as 1923,
and its importance grew at the end of the 1920s and the beginning of
the 1930s with the expansion of the teachers’ colleges, the growing num-
bers of publishers, technical improvements in book printing, and the de-
velopment of geographical research in Palestine. Particularly influential
was Nachum Gabrieli’s book Knowledge of the Homeland (1934), an
elementary school textbook, and Tzvi Zohar’s Study in the Spirit of the
Homeland (1937), which included topics and lesson plans in geography.
Ostensibly, these “knowledge of the homeland” books were intended
for geography instruction in the lower grades, but in fact they contained
a mixture of subjects—natural history, agriculture, geography, Jewish his-
tory, and Hebrew literature. Thus they served as propaganda material
for the pioneer enterprise and were meant to imbue the pupils with the
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 163
environmental education,
zionist style
trips to nearby fields and open spaces. Kibbutz and moshav children went
on study trips to become acquainted with their surroundings at least once
a week. Special attention was given to learning about the domesticated
flora on the farm; viewing the fields when they were plowed and sown,
when the crops sprouted, and when the grain was harvested and win-
nowed; and observing the vineyards and orchards through their seasons—
grafting, leafing, flowering, and picking. On these trips the students also
absorbed information, unmediated, about local topography, wild and do-
mestic animals and plants, and the local insects and birds. In particular,
they could feel the living pulse of the farm.
Another way of strengthening the youngsters’ link with the land and
with nature was having them participate in the farm work. Kibbutz and
moshav teachers would go with their pupils to pick fruit, olives, and grapes,
especially in the hot season. This custom grew first and foremost out of
the kibbutz approach to education, which emphasized learning in the
framework of life itself.
Involving children and teenagers in agricultural work was also meant
to imbue them with a sense of belonging to the rural community and
to the local landscape. Even though hard work on the farm sometimes
came at the expense of vacation time, kibbutz children loved it, both be-
cause it flattered their maturity and because of the enjoyable closeness
to nature. Of course kibbutz and moshav children did not just work for
educational reasons. There were economic reasons as well—working
hands were needed, and the children had to be trained in agricultural
tasks so they could join the farm’s workforce as soon as they were old
enough.16
For city children, farm chores were replaced by tending the school gar-
den (in the context of lessons in agriculture, to which two hours a week
were devoted, beginning in 1942),17 as well as participating in work
camps on kibbutzim, usually held during vacations and organized by the
schools or by youth movements. Even though city parents had no desire
for their children to become kibbutzniks, they welcomed the work
camps for ideological reasons. Among the bourgeoisie, who intended for
their children to remain in the city and pursue white-collar professions,
the common wisdom was that their children would not be harmed and
would in fact only benefit from a short period of pioneer work, and that
it was certainly good for them to make a personal contribution to the
national cause by helping in outlying settlements. In this way the urban
Sabra was also connected to nature and to the country’s landscape and
could actively participate in the pioneer ritual.
Volunteer work on farms with other teenagers was a fun experience
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 166
of free and independent living for city children. Since they grew up in
urban families, this freedom was much more meaningful than it was for
kibbutz children, who grew up in children’s houses. Manual labor in the
fields and orchards was not felt to be a chore, but rather was an enjoy-
able youthful experience. It was also nice to leave the city for a natural
setting and for what was perceived as a healthy way of life.
Time spent at a kibbutz working shoulder to shoulder with children
from the working settlements linked the urban Sabras to the rural cul-
ture and the kibbutz movement and made them feel at home there. For
those who chose kibbutz life, it was also preparation for becoming set-
tlers themselves. These periods of farm work produced abundant mem-
ories and common symbols and were the source of many songs that
echoed the experience of labor and its moral significance.
As a member of youth organizations, the Sabras also gained famil-
iarity with nature on overnight camps in the woods, conducted several
times a year in the tradition of the German Wandervogel and the British
scouts. Camp activities included hikes and outdoorsmanship, campcraft,
and scouting. Like the work camps on the kibbutzim, these camps also
had about them elements of romanticism and independence; they were
breaks in the routine that provided an outlet for youthful energy. Fur-
thermore, they created an opportunity for an experience shared by both
sexes and were therefore very popular with young people.
The love of nature, as well as how to survive in it, was taught in mil-
itary and paramilitary organizations (the hachsharot and the Gadna) as
part of combat training.18 In the Palmach, the Gadna, and IDF combat
units military training camps were set up, generally in a wooded area,
with the intention of teaching the trainee how to live outdoors. Campers
erected their own tents and slept in them, learned to cook outdoors, to
camouflage themselves, and to build improvised facilities from materi-
als found in the woods and the field. Hikes and navigation exercises were
also part of the didactic menu, complementing the field knowledge
learned in the youth movements.
The tradition of the annual field trip (a longer field trip than the ones just
described, lasting several days in the older grades) had its inception in the
“trips to the moshavot” that were instituted in the moshavot schools of
the First Aliya. These trips were made by the children of one moshava to
other moshavot, both nearby and distant, and lasted several days, some-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 167
times several weeks, at the end of the school year. The children’s arrival
at another moshava was a day of celebration, including a joyful, formal,
and public welcoming ceremony.19 The trips symbolized the link between
the moshavot and the Yishuv schools and served as a kind of coming-of-
age and independence ceremony for the children of the moshavot.
What began early in the century as a local initiative of a few Zionist
teachers became in the 1920s an educational tradition and a focal point
of Sabra education in the schools and youth movements. The annual trips
were of special importance in the high schools and youth movement chap-
ters of the cities, where their physical distance from the mythological ru-
ral space created a certain dissonance between idea and practice. The
trip was a holiday and a kind of Zionist sanctification ceremony, in which
pupils and their teachers left the secular urban space for the sacred Zion-
ist rural space. The many kinds of transitions—from “education” to “ac-
tion,” from an intellectual to an emotional experience, from passivity
(sitting) to activity (walking), from a multilingual and multicultural world
to an unadulterated and isolated Zionist world, from the familiar and
routine medium of the classroom to an unexpected social medium in
which the distance between the teachers and the pupils grew smaller—
all made the trip a unique and exciting experience. Along with its aspect
as coming-of-age and Zionist sanctification ceremony, the annual trip
served several other social functions:
. Annual trips were one of the few means in that period of acquaint-
ing young people with the more distant parts of their environment,
whether region, district, or country. Such conversance was impor-
tant in a society in which there were few means of transportation,
especially for residents of outlying settlements, who grew up geo-
graphically isolated and without mechanical means of mobility.
. Visits to Jewish settlements (especially on youth movement trips)
were meant to induce young people to identify with the model of
the working settlement and make them want to join one. Many trips
did, in fact, produce this result. A Herzliya Gymnasium trip to the
Dead Sea led to the establishment of a group that founded Kibbutz
Ein Gedi, and the trips to the Jezreel Valley made by members of
the group that later became Ha-Machanot Ha-Olim led to the es-
tablishment of Kibbutz Beit Ha-Shita.20
. The annual youth movement trips created ties between different
chapters and youth movement groups and strengthened the social
connection between the Sabras and the settlements.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 168
. The sites visited on these trips (settlements and institutions that were
generally well known at the time) brought home to the young person
the geographic and social boundaries of the settlement and labor en-
terprises (which did not include the Arabs, the British camps, and the
old Yishuv—the Jewish religious communities that had existed in
Palestine prior to Zionism), as well as their huge achievements.
. More than anything else, these trips were a means of inflating the
sails of the youthful soul with the national spirit. Their organizers
viewed them first and foremost as annual revival campaigns, meant
to strengthen the connection between the Sabra and his homeland.21
mediate response of the settlers to the harshness of the climate and the
bare landscape with which they had to cope. By planting, the pioneers
tried to improve their living conditions a bit and create a more com-
fortable and pleasant environment for the members of the kibbutz, most
of whom had come from the richly green landscapes of Europe.”23 The
formal design of the kibbutz’s external appearance was conceived by the
German Jewish architect and urban planner Richard Kaufmann, who was
invited in 1920 by Arthur Ruppin, the Zionist official responsible for
settlement activity, to plan the settlements set up by the Palestine Office
of the Zionist Organization. Kaufmann was a product of the German
school and had planned cities and garden suburbs in Germany and Nor-
way. He planned most of the agricultural settlements in Palestine in the
1920s and 1930s, and it was he who designed the kibbutz and moshav
as green settlements. In the third decade after the founding of the kib-
butz and moshav there was an influx of Jewish gardening and landscape
professionals who had studied overseas, and they worked to enhance the
kibbutz gardens and lawns. During this period most of the kibbutzim
planted the large grassy areas that in time became characteristic of their
appearance. After the 1950s, when most kibbutzim were linked to the
national water supply system, gardens and lawns spread over the entire
residential area of the kibbutz, in some places covering fifty to seventy-
five acres. From that period to the present day a kibbutz may be easily
identified by its characteristic landscape—a rural settlement full of green
and surrounded by a broad belt of fields and orchards, resembling a
botanical garden or nature reserve.24
The kibbutz landscaping also played a symbolic-ideological role. The
development of plant life symbolized the development of the kibbutz com-
munity and its taking root in its land. The common, fenceless garden sym-
bolized the common home and the lack of distinction between the indi-
vidual and the community. The arrangement of the plants, which was in
the naturalistic style of an English garden, rather than in the decorative,
geometrical forms characteristic of the French garden, indicated the spon-
taneity, simplicity, modesty, and informality of the kibbutz culture; the vivid
green of the kibbutz also indirectly hinted at leaving behind the depress-
ing dimness and dankness of the Jewish house of study in Eastern Europe.
The Sabra who was born on a kibbutz or moshav or spent time on
one as a participant in youth movement camps, Palmach hachsharot, and
so on thus lived in close and daily contact with nature. He was planted
along channels of water and his growing environment was, as Zerubavel
Gilad, a native of Ein Harod, described, “a childhood oasis.”
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 170
mountains and crevices. Their expertise in the landscape and their ardent
love for the physical space of the country were one reason they became
admired figures and were considered great patriots.
The Palmach also contributed decisively to the tradition of expertise
and familiarity with the country’s landscape and to turning this talent
into an Israeli status symbol, especially through the development of re-
connoitering as a fundamental subject in combat training.27 Reconnoi-
tering was part of taking Yishuv defense activities beyond the bound-
aries of the settlements themselves, as practiced by the Haganah’s Mobile
Forces, the Field Troops, the Jewish auxiliary guards sponsored by the
British, and Orde Wingate’s Night Squads.28 Though the first reconnoi-
tering operations were done without professional training, this changed
with the establishment of the Palmach.
Fear that the German army in North Africa would reach Palestine
prompted the Yishuv to make preparations for a guerrilla war against
the invaders, and this required thorough study and military analysis of
paths, hideouts, commanding and observation points, and natural ob-
stacles. It called for expertise in the collection of intelligence (topographic
data), topographic analysis, and navigation with map and compass. The
first Palmach soldiers were assigned this work by British officers in the
context of their cooperation in the war against the Nazis. The British
made an important contribution to the reconnoitering profession in the
Palmach not only by passing on the results of their vast experience but
also by preparing the first topographic maps of Palestine and so reveal-
ing the lay of the land in depth.
When the danger of a German invasion passed and the military ties
to the British were severed, the profession of reconnoitering and knowl-
edge of the terrain continued as part of the Haganah’s war against the
Arabs. Collection of topographical data and enemy intelligence became
a routine job for the Palmach, which saw itself as a mobile offensive force.
Palmach fighters regularly went out on reconnoitering missions to col-
lect military information on the Arab villages and their environs, in-
cluding access routes, water sources, and hiding places.29
Most of the reconnoitering work was done by platoons and squads
of scouts (both male and female) that were an integral part of the Pal-
mach’s companies, as well as by a central reconnoitering platoon.30 These
platoons and squads, led by the Palmach’s most senior commanders,
turned reconnoitering into a profession of the highest standards and laid
the professional foundations for the IDF’s intelligence work. In the War
of Independence, the Givati Brigade’s mobile reconnoitering company,
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 173
known as the Shimshon Foxes, became famous, and in the 1950s Unit
101 and the IDF’s reconnoitering special forces became known for their
superior navigational abilities. The fact that the label “reconnoitering
unit” was attached to the IDF’s most elite forces, whose missions were
not limited to navigation, indicates the importance of reconnoitering as
a military status symbol.
The scout’s job was not limited to gathering intelligence. It also in-
cluded leading forces into maneuvers and battle, tracking (to locate en-
emy infiltrators), planning marches, finding places of concealment along
operations approaches and return routes, and locating sources of water.
The critical nature of these activities made reconnoitering a prestigious
profession among the Sabras and marked the reconnoitering units as il-
lustrious status groups and as Palmach and IDF myths. But this prestige
derived not only from their professionalism and military importance but
also from the fact that they indirectly marked the rootedness of the new
Jew—self-confidence in hostile territory (whether enemy territory or the
desert itself), the physical aptitude and courage to move through the dark-
ness like a wild animal (the opposite of the stereotyped cowardly Jew),
and nativeness (the native knows the country’s mountains and crevices).
“In all places the scout’s job is to discover the enemy’s country and help
conquer it. With us, his job is to discover the homeland and help con-
quer it,” said Benny Maharshek, the Palmach’s political officer, in a state-
ment that itself became part of the 1948 mythology. The scout heading
the force may well have embodied the Zionist movement’s image of it-
self as a vanguard, a movement leading the Jewish camp, blazing a trail
for it.
The symbolic importance of reconnoitering made it a key military
achievement and one of the most important identity symbols of the Pal-
mach veterans. Stories, skits, poems, chizbatim, and nostalgic songs were
embroidered around the image of the scout. The Palmach’s “shapers of
the past,” with some exaggeration, depicted all Palmachniks as trained
scouts, and in doing so contributed to the mythologization of the or-
ganization and its members.
The March
from hike to march
special guides under the direction of Ze’ev Vilnai. The routes of these
hikes went outside the areas of settlement into distant places uninhab-
ited by Jews, and some of them lasted several days and were extremely
difficult.31 This launched a new tradition in the history of the Zionist
hike—the march.
The march differed from the hike in seven ways (this is not a di-
chotomous distinction, since the boundaries between the march and the
hike were somewhat fuzzy, and the word “hike” was sometimes used to
describe a march and vice versa): (1) The march involved a long stay in
the field (three days or more). (2) The march required physical exertion
(because of the length of the route, heavy equipment, climactic condi-
tions, and limited water) and demanded physical and psychological stam-
ina. A hike was meant primarily for enjoyment and education, while the
march was meant to be excruciating, to fortify the participant, and to
test him. (3) The march required complex navigation with the help of a
topographical map. (4) The destination of the march was more impor-
tant than the journey, and therefore all or part of the way was covered
at night. (5) The march included an element of discovery and “conquest”
of a place (a spring, a peak, ruins). (6) Most marches were conducted in
the country’s desert regions, so the participants were more isolated than
participants in hikes. (7) The march included manifestly militaristic ele-
ments (walking in columns, military dress, water rationing), as well as
an element of danger. In military groups the march had tactical impor-
tance, and therefore included specifically military elements such as
camouflage, a swift pace, and reconnoitering.
The marching culture gained momentum and became a fundamental
element in the national folklore in the 1940s. There were four reasons
for this: the “discovery” by the youth movements of Masada, which
turned into a major site for marches; the resistance to the restrictions on
movement imposed by the British; the establishment of the Gadna in the
cities and its parallel incarnation on the kibbutzim, the Kibbutz Brigade;
and the founding of the Palmach.
Trips to the Dead Sea, including the ascent of Masada, began in the
1920s, first within the framework of the upper classes of the Herzliya
Gymnasium (headed by Dr. Bograshov, who had a special love for ge-
ography),32 and continued in the 1930s, within the framework of the Ha-
Machanot Ha-Olim movement. Then, in 1942, a study seminar was held
on the peak of Masada for forty-seven counselors from Ha-Noar Ha-
Oved, Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir, and Ha-Machanot Ha-Olim, at the initia-
tive and under the direction of Shmaryahu Gutman of Ha-Noar Ha-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 175
A year later the March of the Two Thousand to Masada was held,
and from then on a mass Gadna march—not only to Masada but also
to Jerusalem and other places—became an annual tradition.35
In the 1950s, during Moshe Dayan’s term as chief of staff, the march
became an important element in the swearing-in of army basic trainees.
Hundreds of infantrymen, after a difficult march, would ascend the wind-
ing trail to the Masada peak in a long column to be sworn in at night in
a torchlight ceremony.
The Palmach, more than any other body, was the organization that in
the 1940s raised the march to the level of a principal educational enter-
prise. The Palmach also encouraged its associated youth movements to
conduct marches in distant areas and would send its own scouts to guide
the hikers and its own men to protect them in the desolate areas of the
Negev and Judean Deserts. Aside from the march to Masada, the Pal-
mach conducted traditional marches to Modi’in (the home of the Mac-
cabees), to Tel Chai, from Jerusalem to Ein Gedi, around the Dead Sea
to the Arnon Canyon, as well as climbs up Mounts Tabor, Muchraka,
and Meron. The march was central to the Palmach experience because
it filled several complementary roles:
. The march was used for security purposes: to create an armed Jew-
ish presence in various regions of the country, tantamount to a dec-
laration of ownership; to create a deterrent; and to gather infor-
mation and intelligence (the participants in the marches helped in
the preparation of reconnaissance dossiers).
. Marches through sparsely populated territories, far from the eyes
of British and Arab intelligence, were used for live fire exercises. They
were also an innocent cover for the soldiers, since youth movements
also went on marches and weapons could be concealed in jerricans
and knapsacks.
. As in other armies, for the Yishuv soldiers the march was a partial
simulation of the battlefield and a way of training the soldiers to
function under pressure and danger and to perform missions at any
price. Setting out at night, moving silently among Arab villages,
sometimes in dangerous areas, was meant to sharpen the fighters’
senses and develop their combat skills.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 177
The March as a Test of Patriotism The march was not only an expression of
the covenant or marriage between the Sabra and his homeland but also
a test of loyalty. Overcoming physical difficulty was a mark of the fight-
ing pioneer spirit. According to the myth, only the chosen ones, those who
overcame the mental and physical obstacles along the way and reached
the finish point, were worthy of being numbered among the pioneer
guard. “Indeed, only the best of us reached the peak. The rest of the weak
and tired with the fractured and broken limbs trudged [back] to Mer-
chavia [in the valley],” wrote a member of Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir about
a march in the Jezreel Valley ending with a steep climb.
The symbolic meaning of the marches as national awakening calls, as
demonstrations and tests of collective willpower and determination, and
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 181
reached adulthood during the period when the state was established. The
forbidden marches he and his imitators went on to Petra in the moun-
tains of Jordan, the Ein Gedi cliffs, the Arnon canyon in Jordan, the es-
carpments of the Judean Desert, Mt. Lebanon, and Sinai were a kind of
1950s folkloristic variation of the individual marches that some kibbutz
and moshav youngsters (such as Tuvia Kushnir and Yitzchak Zamir) went
on in the 1940s. Their motivation was a search for thrills in the drab
days of the early state that came after the stormy 1940s, and the aspi-
ration of the Sabras who had not participated in the War of Indepen-
dence to best the Palmach Sabras, or at least to produce for themselves
a new social status symbol. The new border created in 1948, beyond
which lurked (at least according to the public image) an enemy dripping
with hatred and desire for revenge—the “infiltrator” and the “terror-
ist”—affected the flavor of the individual marches of the 1950s.
Like many members of his generation, Har-Tzion was born and grew
up on a kibbutz (Ein Harod), and followed the classic Sabra path. He
had all the Sabra traits in their pure form and in the special configura-
tion of his era—the end of the War of Independence; the broadening of
the Jewish country’s borders, which opened up new landscapes; the be-
ginnings of the regular army; the consolidation of the myths of 1948;
and the escalation of attacks by the Arab fedayeen. His diary—published
twenty years later as a book—is thus in many respects no less a genera-
tional than a personal journal.
Har-Zion seemed to embody—consciously or unconsciously—the
epitome of the Sabra’s anti-Diaspora ethos and the folklore of nativeness
and combat. He was described by his friends—and appears in his diary—
as independent, wild, and defiant, a sturdy young man of exceptional
courage, fun-loving, at home in his homeland, with a strong sense of na-
tiveness. Like other Sabra heroes, he was a classic product of Sabra cul-
ture on the one hand and, on the other, a social bellwether who created
new molds and widened the borders of the culture. In fact, it is possible
to say that Har-Tzion’s marches both expressed and heralded the ego-
centrization and militarization of the new Sabra of the 1950s.
Har-Tzion exemplified the ideological extremism possible in all reli-
gions, including the Zionist religion of the 1950s. Every religion produces
its fanatics—those individualistic individuals (such as the Ba’al Shem Tov,
the founder of Hasidism) who take the primary symbols and expressions
of faith to an extreme in a process of intensifying piety and ideology and
making a show of religious symbols. The march, as noted, was one of
the expressions of Zionist faith, and it was only natural that believers
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 183
would arise who would make their imprint on its overt and covert rit-
ual aspects.
As a Zionist devotee Har-Tzion did indeed take to extremes the ritual
aspects of the youth movement and Palmach group march. One of them
was facing and overcoming danger. He chose destinations for his marches
that were distant and risky, both geographically (for example, he loved
scaling the steep and dangerous face of Masada) and in terms of hostile
populations (for example, traveling across the border). This made them,
and similar marches by others, operations of macho daring. Har-Tzion
wrote, “I would get up early, at four in the morning, and stride in the
dark to the mountain, sometimes also at night and in the afternoon. Sim-
ply, it is nicer, more attractive, and more interesting to go early in the
morning. It is dangerous and therefore also interesting at night because
there are infiltrators.”43 The jewels in the crown among these marches
were the ones to Petra in Jordan. These became a kind of Sabra sport, a
covert competition for breaking records of difficulty and danger.
Freedom and independence were also taken to extremes in the for-
bidden marches of Har-Tzion and his imitators. Leaving without advance
notification (sometimes actually fleeing in the middle of the night), ram-
bling through distant locations, and sneering at danger expressed the dis-
position of a Hebrew Buffalo Bill. Har-Tzion was (though not con-
sciously) a pure incarnation of the “new Jew,” recognizable from his
potent sense of freedom and independence, and this was one of the rea-
sons that he became a mythological figure.
On these marches, Har-Tzion and his companions underwent sensu-
ous experiences of being at one with nature. His journal is full of de-
scriptions of encountering the primal land, of absorption into nature and
of osmosis with the desert cliffs and crevices—walking in water with his
shoes on, walking naked in the wadis under a fierce sun, picking wild
fruit, spending nights in a sleeping bag under a full moon, climbing
precipices. In fact, there is a similarity between the pantheistic feelings
of Har-Tzion and those of S. Yizhar, the Palmach writer—Har-Tzion flirts
with the Land of Israel landscape with his feet, while Yizhar does so with
his pen.
The physical torment of the regular marches metamorphosed, in the
forbidden marches, into a sensuous experience. It lost some of its ideo-
logical meaning and turned into individual satisfaction of natural urges.
Har-Tzion’s journal describes how he exulted in harsh conditions and
made them into ecstatic experiences of the physical tension between se-
vere denial (of sleep, water, comfort, food) and its satisfaction—drinking
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:30 PM Page 184
cool water from a spring hidden among the boulders after a parched
day, baking Bedouin bread on an improvised open-fire oven, opening a
can of food after a long fast, drinking coffee while relaxing one’s aching
muscles after climbing a peak. The experience of the march resembled,
in this sense, the intoxicating experience of the long-distance runner—
self-denial ending in catharsis and elation.
The sociological importance of the Har-Tzion-style marches was that
they turned the “communal holy worship” of the youth movement, army,
and popular marches into the “intimate holy worship” of the individ-
ual. The mechanism of the march shifted from a ritual and public ob-
session that served collective needs into an instrument of individual
exaltation and euphoria in a way that, to a certain extent, recalls the Brati-
slaver Hasidic practice of lone contemplation in a forest. In a march un-
dertaken by an army company or unit, the achievement is shared by many
participants; in an individual march, the achievement is individual. This
is a private, and therefore more satisfying, ecstasy.
This phenomenon of a collective ritual that undergoes a process of in-
dividualization, adding a creative element but also eroding its original
character, was typical of the process of institutionalization of the Zion-
ist religion. It was also evident in other fields, such as song, dance, hu-
mor, and language.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 184a
The commander—
Sheike Gavish, Palmach
commander and, like
a number of his comrades,
later a general in the IDF
chapter 5
Uri of Arabia
The Arab as Hebrew The pioneers of the Second and Third Aliyot believed
that Bedouin culture resembled ancient Israelite culture, so they drew on
the Orient as a source of symbols for the ancient Hebrew nation.1 This
perception was actually a mixture of two approaches: romantic and sci-
entific (or pseudo-scientific).
The romantic approach was based on the primal nature of Bedouin
culture. The Bedouin way of life seemed to the pioneers to resemble the
ancient ways of life described in the Bible and in the Rabbinic literature.
Like the ancient Israelites, the Bedouin herded sheep, used beasts of bur-
den to plow and winnow, pressed olives for oil, ground wheat with mill-
stones, baked bread over a fire, lived in tents sewn from goatskins, wore
robes, practiced hospitality, and belonged to a tribal community that lived
near sources of water. This perception was reinforced by the mytholog-
ical Semitic blood tie—according to both Jewish and Arab legend, the
185
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 186
Arabs were descended from Abraham’s son Ishmael, while the Jews were
descended from his other son, Isaac. In the 1930s and 1940s, scholars
at the Hebrew University, following in the footsteps of their European
colleagues, provided anthropological and archaeological confirmation of
the kinship between the Arab way of life and that of the ancient Israelites.
“The peoples of the East as a group preserve their customs and thus it
is possible to learn even from the customs practiced among them now
about ancient Israelite practices,” wrote Dr. Yehuda Bergman in a 1945
article in which he set out practices, proverbs, and superstitions that were
similar among Bedouin and Jews.2
There were scholars who went even further and argued that the
Bedouin living in Palestine were lost Hebrews, descendants of the an-
cient Hebrew tribes or descendants of Jews who had abandoned their
religion because of persecution.3 Those who held this view, among them
lexicographer Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, based their conclusion on the find-
ings of linguists, geographers, and folklorists around the world, and es-
pecially on the strong link between literary Arabic and Hebrew, which
was for them proof of the close ethnic relation between the Arab and the
Biblical Jew.
Another link between the Arab and the Hebrew was the old Sepharadi
communities concentrated in the country’s holy cities. They were be-
lieved to be the direct descendants of the ancient Jews because of the
similarity of the Sepharadi way of life to Oriental culture; the same view
was held of the Yemenite Jews who immigrated to Palestine at the be-
ginning of the century.4 According to a legend elaborated by some Zion-
ists, the Yemenite Jews were in fact the mysterious Jews of Cheivar, no-
madic heroes destined at the time of redemption to lead the Jewish
people in the liberation of their homeland.5 The young people and writ-
ers of the Second Aliya told themselves that if a distant tribe like the
Yemenites had reached Palestine, maybe there were still Jewish Bedouin
tribes to be found,6 and some of them went to search for the Jewish
tribes in Transjordan.7
It is important to note that the portrayal of the Bedouin as the de-
scendants of the Israelites, or at least as preservers of Israelite culture,
served a political purpose as well—it helped the Zionists anchor the right
of the Jews to Palestine and reinforced their feeling that they were the
lords of the land. However, both views—the Arabs as preservers of He-
brew culture and as descendants of the Hebrews—were adopted by only
a few and for but a brief time.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 187
The Arab as the “Noble Savage” At the foundation of the Orient’s allure
for the pioneer was a romantic attraction to “natural primitivism” and
to the “mysterious Orient” that had its origins in the beginning of the
nineteenth century. Rationalism and the alienation of industrial culture
produced a reaction in Western Europe, a longing for a primal, pre-
monotheistic society perceived as pastoral, pure, and harmonious.8 A few
of the Jewish immigrants who came to Palestine at the beginning of the
century were influenced by this romanticism and viewed the country’s
Arabs, and the Bedouin in particular, as pure, primal people, free of cap-
italist complexes and hypocrisy. The hot-headed Bedouin, simple in his
ways, resourceful, hospitable, and brave, was for them a noble savage.
Of course this view of the East was founded in great naiveté and a shal-
low familiarity with Arab culture, and like the image of the Bedouin as
a descendant of the Israelites, was the provenance of a very small num-
ber of pioneers. It lasted for only a short time in Zionist culture, but as
we shall see, it had a certain influence on Sabra culture.
The Arab as a Model for the New Jew Oriental symbols were also adopted
in the construction of an anti-Diaspora identity. According to the mytho-
logical stereotype, the Arab was a reverse image of the “abject” Dias-
pora Jew. “We are a withered and weak people with little blood. A na-
tion like ours needs savage men and women. We need to renew and refresh
our blood. . . . We must have Jewish Bedouin. Without them we will not
move, we will get nowhere, we will not get out into open space. With-
out them the redemption will not come,” said Romek Amashi, the pro-
tagonist of Ya’akov Rabinowitz’s novel The Wanderings of Amashi the
Guard, who dresses like a Bedouin and lives “a life of freedom in the
heart of nature in the Choran Mountains.”9
For some pioneers the Bedouin was a man of the earth, free of the
spiritual complexities that engulfed the scholar of the Jewish town. He
was a “bold fighter,” a “man of the desert,” and a “man of honor,” who
lived simply and in harmony with his physical surroundings. So, when
educator Yisrael Rivkai described the tempestuous character of his Sabra
students, he was impressed by “the huge leap in the psychology of the
people, a leap over thousands of years.” “One must come to Palestine,”
he wrote,
to be in the company of native-born youth in order to realize that such a huge
leap is really possible. Among the hundreds of students in the educational in-
stitution from all over the Diaspora, there are a few dozen natives—second
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 188
and third and fourth generation to those who immigrated from the Diaspora.
A bit critically and a bit as a sign of affection, they call many of those native-
born students “Arabs”—This student is a Jewish Bedouin! That student is an
Arab Jew in all details!10
pean culture. Therefore, they perceived their work in Palestine not only
as redeeming the land of their fathers for the Jewish people, but also as
bringing modern civilization to this backward and primitive region. “Be-
lieve: our race’s sister, the Arab, is here / . . . we will come to instruct him,
great in wisdom and experience,” wrote poet Uri Zvi Greenberg.13 Re-
verberations of this perception can be found in articles and in literary
works for adults and young people. So, for example, Tzvi Lieberman’s
Oded the Wanderer, later made into the first full-length Israeli feature
film, depicts the pioneer as the apostle of civilization to this barren and
forgotten region who saves the Arab “natives” from their ignorance and
illiteracy.14 “You are the learned, educated Jews who know everything,
and we are savages,” a Bedouin says to Oded, the book’s stereotypical
Sabra protagonist.15
This perception grew stronger as the Yishuv developed economically,
culturally, and technologically and the gap in living standards between
neighboring Jewish and Arab settlements grew wider.
The Arab as the Descendant of Ishmael The patronizing attitude toward the
Arab also derived (though less consciously) from the myth of the rejected
and humiliated brother, Ishmael, described in the book of Genesis as “a
wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand
against him.” In Jewish tradition, the Arabs are the descendants of Ish-
mael, the scorned and inferior son of their common father. He and his
mother, Hagar the maidservant, were banished to the desert in favor of
Isaac, Abraham’s better-loved “Jewish” son, born of his Hebrew wife,
Sarah. The Arabs, according to Jewish tradition, were also the descen-
dants of Esau, the Edomite, the hirsute savage, bitter son of Isaac who
lost the blessing of the first-born.16 He sold his birthright to Jacob, the
“Jew,” who had exploited his weakness to trick him.
The Arab as Amalek, the Bloodthirsty and Cruel Enemy Contradictory per-
ceptions of the Arabs coexisted, but under the pressure of events the neg-
ative slant came to predominate. The Arab was regarded as not only a
member of an inferior culture but also a bloodthirsty and vengeful neme-
sis. The view of the Arab as a dangerous and deceitful enemy was al-
ready present in the Yishuv during the First Aliya, following clashes be-
tween the settlers in the moshavot and Bedouin and Arab peasants. Not
until the 1920s, however—after the attack on Tel Chai; the bloody riots
in Jerusalem in April 1920 and in Jaffa, Petach Tikva, Rechovot, and
Hadera in May 1921; and the massacres in Safed and Hebron in 1929—
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 190
did the perception of the Arab as a virulent and cruel enemy become dom-
inant. In these incidents enraged Arab mobs attacked Jewish settlers. The
Jews “saw themselves as helpless ‘victims’ of the aggression of an igno-
rant majority incited by the clergy,” Anita Shapira wrote.17 The fact that
the hardest-hit Jewish communities were those in Hebron and Safed, two
cities in which Jews and Arabs had lived together for generations, was
taken as proof of the Arabs’ murderous and treacherous nature, and many
in the Zionist camp called for separation between Jews and Arabs. Dur-
ing this period the Jewish press in Palestine frequently used the words
“pogrom,” “massacre,” and “slaughter” to describe the Arab attacks,
and this reinforced the image of the Arab as a new version of the Bibli-
cal Amalek, the prototypical anti-Semite. Notably, the consolidation of
this view was also part of the process of delineating the identity of the
Zionist Yishuv, since defining the foreign and different is part of identi-
fying the self.
The rising national ferment among the Jews in the wake of the Bal-
four Declaration; the strengthening of the settlement enterprise through-
out the country; the demographic growth of the Jewish Yishuv in Pales-
tine during the waves of immigration of the 1930s and 1940s; and the
intensification of Palestinian national consciousness, which reached its
peak in the Arab Rebellion of 1936 to 1939—all these amplified the en-
mity between the Arab and Jewish populations and reinforced the nega-
tive image of the Arab in the eyes of the Jews. In the light of Arab atroc-
ities—the murder of old people, women, and children—the Jews came
to regard Arab combat culture as repulsive, and the abyss of suspicion
and animosity between the two peoples deepened. From the 1940s on-
ward, the view of Arab society was largely political, and there was less
and less interest in Arab culture. The Arab was described, especially in
the press, as a cruel and bloodthirsty enemy with a moral code hinging
on vengeance and honor—as different from the moral codes of the Judeo-
Christian “guilt” as east is from west. The most common image of the
Arabs was that of an inflamed and rabid mob pouncing like a bird of
prey on Jews.
the Sabra grew up. They shaped his dichotomous attitude toward Arab
culture. The folkloristic-exotic description of Arab life, especially the life
of the Bedouin (the weddings, the preparation of coffee, the meal in the
tent, the Arab fantasia dance, and Arab horsemanship) was something
that writers for children and adolescents were especially fond of, and their
audience lapped it up.18 In a few of the geography books for Hebrew
schools that came out in the Yishuv period, the Arab was described very
colorfully. He “loves life, his surroundings are loud and full of happi-
ness, especially in the marketplaces.”19 There were also romantic stories
about the Ha-Shomer guards, reminiscent of Karl May, the German au-
thor of Westerns, in which heroes adopted the combat practices of the
natives. The Hebrew Ha-Shomer guard, in Arab dress, galloping on an
Arab mare over the mountains of the Galilee, sitting cross-legged and
erect in the Arab’s tent and speaking his language, was for Yishuv youth
parallel to the white American galloping on his wild horse over the
prairies of Arizona and Texas, conversing with the Indians in their own
language (another character along the same lines was Lawrence of Ara-
bia, with whom Yishuv youth were also familiar).
Two stereotypical characters generally stood out in stories about Arabs
for young people—the Bedouin shepherd and man of nature, and the
fighting sheikh. The fighter is described in many stories as a figure of ex-
otic glory, shrouded in mystery. He wears an Arab headdress and rides
a noble Arab mare fitted with a colorful bridle and a saddle of twisted
wool. A rifle is slung over his back, and an inlaid pistol or dagger is at
his waist; rounds of bullets are crossed on his chest. His face is sunburned
and creased, his mustache is twisted upward, and his obedient and faith-
ful servant is at his side.
Resonances of this romantic outlook may be found—although not
with great frequency—in children’s compositions. A boy wrote in a com-
position on a field trip:
O Bedouin! How I love you, and how my soul longs to be like you! How dear
you are to me! They are the symbol of nature, lovers of freedom and liberty!
I look down on their small black tents that spread out on both sides. I envy
you. If I could only be with you a single day, a single hour, a single moment.
How happy I would be then.20
erly appreciating the progress that Zionism had brought them. The mes-
sage was: if the Arabs would learn from the Jews and reach their cul-
tural level, tension would end.
The blend of humanism and paternalism that characterized the He-
brew school system’s attitude toward the Arabs during the Yishuv pe-
riod was a mixture of romanticism and realism, a desire to approach and
an instinct to avoid. More than anything else, it betrayed ignorance about
everything to do with the culture of the Arab inhabitants of Palestine.
This is clearly reflected in Sabra compositions. For instance, a twelve-
year-old girl, a member of Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir, wrote:
We see the Arab village there—black tents, black children, black clothes, black
cows and goats—and I ask: Are they in mourning there, and what lament is
this? No! There is no mourning there and it is no lament—this is the costume
of good people who have not received an education. It is the song of the Ori-
ental man—of a lower level, true, yes, but still the Arab is a son of nature and
understands beautiful nature; he does not leave it for even a moment. . . . These
savage customs . . . when I think of them a lot, I reach the conclusion: While
there are customs that are not nice, among them there are also beautiful ones
connected to nature, and if the Bedouin detaches his tent from the mountain
rocks, only then will he be severed from his nice and not-nice customs. . . .
The peak where Elijah built his altar stands blue in the distance, and I recall:
Our forefathers, too, were like this. The Arabs are a nation that has become
retarded in its culture. Cultured people think it is shameful to converse with
a Bedouin man. Don’t let your hearts rise. In many things the Arab nation is
superior to European nations, and we who are close to the Bedouin must try
to make peace with them rather than fight with them.21
At the end of the 1940s, as the conflict with the Arabs intensified and
spread throughout the country and took on the character of a violent
conflict between two peoples, sweeping negative characterizations of the
Arabs began to dominate Zionist textbooks. The geography books of
the 1920s and 1930s taught the Sabra that the Bedouin “seeks war, booty,
and spoils and is a primitive artifact in the modern world.”22 History
books of the same period taught that “the Arabs are robbers, vandals,
primitive, easily incited. . . .”23 Negative stereotypes became stronger in
children’s literature as well.
Arabs were generally portrayed disparagingly in textbook discussions
of Jewish-Arab relations. Especially prominent is the depiction of them
as traditional “Jew haters” (Amalekites). The words “pogrom,” “slaugh-
ter,” and “massacre” in descriptions of Arab attacks on Jewish settlements
were meant to create a moral and historical continuum between the acts
of anti-Semites in the Diaspora and the acts of the Arabs in Palestine. Also
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 193
texts dealing with Arabs shows that the Sabra was influenced less by what
was said of the Arab and his culture than by what was not said. The Arab
was not described positively or negatively so much as he was shunted
aside, sometimes virtually obliterated from consciousness. This phe-
nomenon is so central to the Jewish outlook that even as enemies in war,
Arabs get very little factual attention, and the attention they do get is the
same sort given to natural impediments. Especially obvious is the “ban-
ishment” of the Arabs from descriptions of the landscape in textbooks.
The few descriptions of Arab settlements generally present them as mark-
ing the site of an ancient Jewish settlement, or treat them like inanimate
natural features, such as rocks and fields.
One reason for reducing and blurring the Arab presence on the cog-
nitive map of the Sabra—indeed, of the entire Zionist population—was
political. Discussion of a phenomenon grants it existential validity and
increases people’s awareness of it. Speaking little about the Arabs ob-
scured their presence as an established fact and therefore a problem de-
manding a political solution. A second reason was ideological and cul-
tural. The Zionist immigrants were so caught up in their own social world
that they viewed reality through filters that emphasized their own pres-
ence and blurred that of others. A third reason was the Jewish immi-
grants’ belief that the Arabs were no more than a marginal problem in
the achievement of their dream; the Arabs were in the category of guests
in the Jewish national home.
Journalist and novelist Arthur Koestler, who reported on the Zionist
enterprise and had prescient insights, took note of this. He wrote sar-
castically in his diary that the Zionists treated the Arabs as “a mere ac-
cident, like the presence of some forgotten pieces of furniture in a house
which has been temporarily let to strangers.”26
Bedouin culture received more in-depth treatment in the textbooks,
but this too was to a certain extent in terms of stereotypes, emphasizing
the Bedouin’s exotic customs (in particular their hospitality), as well as,
implicitly, their nativeness.
The interest in the Bedouin and the inattention to urban and village
Arab culture—which in fact was dominant in that period, at least in Pales-
tine west of the Jordan River—may have been prompted not only by the
romantic charm of the Bedouin, but also by their nomadism. They were
gypsies of a sort,27 only temporarily tied to a specific location, with all
the consequent political implications.
Arab culture in general and Palestinian culture in particular were also
given little attention by Zionist pedagogues. The school system had no
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 195
textbooks on the Islamic tradition and the differences between Arab sub-
cultures. The curriculum also dismissed or else omitted the Arab national
claim and the Arabs’ strong and historical link to their land. The pan-
Arab movement was not even mentioned. Neither was their history in
Palestine given any real attention. The Arabs were generally described as
one of the waves of foreign and transient occupiers that the Land of Is-
rael had known (along with the Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans,
Byzantines, and Crusaders), or as nomadic desert tribes who had settled
in Palestine, where they lived miserably: “Their homes are little boxes of
clay and cow dung that are dotted here and there like molehills on a fur-
rowed field.”28 The authors of history textbooks also kept to a minimum
descriptions of those eras in which the greater part of the Jewish people
were in the Diaspora and other nations ruled Palestine. Neither was the
question of the expulsion of the Arabs from their villages and cities in
the War of Independence put on the school agenda in the 1950s.
The educational system also devoted few resources to teaching Ara-
bic, and the language was not part of the education of the native-born
child of the Yishuv, nor was it part of the education system later, under
the State of Israel. True, the question of the study of Arabic did concern
the school system in its early stages,29 and annotated Arabic readers for
schoolchildren were issued in 1931. But the language in these readers
was literary rather than spoken Arabic, and the large difference between
the two meant that this study was of no help in enabling young Jews to
communicate with the country’s Arabic-speaking inhabitants.
There were years in which a more concerted effort was made to bring
young Jews into contact with Arabic culture. At the beginning of the
1940s the school system of the labor movement devoted a not in-
significant number of high school class hours to the study of Arabic (two
to three hours a week out of a total of forty in the ninth and tenth grades).
Even then, however, Arabic was considered of secondary importance to
English—it was only an option, and students could take French or some
other subject instead. Furthermore, it was available only in some schools
and not in all grades.
In 1947 the leaders of the labor movement appointed a committee to
formulate proposals for the study of Arabic “in our educational institu-
tions.” The committee did not deal simply with Arabic language in-
struction; it also proposed “providing our children with knowledge of
the Arab people and allowing them contact with the neighboring nation.”
Because of the War of Independence, however, the recommendations were
forgotten.30
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 196
The youth movements were no different from the schools in their at-
titude toward Arab culture. In the 1930s, Ba-Ma’aleh, the organ of Ha-
Noar Ha-Oved, made an attempt of sorts to acquaint its readers with
Arab culture via a feature teaching basic words in Arabic, but this was
the exception that proves the rule.
The Sabra was cut off from Arab culture not only spiritually and in-
tellectually but also physically. The Arabs lived in separate neighborhoods
and settlements and had but a modest school system, separate from the
Jewish one, and this forestalled any daily contact between young people.
The proposal made by Britain’s Peel Commission to establish common
schools for Jewish and Arab children was not at all acceptable to the
Yishuv leadership. This resistance was not only because of the cultural
gap and the mutual distrust that had grown over the years, but also be-
cause schools were considered tools for Zionist-national socialization,
not just institutions of education. Nor were school and youth movement
field trips and marches used to provide an acquaintance with the Arab
world, even though most of them passed close by Arab settlements and
so established at least eye contact with the Arabs in the region.
The Sabra was also isolated from Arab culture because of religious
taboos. The definition of the Arab as a goy, or non-Jew, ruled out in ad-
vance any possibility of cultural integration. Even when Arabs were por-
trayed favorably in textbooks, in the press, and in literature, they were
still foreigners—outside the pale of the Jewish-Israeli national definition.
The possibilities of living together in a common community or a com-
mon home, of studying in a common school, and certainly of intermar-
ried families were never even hinted at.
are rare. Threats and calls for revenge are also not common. What one
finds is largely a feeling of pain and loss, sadness and helplessness.
The ethos of self-restraint in the face of the Arab enemy’s malevolence
in part grew out of the moral codes of the modern world that had been
imprinted on the founding fathers. However, it was also the product of
a desire to emphasize and instill a sense of Jewish moral and cultural
superiority in contrast with the “barbaric” and “hot-headed” Arab.31
This self-restraint was a marker of an elitist culture that perceived itself
as capable of rising above primitive instincts of revenge. The mytho-
logical concept of “purity of arms,” which would become one of the
most important symbols of Israeli military culture, was especially meant
to symbolize the humanitarian “pureness of heart” of the Hebrew fighter.
Significantly, the ethos of self-restraint and reserve does not mean Chris-
tian passivity or pacifism. These are at odds with the anti-Diaspora ethos
of the new Jew, who was supposed to stand up to his enemies. What it
meant was an aggressive but considered and controlled response to Arab
assault.
The Sabra was taught to have pity (but a pity mixed with contempt)
for the Arab fighter, but not to hate him. The Arab fighter was seen as
primitive, ignorant, and unfortunate, misled by the false promises of his
leaders. An interesting illustration of this is an exchange of letters be-
tween the children of Kibbutz Negba, who were evacuated from their
home during the War of Independence, and the parents and teachers who
remained to defend the kibbutz against the Egyptian army. Even when
the kibbutz was in danger of destruction and its members in danger of
losing their lives, there were no expressions of hatred or vengefulness in
the letters of the adults. One of them described the Egyptian attack in a
letter to “the dear children who have left their homes and who will quickly
return”:
The cruel Egyptians are fighting against us. They are fighting against the trees,
too, as if someone were not letting them plant trees in Egypt, and they come
to uproot, cut down, and break apart the fig tree, the tall silver-leafed plane
trees, the fruit trees, the loquat, and the almonds—what fools! . . . They threw
bombs on the barn. How cruel they are! As if someone did not let them raise
cows and milk them. Who didn’t let them? The English gave them tanks; they
would have done better sending them tractors so they could plow and raise
clover and alfalfa and plant mangel-wurzel and raise cows. Instead the En-
glish sent them tanks. . . . Too bad. There are many good people in the world
who suffer because of a small clique of bad-hearted, cruel people. Oh! If only
everyone would join hands and finish off those cruel people, wars would end
in this world.32
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 198
wich made with pita bread filled with salad and balls of fried chickpea
paste); tehina (sesame seed paste); humus (also a paste made of ground
chickpeas); kafiyyeh (the Arab headdress); finjan (the pot used to make
Arab coffee). There were also adapted terms describing different types
of people: jada (strong man), abu ali (a violent person), mukhtar (leader),
fisfus (the act of missing something), razaleh (a beautiful woman). And
there were words of evaluation, such as achbar and al ha-kefak (great!),
bugeras (headache, in both the literal and figurative senses), zift (horri-
ble), batich (nothing, worthless), salamto and salamtak (good guy, wor-
thy of credit).
However, one should not err in taking these words as evidence that
the Sabra had developed a close relationship with Oriental culture. On
the contrary, they are evidence of the distance between the two. The im-
proper use of words such as finjan—which in Arabic means the cup cof-
fee was drunk from, not, as the Palmachniks used it, the pot in which
coffee was made—demonstrates the trivial way in which they drew on
Oriental symbols. There was also a clear sense of humor and ridicule in
the use of Arabisms, and this testifies to the cultural distance from and
even contempt for the Arab and especially the Arab mentality.
A word can take on a humorous tinge if the character who generally
uses it is considered funny or grotesque. This was the way Sabras used
Arabic words. Since there was a consensus about the caricatured image
of the Arab (a consensus that gained much strength in the wake of the
war), the use of his language was a joke on him. The Sabra who used
Arabic words was, as it were, dressing up as an Arab. The cultural snob
dresses up, in a kind of deliberate reversal, as the primitive, but this is a
self-conscious primitiveness. When the Arab says razaleh, which literally
means “doe,” he means a young girl, and when he says, “Be-hayat
Rabak,” he means simply “Upon God’s life!” The Sabra uses the same
words when he is being lighthearted or facetious.
The facetious use of Arabic words was meant to create an internal vo-
cabulary linking the speakers of the language. A good example of this is
the Sabra use of the word abu, which literally means “father of,” and in
Arabic is a title of respect. The Palmachnik used it with a bit of jest. So,
for example, the prototypical oaf in Sabra chizbatim is called Abu Lish.
The same principle is at work in the janantini (“you fooled me”), the
Oriental coffee songs that were so popular in the Palmach. Their Arab
origins gave them a hint of jocularity, making them into “in” jokes.36
This, by the way, is the reason that Palmach slang also included many
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 201
bat. The following is how it seems to me after reading the published schol-
arly work and after studying the fighters’ diaries and letters, as well as
army publications, documents produced by Palmach headquarters, or-
ders of the day issued in “battle sheets,” the instructions by senior and
junior commanders distributed to the soldiers, and the files of the Pal-
mach’s military prosecutor. Talks with a number of veterans also helped
me complete the picture.
In orders of the day, battle sheets, and company newsletters no ma-
terial was found on “polishing one’s swords,” nor was there evidence of
fiery tirades against the Arab population or Arab fighters,37 or of in-
citement to slaughter and take revenge on those who surrender. The writ-
ers make frequent use of general concepts, free of normative and ethnic
connotations, such as “enemy” and “invader.” Here is an example from
a leaflet distributed to the soldiers of the Negev Brigade on the eve of the
Chorev operation:
Soldiers! We will fight heroically and wrathfully against the enemy, but let us
not stain our war with inhuman behavior toward civilians and surrendering
soldiers. The brigade commander wishes all of you, privates and command-
ers, a peaceful Sabbath! We have no peace today, but rather war; we are fight-
ing for peace. There is no peace without freedom, and there is no freedom
without vanquishing the enemy.38
military governor of Safed, distributed after the city was taken by the
Yiftach Brigade:
The first stage in our lives commands us to control our tempers, to find a so-
lution to impose order and discipline in keeping with our military and civil-
ian needs. . . . As for our Arab neighbors, Jewish Safed was reminded by the
previous disturbances and those of today what our Arab neighbors have done
to us. I believe that the blow with which Arab Safed was taken by our sol-
diers will open the Arabs’ blinded eyes and they will understand that the way
they have treated their Jewish neighbors is unacceptable. They must accus-
tom themselves, if they wish, to new conditions and to a new order, and they
must tear the urge to conquer from their hearts.39
The assertive language with which the warnings were written also
testifies to this attitude of restraint. “Conquer yourself”; “do not be
tempted”; “preserve your honor”; “do not disgrace yourself”; “no Jew
will raise his hand”; “our lives will be pure”; “preserve the army’s honor”;
“no man should dare touch their property”; “do not break the bounds
and bring theft into our camp”; “the sword of our soldiers will not touch
a man who requests our protection”; “may our camp be pure”; “they
should be treated with respect”; “our war is just and pure and no man
should sully it with forbidden deeds”; “may we never harm the deep re-
ligious sentiments of the Arab people”—such expressions, which appear
in the documents of the IDF brigades that took part in the war,40 testify
to the importance given to moral purity and the commanders’ sincerity
and commitment to the moral norm.
Though the orders and instructions did in fact warn against these acts,
they did not succeed in entirely preventing violations. The prohibition
against looting, for example, was violated on a large scale. “At first,”
historian Alon Kadish has written, “the looting was a search for sou-
venirs—‘I want to take something to remember the victory: a ring, a
kafiyyeh, a dagger.’ The commanders did not attribute any importance
to the phenomenon and at least some of them did not see anything wrong
with it. The same was true of taking food for immediate needs, includ-
ing a chicken or sheep.”41 This breach in the dike gradually grew into
informal permission to seize property for the basic needs of the army of
occupation and items such as radios and sewing machines for the com-
bat units and the mobilized hachsharot. Some of the money that was
taken was set aside for a fund for the support of the families of the fallen
and for their memorialization, and this served to “launder” the looting.
The sanction for taking spoils for the unit prepared the ground for tak-
ing spoils for private purposes. The extent of this phenomenon is not
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 204
clear—at least among the Sabras. The problem of private spoils wors-
ened with the conquest of the cities of Lod, Ramle, and Be’ersheva, where
well-off Arab families lived.
The looters were censured, though, both by the political leadership
and by the high army command, which was Sabra in its background.
The military periodicals (not only those of the Palmach) also contained
condemnations of looting.
But to a large extent the attitude toward the looters was forgiving.
There were several reasons for this: (1) heavy equipment or large sums
were generally not taken; (2) many of the looters were new immigrants,
Holocaust survivors, who were pitied by the commanders; (3) it was
difficult to punish a man who had fought and risked his life just a few
days before;42 (4) there was great anger against the Arabs for starting
the war, and looting was perceived, if not formally, as a kind of pun-
ishment; (5) it was clear to everyone that since the owners had fled the
country, this property would never be returned to them; (6) there was
a tradition of lenience toward sechivot—those playful thefts described
previously;43 and (7) there was a tendency to prevent these deeds from
being publicized, so as not to damage the image of the Israeli soldier and
arouse a sharp international reaction. In fact, only a few soldiers were
tried and punished.
Another moral issue was the demolition of houses and the expulsion
of the Arab inhabitants.44 It seems that the Sabra soldier did not seethe
with boundless hatred or seek revenge. But he was indeed insensitive to
the fate of the masses of deportees and somewhat heartless when it came
to their suffering. This callousness is especially ironic and tragic, given
that these Sabra soldiers were the heirs to a nation that had suffered de-
portation, for whom exile was wound up in the national identity. Sabra
commanders and soldiers generally saw no evil in expelling Arabs and
blowing up their homes, and at the senior officer level there were those
who urged the Yishuv leadership to exploit the military success by en-
larging the country’s borders and ridding it of Palestinians. There were
several reasons for this view.
Expulsion of Arabs and demolition of their homes had military pur-
poses. They kept the abandoned houses from serving as bases for hos-
tile activity. They were also meant to punish and deter terrorists and other
collaborators with the Arab armies, to prevent the return of Arabs to
strategic locations, and to prevent the development of a fifth column in
the occupied areas.45
Another reason is that the State of Israel’s first, provisional govern-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 205
ment had no clear policy on the fate of the Arabs in the occupied terri-
tories. The dramatic developments on the battlefield and in the interna-
tional theater and the supreme effort expended to hold off the invading
armies pushed aside many other matters, including this one.46 Further-
more, the extent of the Arab flight and the ease with which they could
be forced to leave surprised the leadership. They vacillated between the
desire to enlarge the small country’s borders and get rid of a large part
of its Arab population on the one hand, and the serious moral implica-
tions of the expulsion on the other. By the time a decision had been made,
it was too late. In the absence of a clear policy, the point was decided by
the soldiers and commanders in the field. The army considered the flight
and expulsion of the Arabs as part of the battle—a simple expression of
the surrender of the enemy. The Israeli commanders also viewed the dem-
olition of homes from a military, not a psychosociological or political,
point of view. To the commanders the Arab settlements were armed camps
from which the enemy had fought, and blowing up the homes was per-
ceived as part of the destruction of the enemy infrastructure and a com-
pletion of the act of conquest.
The demolition of homes and the expulsion of the Arabs were also
perceived by the Sabra soldiers as a fitting punishment for the “gangs”
and “rioters” (as they called them) who had for years sniped at Jewish
convoys and murdered Jewish civilians with great cruelty. And the sol-
diers took the Arabs to be responsible for the death of many of their com-
rades-in-arms.
Other reasons are due to the education of the Sabras. Because of the
Sabras’ lack of connection to Arab culture, the Arab turned from a sub-
ject into an object, which reduced the soldiers’ sensitivity to the injus-
tice being inflicted on the individual Arab and his family. The Arab’s hu-
man image was also blurred by the great focus placed on the Jewish
collective identity and on the Arab as the evil Amalek. Many Sabras did
not concern themselves with the question of who the Arab was and what
had happened to him because, in keeping with their education, they
viewed him as a metaphysical, abstract evil, an invariable datum in the
Jewish reality.
One of the important mirrors for this objectification of the enemy
was the literature published by veterans of the Palmach soon after the
end of the war. These stories, based on battlefield experiences, are no-
table for the extent to which they ignore the Arabs and suppress their
problems as individuals and as a nation. In the few works in which Arabs
appear, their faces as characters are almost always hazy.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 206
While most of the young writers evince pity for the defeated and hu-
miliated Arab, they make no attempt to understand his soul and his suf-
fering in any profound way. They tend to describe the Arab characters
without complexity or personality, in contrast with the Jewish charac-
ters, who have clear identities and desires. They are “the enemy” beyond
the mountains of darkness; the murdering, burning hand; the booming
cannon; the voice of incitement; or the ignorant, submissive, groveling
prisoner. They are also the amorphous, defeated mob; the panicked peas-
ants abandoning their villages, their houses of clay, their filthy yards.
They, their women, their old people, and their children disappear beyond
the border into nowhere. The exception is S. Yizhar, who in his 1949
stories Hirbat Hiz’a and The Prisoner portrayed the imperiousness of
the Jewish soldiers and the contempt with which many of them treated
the conquered people.
The clay houses in the Arab villages, the odor and the filth, the ants,
the fleas, and the lice that swarmed in the houses and yards—all these
cheapened the Arab’s loss of home and village in the eyes of the Jewish
soldiers. “This tattered humanity . . . the poverty and imbecility of mis-
erable villages. Suddenly their hem is lifted—their homes, yards, their
outsides and insides. Suddenly their garment is lifted up to their faces,
the shame of their nakedness is exposed, and here they are destitute,
parched, and stinking”—thus S. Yizhar describes the Sabra soldiers’
impressions in the conquered village in The Prisoner, a book that because
of its sincerity has become controversial in Israel. The conquerors felt
they were obliterating a miserable, impermanent settlement and that the
deportees, like gypsies, could quickly build themselves something new
elsewhere. The hasty flight of quite a few Arabs, who did not defend their
homes to the death and stay on their land to the bitter end as the Zion-
ist ethos demanded, reinforced the (mistaken) impression that the Arab
had only a tenuous connection to his home and fields.
The Arab peasant’s perceived primitive way of life (eating with his
hands, living alongside his livestock, the use of ancient methods of agri-
culture, the high birthrate, the harsh rule of the men over their women
and children, and the autocracy of the mukhtar over the clan and the
landowner over the tribe); his fatalistic worldview; his strange appear-
ance to Western eyes (headdress, wide pants, and robe); his practice (de-
testable to the Jews) of pleading and groveling before the conqueror—
all these lessened his human image and the ability of the Sabra soldier
to identify with him and develop empathy and compassion for him as
one of his own kind.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 207
Presumably, the Sabra soldiers’ attitude toward the Arab refugees was
also affected, even if indirectly, by the anti-Diaspora ethos in which the
Sabras were educated. The tendency to look down on the “bowed heads”
and “bent backs” of Holocaust refugees to a certain extent dulled the
sensitivity to the suffering of the Palestinian refugee, who was forced to
wander the roads and beg for the compassion of his Arab brothers. The
teaching that the Jews were the country’s legal owners and the Arabs
were “resident aliens” also limited the conquering Sabra’s sensitivity to
the horrible suffering and sometimes injustice inflicted on the deportees.
And what of deeds by Israeli soldiers that are considered war crimes
by enlightened countries—the murder of prisoners and unarmed civil-
ians, rapes, beatings, mass slaughter, and putting prisoners before firing
squads? Most of the documentary material in the IDF and Haganah
archives regarding such cases in 1948 has not yet been made available
to scholars. Studies based on documents from Palmach headquarters and
the United Nations indicate that there were indeed such cases, even if
they were not common, and that they were concealed from the public
for political and other reasons. But these studies do not clearly show the
extent of the phenomenon; nor do they lead to the conclusion that war
crimes were an accepted norm, certainly not among the Sabras, who were
the commanders and counselors. Again, it is important to remember the
severity with which the soldiers were warned in operational orders and
battle sheets against harming the Arab population. So, for example, a
Yiftach Brigade order of the day reads, in huge letters: “In every case of
robbery and murder the violator will be punished with the full force of
military law . . . may our weapons remain pure and brave in battle!”47
This tone testifies to a rigid code of self-restraint and to the command-
ers’ alertness to the possibility that such restraints might be loosened. It
is difficult to believe that there was a huge gap between the norm and
the reality—although the high frequency of such orders also indicates
that deviance existed to some extent.
Moreover, the letters of fallen soldiers—which were not published and
therefore did not undergo a process of editing and censorship—contain
no echo of war crimes. Since these were educated and sensitive young
people who lived in a society in which there was a fairly large measure
of freedom of expression (at least in the area of morals), it seems rea-
sonable to assume that war crimes were not a common phenomenon that
underwent collective censorship. In the letters of members of the Yishuv
who enlisted in the British army there are, in fact, pointed comments on
the behavior of their comrades who engaged in looting and rape against
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 208
occupied populations and Nazi prisoners, but again these acts, which are
not set out in detail in the letters, do not indicate that this was a mass
phenomenon. The fact that these actions were criticized shows that they
broke a moral code and were not routine and accepted.
There were those who viewed the deportations, demolitions, and other
Palmach acts of cruelty as proof that the mythological image of the sen-
sitive and moral Sabra was untruthful and hypocritical. True, the Sabra
soldier was not saintly and his weapons were certainly not always pure.
But in my evaluation, in comparison with soldiers of other armies, the
Sabra was a “restrained fighter”; the picture (with its missing pieces) of
his behavior in battle is consistent with the human failings and the pos-
itive qualities that characterize him in other areas.
In a discussion of the combat culture of the Sabra it is also worth not-
ing the moderate way in which the victory over the Arabs was celebrated.
The Sabra soldiers—and, in fact, the entire IDF—were not intoxicated
with victory. They did not celebrate with drumbeats and bugle calls in
front of an exulting and cheering crowd in city streets and squares. The
combat units conducted local victory ceremonies at the sites that were
conquered and in army bases, but these were largely modest (sometimes
on a family level), and they lacked military elements like goose-stepping
and gun salutes.48 The IDF gave out only a few decorations to battle he-
roes, and officers’ uniforms were not covered with war badges or medals.
None of the fallen commanders was commemorated with a special me-
morial statue, and the modest monuments to the fallen listed the names
of the dead soldiers one beside the other, without regard to rank. In fact,
the rank was generally not even noted. The exultation of victory is also
muted in Hebrew prose and poetry about the War of Independence. The
writers generally address the unfortunate results of the war—death and
loss—and not the joy of the sterling victory over the enemy.49
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 209
chapter 6
Monks in Khaki
One of the things that stands out in old photographs of kibbutz teenagers,
members of the pioneer youth movements, and Palmach soldiers is their
simple and uniform dress. They all wore dark work pants or faded khaki
shorts with plain, heavy dark or gray shirts hanging carelessly over the
pants; as often as not, the boys would be bare-chested or in a loose un-
dershirt. On their heads they wore stocking caps, Australian hats, or cloth
“dunce caps” made of rough cloth and of a simple design (the pioneers
had worn Diaspora-style caps with brims), their hair flowing out from
underneath. Their feet were bare or in heavy work shoes, army boots,
or sandals. All these visual details clearly marked the Sabra. Especially
notable is how uniformly and simply the girls dressed. Their hair was
done up in a ponytail or in braids, and they wore wide khaki shorts held
to their thighs with elastic bands, white and black Russian shirts (with
or without embroidery), and Eastern European jumpers, their necks and
wrists unadorned and their faces free of makeup.
This is how these young people looked not only on military duty, at
work, and on hikes, where simple and functional clothing was required,
but also at celebrations and in places in which it is customary (at least
in the Western world) to dress carefully and even to dress up—at lec-
tures given by leaders and counselors, in school, and at formal occasions
such as gatherings and memorial ceremonies.
The uniform look of the Sabras in the different youth organizations,
the proletarian dress even on formal occasions, the emphasis and even
209
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 210
flaunting of simplicity all indicate that this way of dressing was part of
a cultural style and served as a group status symbol. Like other charac-
teristics of the Sabra, the style was the outward manifestation of a value
system—an ascetic code.
Asceticism as a Style:
Dress, Language, and Customs
“a blue shirt
is greater than any jewel”
The ascetic value in pioneer culture was evident largely in dress, and in
outward appearance in general. The pioneer’s dress had a Tolstoyan qual-
ity to it. Poor and worn-out, sometimes demonstratively so, clothing im-
plicitly denoted the removal of social masks, the purity of one’s values,
and spirituality.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 212
The Sabra’s drab and uniform appearance indicated not only prole-
tarianism but also the seriousness that characterizes a society of naive
and mobilized believers, in which the individual’s will is given over to
public endeavors. Simple dress was thus a symbol of status and of class,
and the pioneers adhered to it to the point of reverse fashionability, even
when there was no practical need for it.3
As a disseminator of ascetic symbols, the Sabra was a loyal follower
of the pioneer tradition, and this despite the fact that in his era, with the
broadening of the consumer culture in the large cities, there were more
temptations to violate this code. Simple khaki dress became a trademark
of the Scouts and the Gadna not just because of military and British
influence, while the socialist youth movements (Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir,
Ha-Noar Ha-Oved, and Ha-Machanot Ha-Olim) sported faded blue
shirts—workers’ shirts, “greater than any jewel,” in the words of the Ha-
Noar Ha-Oved anthem. These were a symbol of the proletariat.4
Khaki and blue shirts were contrasted with the flowered and colored
shirts tailored in accordance with Western fashion. A flower-print shirt
was a symbol of ostentation, while the khaki and blue shirts (worn de
rigueur outside the pants) were made of rough cloth of a uniform and
austere shade and expressed simplicity, modesty, and idealism.
However, the Sabras, like the pioneers, made the anti-ostentation
of simple dress into an ostentation in its own right, with definite and
strict rules of fashion, a kind of “modest flashiness” or “ostentation of
sloppiness”5—an anti-style that turned into a style.
Austerity and uniformity of color characterized not only the dress of
the period, but also the homes, the memorials to fallen soldiers, and the
national flag—exceptional among the majority of national flags for its
cool colors.6 Uniformity of color also symbolized the unity of the labor
movement. The khaki of the pioneers, the youth movement, and the Pal-
mach was a kind of national uniform marking the common identity and
faith of those who wore it, making it hard to distinguish among them—
as in a Hasidic community.
The encounter between the ascetic ethos and the anti-Diaspora ethos pro-
duced three Sabra status symbols of appearance: bare feet, simple leather
sandals, and tousled forelocks—the blorit of Sabra song and legend.
These quickly became part of the stereotypical and mythological image
of the Sabra in literature, poetry, painting, caricatures, posters, and film.7
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 213
And as with other Sabra traits, there was mutual influence between myth
and reality—the mythological image and the internal system of values
nourished each other and created, in the end, a characteristic Sabra style.
Bare Feet Walking barefoot and, for men, bare-chested was common,
especially in the kibbutzim and moshavim. It began in the pioneer cul-
tures, particularly among the members of Ha-Shomer. The heroes pop-
ulating the stories of the writers of the First and Second Aliyot are de-
scribed as being barefoot like the Bedouin. Ya’akov Rabinowitz described
Ha-Shomer member Berele Schweiger, who was for him the incarnation
of the new Jew: “Barefoot Jew! And like a savage soul.” Removal of
clothes was for him and his generation a symbol of abandoning the tra-
ditional orthodox Jewish dress for a healthy culture.
Bare feet also meant unmediated contact with the land (thus the
significance of dancing the hora barefoot). Israeli barefootedness, ab-
sorbing the spirit of the Land of Israel through the soles of the feet, ap-
pears also in the 1948 stories whose heroes are urban Sabras who walk
barefoot through the sands of “Little Tel Aviv.”
The Blorit Tousled hair was one of the most prominent trademarks of
the Sabra, yet its beginnings, like those of sandals and barefootedness,
lie in pioneer culture. In Jewish National Fund leaflets and pictures from
the 1920s and 1930s, the pioneer is depicted with a mane of hair catch-
ing the wind and long forelocks flowing out from under his Russian
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 214
on leave sees civilians caught up in their daily routines and their private
preoccupations. They seem to be living on another planet, and this
arouses a sense of alienation in the soldier. Such feelings are reflected in
Palmach and battalion pamphlets, and also in the generation’s postwar
literature.
The value distinction between urban and rural lifestyles was promi-
nent in the literature and theater of the late 1940s and 1950s. The city
and its residents were depicted as filthy and corrupted, and city life was
associated with the process of abandoning one’s ideals. This can be seen,
for example, in Aharon Megged’s books and plays, Chedva and I, Han-
nah Szenes, and Far Off in the Arava (dramatized under the name On
the Way to Eilat).
The contradiction in values between urban leisure (or leisure that was
considered urban) and Zionist hagshama was captured in the epithet
“golden youth.” This term was used for urban young people who sinned
by enjoying themselves too much and giving themselves over to pleas-
ures such as smoking and drinking.13 Coined with reference to the Golden
Calf of the Pentateuch, “golden youth” was commonly used in the 1940s
and 1950s by political leaders and educators, most of whom themselves
lived in the city. It generally appeared in discussions about the decline in
ideological and national fervor and the possibility of premature nor-
malization, which were liable to weaken national endurance.
The rejection of the city and its culture was also expressed in the ad-
jective “salon”: In “salon society” couples did “salon dances”—the jazz
or slow, romantic dances considered bourgeois. This general derogatory
term was applied by the Zionist “gatekeepers”—by both the establish-
ment and the Sabras of the Palmach and youth movements—to the fash-
ion of dance clubs and dance parties (the fox trot was especially popu-
lar) that swept through Europe and the United States in the 1930s and,
little by little, penetrated Yishuv society. There was diametric opposition
“between adherence to the ideological movement centered on the coun-
try’s open spaces, fields, and developing areas, and the clique shutting
itself up between the four walls of its salon,” as sociologist Yochanan
Peres has written.14 This opposition created constant tension between
imported “salon dances” and Israeli folk dances, which competed for
the heart of the younger generation. A kibbutz girl wrote in her school
newspaper:
The dance evenings [of waltzes and polkas] instituted in our society just now
in my opinion lead society as a whole in an improper and disagreeable di-
rection. The sixth and seventh grades must cease dancing these dances and
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 217
dance only folk dances. It is enough to dance a polka once or twice in a dance
evening, but the rest of the time they should dance folk dances.15
Avoiding Etiquette
Asceticism applied not only to the way a person dressed but also to the
way he treated others. Simplicity of dress was complemented by simplicity
of manners and lack of etiquette. One reason for the minimal rules of
politeness was that this was a new frontier society, small and rural, which
like other frontier societies was notable for a primary, noninstitutional-
ized system of relations. However, there were also ideological justifi-
cations. Like dressing up, proper manners were an expression of deca-
dent bourgeois society, and doing without them was a statement of
proletarianism. So, like simplicity of dress, abstaining from the rules of
etiquette became a goal in and of itself, a sort of ostentatious vulgarity.
The pioneer practice of keeping etiquette to a minimum was also
influenced by the Tolstoyan view of bourgeois life as false. For the pio-
neers, and for the Sabras after them, etiquette was a hypocritical system
of relations, whereas simple ways simplify the relations between human
beings and cure them of the ills of decadence.
It may well be that the pioneer repugnance for etiquette contributed
something to the Sabra’s playfulness, prankishness, roughness, and de-
sire for independence, which over the years became some of the most
prominent trademarks of “Sabra chutzpah,” and even notable status sym-
bols. These qualities were evident in brash, direct speech and in the re-
jection of verbal niceties. Sabras looked down on people who said
“please,” and they made fun of the manners of German Jews. This in-
tentional and deliberate indelicacy led to the use of physical gestures to
replace greetings. One example is the strong slap on the shoulder used by
one Sabra meeting another, which has become a typical Israeli gesture.
The Sabras went much further with their impoliteness than the older
generation did, which created a certain generation gap. Immigrants who
arrived in the Fourth Aliya and afterward were particularly shocked by
what they termed “uncivilized” Sabra behavior, and some even wrote
angry letters and articles in the party, movement, and national press.
For the Sabra, simple ways also conveyed being an equal among equals
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 218
and fit with the family-community character of the Sabra generation. This
simplicity was a way of life that expressed a common religious view, as
does the lifestyle of ascetic sects such as the Amish and Baptists.
The simple, sloppy appearance of the Palmach soldier and the early
IDF infantryman was meant to reinforce the image of the army as a pop-
ular militia, even once it became a regular army. It was also a symbol of
an outer roughness that hid an inner complexity, and of the purity and
modesty of the soldier who performed his heroic work quietly.
Sexual Puritanism
Another aspect of the pioneer and Sabra culture of restraining needs and
urges, different in nature from the traits noted thus far, was sexual pu-
ritanism. This was evident in the restrained courtship culture and in the
confinement of sexual relations, in general, to marriage (although not
necessarily formal religious marriage). “In general a couple would just
talk and talk. We almost never had relations until there was a perma-
nent connection,” one pioneer women recalled.18 Talking about sex was
also taboo, and outward manifestations of love, even the simplest such
as walking hand in hand, were kept for places where no one saw them.
There were several factors at the foundation of the pioneer’s puri-
tanism. The first was the spirit of the times: romanticism, sexuality, and
pornography had still not swept the Western world in a tidal wave of
films, books, and advertisements, and sexuality had still not been sepa-
rated from marriage and become a legitimate pleasure in its own right.
The norm of modern secular society in that period was discreet court-
ing and sexual relations after marriage.
The second factor was the traditional Jewish homes from which most
of the pioneers had come. “There were lots of inhibitions in the relations
between boys and girls. In practice, they still had the small-town men-
tality,” one pioneer woman related. “Subconsciously they wanted to be
like everybody else in the world, and everyone looked for a boy to marry,
even if they didn’t have a real wedding.”19 True, traditional arranged mar-
riages were not the practice in pioneer society, but the transition to open
courtship in the Western style was too radical for young people who had
been raised and educated in a traditional home.
The third factor was the living conditions. In a small, closed society suf-
fering from crowded living conditions, the possibilities for private courtship,
much less sexual relations outside of marriage, were very limited.
How did the “romances” begin? Today you say “they’re going out together.”
Then you said “they’re already reading together.” We lived in the girls’ room,
four girlfriends. When one of the girls’ boyfriends would come in “to read
together,” the others would leave. That’s how Yitzchak would come in and
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 220
I would read Achad Ha’am with him. The romance lasted a long time. But
when it came down to it, until when would that be? There were no rooms.20
tions were self-control, shyness, and embarrassment. This was so for sev-
eral reasons: the ethos of emotional restraint, the conservatism of the
parents (the perception of sex as a sin), the socialist ethos (the percep-
tion of love and intimacy as manifestations of individualism and sepa-
ration from the group), and close supervision. As with the pioneers, pub-
lic displays of love between boys and girls in the youth movements were
restrained and modest.
Courtship between a Sabra boy and girl before they became a couple
was restrained, hesitant, and bashful, an exchange of hints and glances.
It was not acceptable to frequently change boyfriends or girlfriends, and
after a romantic connection was established it generally lasted a long time.
Many married their first love.
Talking about sex was considered among most Sabras in all contexts
to be a violation of privacy and would be met with discomfiture and
blushes. Even close male or female friends did not generally talk or ask
advice of each other about sexual matters, and letters between boyfriend
and girlfriend (at least those that I have examined or have been told about)
generally contain no erotic language. Their style is very emotional but
it is restrained, often hesitant, and very literary, as if taken from the Russ-
ian novels of the period. For example, a girl at Kibbutz Geva wrote to
her boyfriend at the front:
My Barzak, may much peace be with you! Tonight there was a party for all
the young people at Geva, but when you are not here it has no attraction for
me. Don’t laugh, that is really the case. In general I have been so sad these past
few days since I returned from vacation, I simply need you by me to feel good
again. . . . Your Aunt Liza slept here this evening. It’s really too bad that she
can’t see you, my precious. She took an interest in me. To see couples walk-
ing, emerging from the party into the night with its shining, hinting moon—
it simply pains the heart, and then the feeling of loneliness, of sadness, and
love grows stronger. Shaul, come soon, I am dying. I have heard that matters
are a bit difficult, fighting and so on. Be strong and healthy, my precious. Good
night, my love, and good-bye. Yours, Penina. (It is already very late and if I
wrote things that are a little funny I’m sure you’ll understand.)28
certainly was.” . . . Sex was disgusting not only in the Second Aliya, but with
us, too. . . . There weren’t even any dirty jokes.29
chapter 7
Our Gang
The pioneers of the Second and Third Aliyot were not just Zionists seek-
ing to establish a Jewish polity; they were revolutionaries who wanted
to create an entirely new and specifically Jewish society. As socialists,
they took as their goal the creation of a commonwealth in which rela-
tions between people would be based on true equality, mutual assistance,
and mutual respect. The economic forces that, so they believed, controlled
the structure of human relations in a capitalist society would no longer
determine the fate of men and women.
When the pioneers came to Palestine, they left behind their parents,
siblings, and hometowns. They were alone in Palestine, without a fam-
ily to anchor them. This situation together with the socialist ideal en-
couraged cohesive pioneer fellowships that were very much like fami-
lies. The members of communes shared similar backgrounds, including
the experience of having come to a new land and adopted a new lan-
guage, and this enhanced their cohesiveness. Although the early com-
munes were small and few in number, they created a standard of social-
ist living and Zionist idealism that became a model for the entire Zionist
labor movement, and indeed for Yishuv and Israeli society as a whole.
The close personal relations between the members of the early com-
226
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 227
munes and the ideological fervor that they shared gave these groups the
character of a Hasidic sect; for Hasidim also emphasize fellowship and
devotion to a shared way of life. In fact, the analogy between the pioneer
commune and the Hasidic sect is no mere metaphor. Hasidism was a very
real influence on the pioneers, and many of them refer to it explicitly in
their memoirs. “Hasidism is the spring from which we drew our song
and from which we nourished our souls in those first days,”1 related
Yehuda Ya’ari. Indeed, the very word kibbutz is of Hasidic origin. It is
the word that Bratislaver Hasidim used to label their gatherings on the
Rosh Ha-Shana holiday, when they met at the grave of their founder in
the Ukrainian town of Oman to pray and to study his writings.2
There is an important difference between the pioneer and the Hasid,
however. In Hasidism the fellowship is a by-product of shared devotion
to God and reverence for a holy man. For the pioneer the commune was
a goal in and of itself. As the socialist ethos dictated, social relations were
at the very center of the commune and were the subject of endless dis-
cussions, inquiries, conversations, and meetings. Records of many of these
have been preserved in kibbutz journals and in the archives of the kib-
butz movement.
placed with the authority of the extended family. Thus meals were not
family meals with the father at the head of the table but communal meals
held in a dining hall. Holidays were observed not within the family but
communally. Observances such as lighting the candles at the beginning
of the Sabbath were generally performed in the dining hall rather than
at home. “The strong impression made by the kibbutz Hanukkah party
has still not left me,” wrote one kibbutznik. “[The candle flames] forge
us into a single body and we sense how close we are to each other, feel-
ing like brothers.”3
If the kibbutz was one extended family, then the children were not the
children of individual families but rather of the community as a whole.
Indeed, in kibbutzim children were regarded as products of the commune.
They were created and tended by and belonged to the community as a
whole. In the kibbutz version of the traditional Shavu’ot holiday, the Fes-
tival of the First Fruits, the master of ceremonies would read the names
of the babies born during the previous year just as he read the statistics
on the wheat harvest or the number of calves born in the barn. When
the kibbutz had a school graduation ceremony, the entire membership
attended, not just the parents of the graduating children.
The writings produced by the kibbutznikim served to reinforce and
internalize the community’s cohesion. Kibbutz members produced an
abundance of articles, pamphlets, and newsletters that expressed and ex-
tolled the community’s solidarity and the sense of belonging.
Yet an even greater influence on the Sabra’s social personality was the
“children’s house” (for preschoolers), the “children’s society” (the kib-
butz’s communal education for adolescents), and the kibbutz educational
institution that was unique to the Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir movement—a
boarding high school where the children of several kibbutzim studied to-
gether, something like a communal adolescent kingdom itself run as a
kibbutz. These unique institutions, which created an almost autonomous
society of children, provided the three primary psychological influences
on kibbutz children—a powerful emotional attachment to their fellows,
conformism, and dependence on the group.4
The common daily routine in the children’s houses, preschools, and
schools and the shared clothes and toys put the communal imprint on
the kibbutz child from a very young age. Kibbutzim, especially those of
Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir, forbade parents to buy personal clothes and toys
for their children, and even prohibited parents from hanging a personal
picture in the child’s room next to his bed, to ensure that there were no
special privileges. As a result, the children were absorbed into a single,
homogeneous group of uniform appearance, and the possibilities of in-
dividual expression were limited.
Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim argued in his famous Children of the
Dream that because of the long period of time that the kibbutz child spent
with his peers, he feared not the disapproval of his parents, but rather
that of his peer group. The young person, Bettelheim wrote, is part of
the “we” that insistently demands that he does one thing and not an-
other. A person can hide from his parents and even from God, even if
their voices awaken in him greater fear than that of any other human
agent. But he cannot hide from a system of social supervision that he
himself is consciously a part of.5 The kibbutz child was indeed almost
always in the company of his peers, and for this reason he was almost
always under their inquisitive, judgmental, and categorizing gaze. In such
conditions it was difficult to change and to be different.
It is important to emphasize that communal pressure exerted on the
individual is a universal phenomenon and is not unique to kibbutz life.
But because of the intensity of kibbutz life and the disconnection from
the parental home, this pressure operated under optimal conditions in
the children’s house. The kibbutz way of life significantly amplified the
centripetal force that the peer group exerted on the child.
The separation from the parental home and the mutual activity with
members of the group throughout the day and night drastically reduced
the possibility of being alone and also created mutual psychological de-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 230
pendence among the children.6 This implanted in the kibbutz child the
habit of solving problems communally (“to think as a group”) and re-
duced his ability to take a distant and critical view of himself and his
comrades.
The mutual dependence was magnified as the peer group moved, over
the years, from one children’s house to another and from one caretaker
to another. Bettelheim argued that in this situation, where one’s bed, toys,
and caretaker (who to some extent took the place of the biological
mother) changed, the peer group became the most stable element in the
young person’s life.7
The kibbutz adolescent’s need to seek companionship with other
youths derived not only from the nature of life in the kibbutz but also
from psychological factors typical of adolescence. At this age friendship
is vital in shaping the young person’s internal world and is generally found
in same-sex friendships, which may endure throughout the adolescent
years.8
The kibbutz-born Sabra’s identity and dependence on the group was
strengthened in school. One of the philosophical principles of kibbutz
schools was education for a common social life. “Our school stands on
three things,” a kibbutz educator wrote, echoing a well-known maxim
of the sages: “ideology, labor, and the child’s social life.”9 The frequent
celebrations, field games, and field trips conducted by the schools pro-
moted a school spirit and made learning fun. School was a childhood
paradise, about which the children of the period wax sentimental to this
day.
The intensive emotional link between the kibbutz Sabras and their
“gang” is echoed in their letters: “I feel excellent and the only thing I
lack is company and friends,”10 wrote a kibbutz child who had to leave
the group for his studies. Another wrote to his friends: “Am I really
doomed to live far from the group forever? Can it really be that you will
go [off together] and I will be elsewhere . . . just not with you? No! That
never entered my thoughts and I don’t want it to!”11
A verbal indication of the profound connection between the kibbutz
child and his peers was the frequent greetings that young people sent to
each other through friends and in letters. Many of these greetings were
addressed to the group as a whole and not to a single close friend.
The common life of the young people at kibbutzim was indeed full of
enchantment and gave them a sense of security, but in order to paint a
complete picture it is important to state that it also caused a sense of suf-
focation, especially among the vulnerable, the sensitive, and the indi-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 231
vidualistic. The difficulty of finding privacy and the constant close quar-
ters with others produced anxiety, frustration, and sometimes anger, and
even then, prompted quite a few young people to leave their kibbutzim
and seek their futures in the cities.
Testimonies to this oppressive atmosphere appear in newspaper in-
terviews with members of the generation many years later and in the tes-
timonies of kibbutz educators. It is difficult to find evidence of such feel-
ings in the Sabras’ own writings, perhaps because criticizing the group,
which was like one’s family, was considered taboo. But it emerges be-
tween the lines here and there.
heart up into pieces and to serve it to every friend. You get the desire to
kiss and embrace every friend. . . . The club is the place where I found
myself and where I created myself. Who knows if in my life I will ever
again have such a pure place!”12
Chapter house newsletters and diaries devoted a great deal of space
to discussions of events in “our group,” “our chapter,” “our brigade,”
and “our movement.” They seem to have been introverted groups pre-
occupied almost entirely with themselves.
Youth movement groups in particular resembled kibbutz groups in the
“common brain” that thought as one and the “common heart” that felt
as one—created through the close mutual relations and constant social
pressure. Everyone discussed everything together, and everyone decided
everything together.
The “social talks” and “inquiries” that were part of the routine of
kibbutz educational institutions and youth movement chapter houses (es-
pecially in Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir), as well as the composition of a “book
of life” (something like a collective journal, like those kept by the pio-
neer communes), both expressed and shaped the “common heart” of the
group. These talks and inquiries promoted unmediated and sincere re-
lations between the members of the group and a sense of “completeness”
and harmony among them. These talks had a confessional character, the
individual baring himself to his fellows (though not in the total way com-
mon in modern psychological group dynamics), and working out his so-
cial difficulties with the rest of the group.
It should be noted that the dependence that the children of bourgeois
immigrants had on their peers was all the stronger because of the chasm
between the immigrant parents, who found it difficult to sever their ties
with the culture of their countries of origin, and their children, whose
adjustment to the new life was easier and, even more so, vital to their
survival.
There was great similarity between the kibbutzim and the agricultural
youth villages of Ben Shemen, Mikveh Yisrael, and Kadoorie. Many of
the students at these schools had arrived in Palestine as orphans, and for
them the peer group was a replacement for the family that had been mur-
dered in the Holocaust. The same was true of the orphans who lived on
kibbutzim within the framework of Youth Societies.
The Palmach in the 1940s (as well as the Nachal in the 1950s) was
also similar to the kibbutz in its norms and in the relations between its
members. The soldiers of one unit “lived together in a closed storeroom,
ate at a single table, enjoying common pleasures and training and work-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 233
The hora was thus amazingly like Hasidic dance (with the important
difference that the hora mixed the sexes) and in fact served a similar so-
cial and psychological purpose—the assimilation of the individual into
the collective to the point of shedding his material self. The pioneer
imitated the Hasidic dancer almost completely: He closed his eyes,
bobbed his head, stamped his feet to an accelerating tempo, sang loudly—
sometimes accompanied by a harmonica or accordion—to the point of
hoarseness or voicelessness, waving a handkerchief over his head to in-
tensify his fervor. Furthermore, many of his dances were to traditional
melodies, some of which were in fact Hasidic in origin.15
The pioneers’ dancing made a huge impression on the Sabras (espe-
cially those born and bred in kibbutzim) and infected them with its ar-
dor. The youth movements and Palmach inherited the pioneer hora, and
its communal ecstasy warranted it a central place in their culture.
It was not just ecstasy that gave the hora prominence. The dance ex-
emplified several complementary ideological messages that created a
single normative picture. It expressed the need to strengthen each other
and be strengthened together in the face of difficulties. It symbolized the
centripetal attraction of the individual into the communal circle and his
assimilation into a unified Hasidic-like community. It is no coincidence
that one of the earliest pioneer dances was called “Rise Up, Brother.”
The closed circle and joined hands were also symbolic of socialist val-
ues. As Gurit Kadman, a prominent choreographer, stated, they repre-
sented “equal rights, the absence of class; there are no differences of sex
or quality in the performance of the dance.”16 Furthermore, the joined
hands symbolized the inseparable chain of the Jewish generations, made
explicit in the lyrics of the hora song, “the chain still continues.” (The
lyrics were by Ya’akov Orland, who together with composer Mordecai
Zein wrote many of the most popular new Zionist “gospel” songs.) 17
The dances—usually done barefoot—also expressed the potent con-
nection of the pioneer to the land. For this reason, among others, the es-
tablishment of a new settlement would be marked by the dancing of a
wild hora.
Like other patterns of pioneer folklore, the hora, which began as a
spontaneous outpouring of “the joy of the poor,” was gradually insti-
tutionalized and improved in Yishuv and Israeli culture until it meta-
morphosed into the Israeli folk dance. Composers, costume designers,
and choreographers from the labor settlements developed it into one of
the symbols of those settlements, and especially of the pioneer youth
movements.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 235
One product of the Zionist national revival in the Land of Israel was the
composition of a large inventory of popular songs. The songs were writ-
ten to answer a demand—sing-alongs were a major form of entertain-
ment. Experts in the field agree that both the size of the repertoire and
its quality are exceptional given the small size of the Yishuv in the pre-
state period. While no thorough scholarly study of these songs has yet
been made, it seems reasonable to assume that such a study will con-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 236
clude that these popular songs match the prose of the period in their im-
portance, originality, and worth.
The musical tradition of the early Zionist settlement period was drawn
from a variety of sources: Yiddish songs (some of the melodies were sung
in Yiddish); Slavic, Moldavian, and Russian folk songs; Hasidic songs
and Jewish prayers; socialist protest songs; and the popular Oriental songs
that the pioneers picked up in Palestine.
At first the immigrants sang “imported” songs, but gradually a group
of talented composers emerged, creating original melodies to the words
of the poets of the national revival in Palestine and in the Diaspora. From
the end of the 1920s, at kibbutz and moshav celebrations, in the schools,
and in the cabaret shows and theaters of Tel Aviv, a musical style evolved
that was influenced by spoken Hebrew and by musical developments in
the West. This determined the basic forms of popular Israeli songs, in-
cluding those of the Sabras.
Most of the Hebrew songs were about nature and work, the world of
children, the holidays, the country’s landscape, and after the War of In-
dependence, the experience of war, loss, and memory. Melodies were also
written for verses from the Bible and verses of the great Hebrew poets.
What needs, then, did Hebrew song and the tradition of public singing
answer? The pioneer settlers frequently sang together because of the im-
mediate need for entertainment in a small society with few resources, and
because of the need for an outlet for feelings of loneliness and existential
stress felt by people living in cultural isolation. However, like the hora,
the song was also an element in the community’s ecstatic ritual. It wak-
ened and united, as did the singing of a choir in a synagogue. In fact, the
Hebrew term for the sing-along translates literally as “public singing,” a
term that consciously parallels the religious term “public prayer.” And
certainly the sing-along was as much ritual as entertainment.
For the pioneers, public song was a remnant of the synagogue culture,
a means of shoring up people’s spirits, and part of the formation of the
new Israeli culture. But for the youth movements it was a central and
defining element of the youth culture. Song was an unquestioned, inte-
gral part of every activity; learning new songs was considered vital to
the communal life of the youth movement chapter. The boy or girl who
knew all the lyrics to favorite songs was admired and envied by the oth-
ers.19 When the chapter gathered on Friday evenings or engaged in any
other routine activity, the meeting would always be opened and closed
with a song. The Sabras sang even more on field trips, where songs were
a means of expressing their elation and releasing tension. Furthermore,
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 237
travel by bus or truck in those days was lengthy and exhausting because
of bad roads and slow vehicles, and singing was a good way of passing
the time.
In each chapter house, at each camp, on each hike, there were lead-
ers who swept the rest along with their enthusiasm and served as con-
ductors of the chorus.20 Organizing public singing was considered one
of the duties of the counselor, and counselors learned new songs at coun-
seling seminars. Most of the guidebooks for youth movement counselors
instructed their readers to lead a lot of sing-alongs.
Youth movement members sang together with great enthusiasm, with
tremendous earnestness, and sometimes with real soulful devotion. Their
singing, especially of melancholy songs, was in this sense like prayer, and
it gave the chapter house the character of a small Hasidic synagogue.
Public singing was a way of practicing social unity, not only because
the many voices combined into a single voice, but also because of the rit-
ual that accompanied it. This was described by Netiva Ben-Yehuda:
On the grass every single evening, everyone would expect from all kinds of
soloists that each would contribute his selection—his famous one. In general,
the songs were sung in a certain order, as in a suite: There were songs that
were always sung together, in packets, fixed, and always after finishing a given
song you knew which song came after it. The order depended of course on
the local song leader, who ran the entire business as he saw fit—literally a
kind of director who was permitted to decide on his own but was open to
suggestions. Every time there was a gathering, the best “song starter” in the
field would, as you might say, be “elected” to the job by general consensus,
and at certain moments he would assign the role of soloist—or two “soloists”
in harmony—to someone for what everyone knew was “his” song.21
There were even modern folk songs and dance songs from the United
States, France, and elsewhere—translated or with their words revised to
fit the local culture. Only a few songs were unique to a specific move-
ment; most were sung by all of them, having been passed on by word of
mouth in joint camps and seminars.
The socialist movements, until the 1930s, tended to sing a lot of “pro-
letarian” songs and labor songs with socialist content brought by the
founding generation from overseas. (The younger generation considered
most of these alien and ridiculous and generally sang them in a farcical
tone.)22 But gradually, especially in the 1940s, their place was taken by
songs with a general national message—songs of struggle, freedom, hero-
ism, loss, settlement, and illegal immigration.23 There were happy, light
songs, but the best-loved were the lyrical, melancholy ones, most of which
were written to Russian melodies and sometimes even had words trans-
lated from the Russian.24 These were songs of yearning for past days and
of hope for future ones, playing on the Sabra’s patriotic sentiments.
The Russian songs, translated into Hebrew, were popular with young
people not only because many of them had heard these melodies in their
homes (in some cases as lullabies), but also because they were an infor-
mal expression of patriotic and heroic identification with socialist
“Mother Russia,” with the partisans who were heroically fighting the
Nazis, and with the mythological Russia as depicted in the great literary
works of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and other great Russian writers.25
In the Sabra milieu, as in pioneer culture, songs were an important
means of reinforcing the individual’s association with the group. This is
how a Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir girl described her movement’s song nights:
Singing in unison, deep from the heart. . . . You feel the people’s pounding
hearts penetrating the world of the musical sounds, and with the wonderful
harmony of classical music you feel that these are your brothers, they are
yours. . . . So heartwarming is the feeling that these many people are linked
one to the other and that no great force can deter them from the trail they
have blazed and are walking on.26
the values of Zionism and love of the homeland. It supplemented the mes-
sages he was given in his education and reflected and reinforced them
through an emotional musical experience. Many of the songs had ideo-
logical content, as can be seen by their names: “We Will Go Up to the
Hula Valley,” “To the Top of the Mountain,” “We Sing to You, Home-
land and Mother,” “We Will Be the First,” and so on. Through words
packaged in pleasing melodies the Sabra repeated by rote the values of
love of the homeland while feeling a painful sweetness. The integration
of beautiful melodies with patriotic Hebrew poetry spoke to the Sabra
heart and became part of his internal code.
Every program or event to mark a national holiday included public
singing, and special songs were even designated as appropriate for each
occasion. So, for example, a Ha-Machanot Ha-Olim guidebook recom-
mended that counselors conclude the program titled “Fear and Hero-
ism” by singing “We Will Be Strengthened Here” and “The Galileans
Rejoiced,” and end the program on Joseph Trumpeldor by singing
“From the Valley to the Hill,” “In the Upper Galilee,” “Go Up to the
Hill,” “Who Will Save Me from Hunger?” and “In the Galilee and at
Tel Chai.” The program on “The Defense of Metullah” was to be con-
cluded with the songs “Here in the Land That Our Fathers Yearned For,”
“O, Homeland,” “If You Will It, It Is No Dream,” “We Sing to You,
Homeland and Mother,” and “Come Up, Come Up, to the Land of the
Fathers.”27 There were also guidebooks for parties containing precise in-
structions on what to sing and when, determined by each song’s educa-
tional and moral value.28
National songs were also an important tool in Sabra education be-
cause they allowed the Sabra, in keeping with the anti-intellectual ethos,
to express pathos without sounding pretentious. Music seemed to miti-
gate the verbal cliché and allowed emotionally charged words to be pro-
nounced matter-of-factly.
The youth movement song culture blossomed and even developed in
the Palmach, especially in the mobilized hachsharot. The young fighters
frequently sang together—accompanied by harmonica, accordion, man-
dolin, balalaika, recorder, or Arab drum—in labor camps on farms, at
evening gatherings, in training camps, and while traveling by truck. And
the Palmach especially loved singing around a campfire and on marches.
Every platoon and company had a “cantor” who led the band from one
song to another, who animated and conducted its singing, as did the song
leader in the youth movements.
Common experience prompted new melodies that contributed to the
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 240
the campfire
One manifestation of the Israeli culture of the circle was the gathering
of pioneers and members of Ha-Shomer around the campfire for con-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 242
versation, song, dance, and food. The campfire was a source of vital
warmth in the cold nights of the far-flung areas of the Land of Israel, but
it also served as a ritual means of unification and contained, as in many
other cultures, a store of romantic symbols. These gatherings around the
campfire were so loved by the pioneers that they created a tradition of
their own, called the kumzitz. The source of the word is a Yiddish ex-
pression meaning literally “friend, come sit for a while,” and figuratively
“come celebrate.”
Like the hora, the Sabra campfire culture was inherited from the pi-
oneers, but the Sabras molded it to their own needs and made it a key
element of their own communal culture. The practice of building a
campfire and sitting around it began in the youth movements as a leisure
activity in a resource-poor country. The youth movement members would
make their fires in vacant lots and in fields adjacent to the new Hebrew
cities. But only in the Palmach (beginning with the training camps in the
Mishmar Ha-Emek woods in the summer of 1941, and afterward in other
camps) did sitting around the campfire become a kind of rite of youth,
togetherness, and nostalgia, symbolizing Sabraism. The campfire was the
center of the life of the Palmach platoon and company. The company
commander would give a talk next to the campfire, and soldiers would
read selections from works of literature, nonfiction, and poetry. The “Old
Man” (Yitzchak Sadeh) would occasionally appear at one of the campfires
and “shoot off cadenced, short sentences, quarried from the rock of the
nation’s history and experience.”33
The ritual aspect of the kumzitz was evident in its collective, ecstatic,
and romantic character and in its unstated ceremonial rules, which in-
cluded traditional roles: the leader of the public singing, the teller of jokes
and chizbatim, the expert at building the cooking fire, and most impor-
tant, the coffee maker,34 who knew the precise amount of hot liquid to
pour into the empty tin cans and who was master of the technique of
heating the water (which had to reach the boiling point twice), flavor-
ing the coffee with marjoram and coriander, and manipulating the pot
until the coffee developed the requisite head of foam.35
The tradition of the kumzitz, described with great fondness in Sabra
writings, symbolized and reinforced Sabra togetherness through several
complementary elements. First, the preparation of the campfire and the
kumzitz food required cooperation. Second, the fire burning in the dark
seemed to detach the celebrating group from the world, creating an at-
mosphere of intimacy. Third, like dancing the hora, sitting cross-legged
on the ground in a circle, shoulder to shoulder, around a common source
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 243
of warmth and light produced closeness and fraternity. Avidly eating with
the hands from a single kettle, sipping coffee from a single pot (the Arab
coffeepot became one of the ritual articles of the kumzitz) cultivated a
romanticism of primal brotherhood.
Alongside its importance as a means of unifying the ranks and creat-
ing a way of life, the kumzitz was significant in Sabra culture as a rite of
nature. Collecting twigs for the fire, sitting around the fire under the open
sky far from any urban center, baking potatoes and pita bread on the
glowing coals, roasting a chicken on an improvised grill, eating raven-
ously with the hands, slurping the thick coffee made in the portable pot
out of tin cans like the Bedouin—all these elements of the kumzitz cre-
ated the image of a tribe of hunters and gatherers, people of nature meet-
ing in the evening to feast and rejoice in the gains of the day. The kumzitz
was in this sense a ritual of romantic assimilation with nature, of na-
tiveness and of combat. It reinforced the Palmach image of fighters for
whom the wilds were home, like the mythological figures in world folk-
lore (for instance, Robin Hood and Davy Crockett).
The “pantheistic” meaning of the kumzitz is also revealed in the tra-
dition of pilfering supplies for it—the sechiva. A successful kumzitz, ac-
cording to Sabra tradition, was one in which the food had not been pur-
chased, but rather, was “collected.”
In the kibbutz and moshav, the youth movements, the hachsharot, and
the Palmach platoons, the Sabras learned and perfected the Bedouin tech-
niques and traditions of collection, cooking, and eating in the field. They
learned how to identify herbs and how to build ovens from mud and
cooking stoves from stones. This also strengthened the generational im-
age of the Sabras as at home in their homeland.
The kumzitz was so popular that it became an inseparable part of the
mythological image and the folklore of the Palmach and the Sabra. The
Sabras themselves contributed to this, since they frequently used the
campfire as one of the symbols identifying their generation.36 It is no co-
incidence that the campfire song “The Finjan,” written by Chaim Chef-
fer, became one of the best-loved and most popular songs in Sabra cul-
ture, and in fact, in all of Israeli society, which adopted the kumzitz as
part of its national culture. Nor was it a coincidence that Yitzchak
Sadeh’s regular column in Al Ha-Mishmar, later published in book form,
was called “Around the Campfire.” The symbolic importance of the Pal-
mach campfire can also be found in the organization’s emblem—under
the stalks of wheat and the sword is the legend “Its campfire will not be
extinguished.”
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 244
In the wake of the rite of the Palmach campfire, the holiday of Lag
Be-Omer, whose campfires symbolize those of Bar Kochba and his rebels
against the Romans, became the holiday of Sabraism. This was the hol-
iday most loved by the young Israeli natives, the time when everyone sat
in circles around the fires, eating with their hands and singing Hebrew
songs to the accompaniment of the accordion, recorder, drum, or har-
monica. Thus they recalled the rebel leader, the hero of the Jewish people’s
mythical war, whose descendant the Sabra was.
Pioneer culture had many words to designate the unified community. The
counselor in the He-Halutz Ha-Tza’ir movement was addressed as
“comrade” and in Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir he was called “brother.” The
first cooperative settlements were called kevutzot, “groups,” before the
adoption of the now common form of the same root, kibbutzim. Many
of the names of Zionist organizations and institutions included the ad-
jective “united.” The newsletter of the first commune in Beitania was not
coincidentally called Kehilateinu, “Our Community.” The ubiquitous
term chaver, which means “member” and “comrade” as well as, liter-
ally, “friend,” made all members of a movement, party, or kibbutz into
comrades and friends as well. While the use of “comrade” or an equiv-
alent is common in many cultures of socialist orientation, it would seem
that in pioneer culture the emotional connotation of “friendship” was
an important sense of the word, designating the traditional Jewish prin-
ciple of the mutual responsibility of all Jews for each other. Similar use
was made of the word “brother.”
Sabra culture also had linguistic markers for solidarity and sociabil-
ity. Youth movements had special names for their chapter houses that
designated the close relation of their members. A chapter of Ha-Machanot
Ha-Olim was called a chug (circle or club); in Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir it
was called a ken (nest) or eda (community). In Ha-Noar Ha-Oved the
chapter was a kevutza (group) and in the Scouts it was an achva (broth-
erhood). Sabra language was also rich in cheering hoorays and in inti-
mate nicknames and diminutives.
The Sabras absorbed the pioneer expressions of solidarity and socia-
bility and added more of its own, with an element of youthful “insider”
humor. These were variations on chaver and its Arabic equivalents:
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 245
chevreh, chevres, habub, ya habibi, saheb, sahbi, jam’a. More than any
other, however, this sense of Sabra sociability was expressed by the word
chevreman. This word, which came to the Sabras through Yiddish, was
much used by the pioneers.37 It was adopted by the Sabras and became
so common in their speech that it came to symbolize Israeli Sabraism as
a whole. While the pioneers used it to mean “a good guy” or “a friendly
(or sometimes, idealistic) person,” in Sabra discourse it gained a broader
meaning—a person who was always ready to take on tasks for the good
of the group, a person to be trusted, and above all else, a person who
was pivotal to his group, the “life of the party” or the “human dynamo.”
The chevreman, the “group guy,” was the person who exhibited all
the Sabra social traits and values: extroversion, activism, friendship,
readiness to help everyone (in an effort to be recognized as a good per-
son). He liked to have fun and tried to impress his peers and get atten-
tion. He was playful, talked a lot, sparked those around him, kept up
morale (for example, by leading public singing). He was the first to vol-
unteer to organize a campfire or get-together and was a joker and noise-
maker. These traits made the chevreman a well-loved figure in Sabra
culture and the instrumental leader of the group—although not the ex-
pressive or charismatic leader, a responsibility that required a certain
amount of self-restraint, gravity, and distance.
The word dugri and the straight talk that it designates indicated, in
addition to the code of purposefulness, a code of true friendship in which
all barriers are lowered. The Sabra’s spoken language stands out in its
informality and impoliteness, but especially in its lack of words of au-
thority and respect. It has none of the protocol of class discourse (forms
of address, apologies, allusions, terms of respect) and few titles referring
to age or rank. Dugri talk reflected the family atmosphere and shared
fate of the Sabra generation and reinforced the atmosphere of commu-
nal cohesion. It found its most notable expression in army language. In
the Palmach and the IDF officers were generally addressed in a friendly,
informal way by first name and without any of the usual military forms
of address such as “sir” or “commander.”
It is interesting to note in this context that in some kibbutzim, espe-
cially those associated with Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir, children addressed
their parents by their first names. This phenomenon may also be a func-
tion of the lack of an aristocracy and thus the lack of a tradition of pro-
tocol and symbols of class hierarchy. It should also be mentioned that in
the years preceding and for several years after the establishment of the
state, the weakness, newness, and lack of institutionalization of official
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 246
how’s it going?
One of the cultural expressions of the Sabra buddy spirit was the joyful,
loud ritual of encountering friends and acquaintances. This greeting con-
tained three complementary elements expressing sociability. First was the
greeting ahlan, which served like a code for opening the social interac-
tion. Ahlan, like other greetings in other cultures, was not just a greet-
ing but a marker—“one of ours.” The second element was the slap on
the back, which had two important components—the warmth of the
body, expressing warmth of feeling, and the informality inherent in this
physical act, conveying the directness of the encounter. The third element
was the content of the conversation—fresh gossip about the doings of
the other members of the group. The linguistic code for this conversa-
tion was the expression ma nishma—“what’s up,” or “how’s it going?”
Ma nishma has its equivalents in other languages, but the literal mean-
ing of the phrase is “what is heard?” indicating the pattern of dissemi-
nating social information, which was passed by word of mouth among
friends. The collection of up-to-date information about “the guys” in di-
alogue, group conversation, and letters was indeed a basic element of
Sabra culture, and says something about the quasi-family connection
among the Sabras. The exchange of impressions about one’s friends was
also a status symbol indicating proximity to the center of events (“I’m
in the know”) and a broad range of social connections.
Another important element in the encounter between Sabras was the
discovery of a common acquaintance from school, from the youth move-
ment, or from the hachshara. Discovering a common acquaintance (a fre-
quent occurrence because of the overlap of the Sabra organizations) was
an efficient means of creating immediate connection between two Sabras
who did not know each other—it was a subject for avid discussion and
almost a family tie.
funny guys
gang, fooling all those around them and laughing at themselves. The chiz-
bat, unlike a fictional tale, had some link to reality, to Sabra life. Its hu-
mor was Sabra humor, the characters were familiar characters of the Pal-
mach, and the locations and events were real and historic. The chizbat
was thus a medium through which the group talked about itself and
honed its common identity.
Chizbatim were also one of the first expressions of a common Sabra
tradition—nostalgic harking back to the days of the group in its youth,
as noted above in the discussion of public singing. Another expression
of this sentiment was The Palmach Book, published in 1953, which was
the common nostalgic creation of the members of the generation, as was
the contemporaneous Pack of Lies. The longing for the past—which was
in fact a very recent past—did not derive only from a yearning for the
old thrilling times in the drab days of institutionalization and routine; it
was also prompted by a desire to preserve the spontaneous and roman-
tic life of the group. The chizbatim and songs that told of the past played
on the strings of the soul that all Sabras shared. The past was not just a
collection of events that had occurred and ended; it was a collection of
common experiences, and remembering them was a central element in
the internal culture of discourse.
Sabra buddy humor, chizbatim, jokes, skits, and comic songs about the
adventures of the Sabra “Hardy boys” were collected and recorded (dur-
ing the war and in the 1950s), mostly by Chaim Cheffer, Dahn Ben-
Amotz, Chaim Levkov, Didi Manosi, Shaul Biber, and Puchu, who were
the Palmach’s humorists (it was no coincidence that the collection of songs
later edited by Guri and Cheffer was called The Palmach Family). These
writers had sharp anthropologists’ eyes and ears that were attentive to
events in young Sabra society. They skillfully gathered wildflowers of folk-
lore and arranged them into a humoristic tradition. This tradition be-
came the property of the public as a whole, who saw it as an expression
of a deep-rooted, effervescent Hebrew culture.
The Palmach way of life was memorialized by the Chizbatron, the Pal-
mach’s “theater” troupe. It was largely the work of this group that made
Sabra life into public property.38 The Chizbatron was established by
Chaim Cheffer in February 1948. There were other army entertainment
troupes that were influenced by it, and their heirs in the IDF were the
Nachal troupe and the troupes of the three major army commands. All
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 249
The fallen soldier is part of the “we,” “one of us”—Uri and Gadi and
Alik and Dudu who “went with us on the tough march / patrolled the
border with us.”42 The songs of melancholy and comradeship lamented
the loss of the common friend and acknowledged the common pain of the
group that had lost some of its members, the common memory, and the
sense of guilt of the comrades who had remained alive.
The essence of the Palmach’s myth of comradeship appears in Chaim
Guri’s “The Song of Friendship,” which in time became part of the na-
tional liturgy, and also in O. Hillel’s “The Friendship of the Fighters”:
. . . O Spirit of Friendship!
Death shall not crush you,
Nor hordes of foreign besiegers!
It is stronger than death!
It is mightier than any army.
It is greater, too, than our young army. . . . 43
ther in order of nor with mention of their ranks, and many are desig-
nated by intimate nicknames. Many of the memorials bear the Biblical
passage: “In their lives and in their death they were not divided.”
Wrapped in layers of poems, stories, legends, articles, and speeches,
the value of the comradeship of fighters gradually became a national
myth, particularly after the War of Independence, and this reinforced its
social power even further. Like other Sabra characteristics we have ex-
amined, the Sabra fighter influenced the myth of friendship and was also
influenced by it. The myth implanted in him recognition of the moral im-
portance of self-sacrifice and altruism, and awareness of the expectations
society had of him. They induced him to behave with self-sacrifice and
generosity in the wars to come. But this behavior was itself a mytho-
logical accelerator—his actions reinforced the myth with new stories, set
new standards, and honed the social expectations of the following gen-
erations who read the memorial and war literature.
The long and difficult war was a generational birthing that produced
brothers in arms. Other elements in this birth process were the chasm
that opened between those who had experienced the war and those who
had not—including relatives and loved ones who had remained at the
rear—and the alienation that followed as a result. Studies of a number
of armies have shown that the shared trauma and the painful and ex-
hilarating memories create a sense of common fate among war veterans.
“The War of Independence, Israel’s longest war and the one with the
largest number of casualties, was the most potent experience that we
members of the generation experienced as individuals and as the collec-
tive,” wrote Dan Horowitz in his autobiographical book.44 His percep-
tion has been confirmed by conversations with many other members of
his generation. The 1948 generation lost many members during the war
(1,050 of the Palmach’s 7,000 soldiers). The soldiers bore a common
trauma. Some of them had difficulty adjusting to the drab routine days
after the war and grasped at bittersweet nostalgia. The experience of the
war became an essential part of their personalities, and connections to
comrades who had shared in the experience were imprinted on both per-
sonal and collective memory. “Here we fought together on cliffs and
rocky fields / Here we became a single family,” wrote Chaim Guri in his
poem “Bab el-Wad.”45
The familial fellowship of the Sabra fighters was strengthened by
mourning for fallen friends and acquaintances. Close ties between the
fighters, many of whom had been part of the same group of friends since
childhood and had passed through the Sabra organizations together,
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 253
The integration of women into male units continued in the IDF (in
particular in the Nachal), which became the heir of the Palmach and an
important context for the forging of Sabra identity.
As with most of the myths of the fighting Sabra, the literature of 1948
and the tradition of memorializing the fallen played important and per-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 254
haps key roles in the creation of the myth of the Palmach fraternity. The
eulogizers went to great lengths in praising the effervescent Sabra broth-
erhood that the fallen soldier had been part of and described the group
as a close family: “And many of them fell as if torn out of the circle of
life of that sturdy friendship that all shared,” wrote Anda Pinkerfeld-
Amir in one memorial book.49
The fraternity of the Sabras was also emphasized in the joint memorial
booklets issued by Sabra institutions. The subtitles of these booklets—
“the words of friends,” or “friends tell about the fallen”—were emblems
of friendship. Moreover, the publication of a memorial booklet by
friends became something like a cult practice, with the same symbolic
meaning as the building of a cairn (a common form of memorialization
in Israeli culture). The personal contribution of each participant expressed
spontaneous solidarity with a comrade and the unity of the group.
The memorialization of the fallen, in which all the soldier’s friends
and acquaintances participated, symbolized not only Sabra solidarity but
also the solidarity of the mourning nation, expressed in phrases such as
“the family of mourning” and “memorial to the sons.” The large num-
ber of memorial booklets, as well as other memorialization projects such
as monuments and cairns, gave personal grief a public dimension and
created a sense of the nation mourning as one for its sons, as the epi-
graph of one of the memorial anthologies states: “When a son of par-
ents falls, his memory belongs to the entire nation, which shares the fate
of its myriad fighters of the past and of the future.”50
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 255
Epilogue
255
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 256
256 :: Epilogue
From the Zionist point of view, the Sabra is without a doubt a phe-
nomenal success story. The secret of his success probably lies in the so-
cialization that shaped his personality, and especially in four of the many
factors examined in this book.
The first factor is the enlistment of most of the best minds—including
creative minds in various fields—in the service of Zionist propaganda.
This not only created a great chorus that sang out in unison, but also
contributed to the aestheticizing of Zionist ideology and granted it spir-
itual depth. The Sabras were not exposed to shallow propaganda and
the rhetoric of the street, but to the idealistic verses of sensitive poets, to
the visionary literature of great writers, and to impassioned speakers
noted for their broad horizons and social concern. The ideological cre-
ations of artists and thinkers of intellectual and moral distinction fortified
the emotional mantle of social values and imbued them with glory and
sanctity.
The second factor is the tight linkage between the emerging reality in
Israel and the utopian vision of Zionism. The reality provided repeated
confirmation that the utopian vision was indeed coming true and that
the Jewish people were, in an almost mystical way, entering the era of
the “Third Temple.” The speed with which the Zionist enterprise was
building its economic, demographic, and military foundation, climaxing
with the establishment of the state and the absorption of mass immi-
gration, confirmed the revolutionary utopianism of the Sabras and rein-
forced their faith in the Zionist vision. In a brief period of only thirty
years the Jewish immigrants had succeeded in reviving their ancient lan-
guage, creating a social framework based on utopian principles (the kib-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 257
Epilogue :: 257
258 :: Epilogue
The fourth factor was the success of the socializers and social frame-
works in fulfilling the spiritual needs of the youth. In the kibbutzim, the
youth movements, the Palmach, and the army as well, the establishment
deftly inculcated young people with Zionist values by creating a sense
of fun and a sense of pride. This was done in several ways. First, it cre-
ated a youth society with great autonomy, which provided a sense of free-
dom and lack of authority. Second, it encouraged a sense of internal sol-
idarity by minimizing formal rules and organizational hierarchy. Third,
it nurtured a sense of exclusivity and chosenness. Fourth, and most
important, it created a life of adventure and romantic fascination. The
camps in the heart of nature, the mobilizations for working on the kib-
butzim, the hikes, the marches—all these were effective means of edu-
cation precisely because they were very enjoyable for young people.
At the foundation of the Sabra culture was the pioneer culture. Never-
theless, few of the values and cultural symbols of the pioneer were ac-
cepted unmodified into Sabra culture. The Sabras elaborated upon the
pioneer culture, fortified it, and sometimes gave it a different cast that
expressed their generational uniqueness. Critic David Cana’ani wrote of
the fictional heroes of S. Yizhar, the greatest of the Sabra writers: “They
say amen to the convoy and blaze it a trail; its road is their road and its
goal is their goal. Nevertheless, there is in this way of theirs something
of the partisan guerrilla—both in the convoy and to its side.”1 These
words capture the essence of the complex relationship between the pio-
neer and Sabra cultures. Perhaps one could say that the founding fathers
wrote the score and their children played the music on the instruments
of a new orchestra and reworked the melody into a folk tune.
The anti-Diaspora ethos stands, openly and invisibly, at the base of
almost every myth, norm, symbol, and ritual that characterizes Sabra
culture. The link between Sabraism and the ideal of the new Jew (the op-
posite of the exilic Jew) is almost taken for granted and is not at all sur-
prising, since Zionism wished to create a new Jew and the younger gen-
eration that grew up in Israel was expected and educated to realize the
revolutionary utopia. The different meanings contained in the symbols of
Sabraism not only reveal the influence of the anti-exile ethos, but also show
how and to what depth this ethos seeped—sometimes unconsciously—
into different layers of Sabra culture, such as dress, hairstyle, and lan-
guage. A single custom could simultaneously symbolize several objects
of the anti-Diaspora ethos—which gave it a special popularity. The tra-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 259
Epilogue :: 259
dition of making difficult hikes through the desert, for example, declared
the physical prowess of the Sabra—the opposite of the stereotypical fee-
bleness of the exilic Jew—as well as the Sabra’s knowledge of the land,
as opposed to the exilic Jew’s rootlessness.
The manifold connection between the anti-Diaspora ethos and the en-
tire set of Sabra symbols illustrates the way in which a new culture comes
into being in a new society, especially in a revolutionary society. The cen-
tral ethos is a kind of ideological trunk that sends out new branches and
leaves, such as language, dress, and humor.
When the different variables are put together into the formula that
shaped Sabra culture, what becomes apparent, alongside the anti-Dias-
pora ethos, is the enormous contribution of key Sabra figures to the for-
mulation and development of this culture. This confirms sociologist Karl
Mannheim’s view that the generational unit usually crystallizes around
a nucleus composed of the best of the generation, which develops the
new self-perceptions and animates the people around it.2 The nucleus
group of the Sabra generation was composed of three types.
The first type were the cultural “copywriters,” people of particularly
high intelligence, sharp social instincts, and in particular the ability to
create art from popular materials. These were the writers, poets, painters,
songwriters, singers, and entertainers who grew in the incubators of the
agricultural settlements, and especially in the Palmach. Chaim Cheffer,
for example, did not invent the tradition of the campfire and the cof-
feepot, but the song he wrote about the Palmach campfire so well ex-
pressed the tastes and sensibilities of the members of his generation that
it became a significant part of the tradition of the coffee pot and the sing-
along, and so contributed to its development. The poems, stories, songs,
tall tales, and essays published in the newspapers of the youth movements,
the kibbutzim, the Palmach, and the army and performed by the army
entertainment troupes made a decisive contribution to the dissemination,
perpetuation, and institutionalization of Sabra culture.
The second type were the cultural bellwethers—the charismatic figures
with initiative and prominence who internalized and radicalized the cul-
tural characteristics and so pushed the boundaries of the culture. These
were generally admired commanders such as Yigal Allon, Moshe Dayan,
Yitzchak Rabin, Uri Ben-Ari, Meir Har-Zion, and others who became
exemplary figures.
The third type were those who died in battle and possessed manifestly
Sabra characters. In their deaths they became myths. The historian George
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 260
260 :: Epilogue
Mosse has called them “the living fallen.” Hannah Szenes, who herself
became a cultural lighthouse after her death, described them as follows:
Among the fallen are those who became “sparks” because of a spe-
cial act of heroism, but most joined the collective memory through the
memorial anthologies published in their honor. Talented youngsters such
as Jimmy (Aharon Shemi), Yechiam Weitz, Chaim Ben-Dor, Zohara Lev-
tov, Zurik Dayan, Tuvia Kushiner, Nechemia Shein, and Danny Mas, who
left behind many letters and writings—most of them dealing with Sabra
life—were greatly admired by the members of their generation because
of their noble images, which were burnished and polished in the memo-
rial literature. In their deaths they “bequeathed” to the members of their
generation not only life but also the values and cultural style in which
they lived. Many young people who read their writings imitated them—
they wrote poems for their desk drawers; hid their feelings; adopted a
nationalist worldview, a spirit of volunteerism, and a love of the land-
scape. Jimmy, Yechiam Weitz, and others like them produced many other
Jimmies and Yechiams, not only in their generation but also in the gen-
eration that came twenty or thirty years after them.
Epilogue :: 261
it), and on the other hand they gave them great leeway. Young people
lived on kibbutzim, on training farms, and in youth group centers in in-
dependent frameworks, guided other young people, commanded army
battalions and even regiments, and established new settlements. The dual
nature of the pioneer attitude toward the Sabra derived also from the
immigrant syndrome. The immigrant, who has sought a new homeland,
aspires to see his child take root in the country of immigration and adopt
a new identity, yet at the same time he is pained by the child’s discon-
nection from the cultural roots of the old homeland.
It would seem that the Sabra, who fulfilled the role of the institution-
alizer of the Zionist religion, also sowed—paradoxically—the seeds of its
secularization, especially via the culture of jest he created. As Umberto
Eco showed in The Name of the Rose, humor and laughter are the most
dangerous of religion’s enemies because they challenge the gravity of the
pious believer and throw light on the naiveté lying at the foundation of
the faith. Even more important, humor is based on viewing reality from
a distance, and distance is the first step toward challenging dogma.
A lamina of seriousness coats most of the pioneer writings. Most Sabra
texts are notable for their seriousness. However, alongside their earnest-
ness these texts include a great measure of jest and fun, and even a glim-
mer of social irony. These qualities are found in youth movement songs,
newspaper essays, tall tales, local jokes, slang, and even literature. While
this is largely buddy humor rather than anti-establishment political hu-
mor, the very act of developing a culture of laughter is important as a
source of subversion. Alongside their love of melancholy the Sabras liked
to laugh wildly at themselves and their surroundings. The Sabra genera-
tion was thus the first to bring laughter into the holy Zionist sanctuary—
and the first to “defile” and “secularize” it. The laughter of the Palmach
led to ever-stronger waves of Israeli humor, including anti-establishment
humor, making a larger and larger breach in the defensive wall of solemn
Zionist idealism.
The myth of the Sabra was perhaps the most central myth of the Yishuv
period. Large numbers of people spoke about the Sabra and discussed
the image of the members of agricultural settlements, sometimes criti-
cally and with concern, but mostly with contentment and delight. The
younger generation itself adopted the term “Sabra” into its speech and
so contributed to its dissemination. Even though the base of the preoc-
cupation with the Sabra and the phenomenon of Sabraism was the ex-
pectation that the younger generation would realize the vision of the new
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 262
262 :: Epilogue
Jew, it seems that what lies hidden here is a broader endeavor by the
founding generation to create a social identity in a new society. Even
though the Sabras were proportionally a small part of society, they were
not perceived by the broader public as a marginal sector of singular as-
pect, but rather as representatives—in their character, style, language,
and values—of the new Israeli identity. It was no accident that in the
1980s, when the Israeli value system was shaken by the trauma of the
Yom Kippur War, the Sabra and his mythological image were the focus
of public attack. Nor was it an accident that the many critics who came
to settle accounts with the Zionist system of values first shattered the
myth of the Sabra; this myth-shattering reflected the interest in disman-
tling the existing Israeli identity and creating a new one that was uni-
versal in character.
Mythological figures often serve as mirrors of the culture that fostered
them. What culture is reflected, then, in the mirror of the Sabra myth?
Many scholars and journalists in recent years have described the Sabra
myth as nationalist and power-oriented, the product of militaristic prop-
aganda with political foundations. True, it has its nationalist-chauvinist
and militaristic foundations (especially that part that developed in the
wake of the Sinai Campaign), characteristic of a society that lives by the
sword; but to a large extent the mythological profile of the fighting Sabra
is composed of manifestly anti-chauvinist and anti-militaristic elements.
This is especially notable in the memorial literature, which played a ma-
jor role in shaping the true Sabra and his mythological image.
Death in battle may have been conceived in metaphysical terms (for
the redemption of Israel, etc.) and used to instill patriotic duty—as is
common in all wars—but it was not glorified and sanctified in the man-
ner familiar in Third World armies. Fallen Sabras may have been com-
memorated with saccharine and formulaic praises, but death in battle
was not made into an ideal and was not given any transcendental, su-
perhuman significance. Nor did Israeli culture develop a myth of the war
experience meant to disguise the terror of war and give it legitimacy, at
least not to the degree found in Europe, much less the Third World.4 When
the slogan “it is good to die for our country” was instilled in the Sabra,
he was not asked to internalize that it was good to die a hero’s death,
but rather that death in the Land of Israel had moral significance.
Most of the Sabra memorial books and literary works on the Sabra
do not portray him as a great conqueror. Rather, devotion to the home-
land and to friends is primary. The Sabra is generally presented as a think-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 263
Epilogue :: 263
264 :: Epilogue
“The spirit of holiness this hour nests in the thick of events. . . . The di-
vine presence finds its remedy here of all places: on our islands of the
quotidian and hard labor in the holy land.” So believed the poet Uri Zvi
Greenberg, the author of those lines; so believed the Zionist pioneers;
and so also believed their heirs, the Sabras. The Sabra indeed became a
pious believer in the Zionist national religion, and the Zionist frameworks
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 265
Epilogue :: 265
You asked me what the movement gives me. It is difficult for me to answer.
You haven’t lived in the movement, and things like this must be lived to be
understood. Did you ever feel the feeling of satisfaction after reaching the peak
after a long and hard climb? Or pure happiness, the happiness of creation by
friends after hard and long labor when everything stood against them, fought
against them, and despite this they succeeded in building and creating? Or
the potent love of a barren tract of land that awakens in you the desire to em-
brace it all and sacrifice everything? Or the opposite—did you ever feel deep
and sincere sorrow for dear friends taken from you before their time and with-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 266
266 :: Epilogue
out reason? Have you ever heard a simple and potent poem that expresses
joy and also sadness coming from the heart? Have you ever seen a hora of
comrades uniting into a single body, dancing with enthusiasm, forgetting the
world and all in it and dancing? . . .
Have you ever dreamed a dream so beautiful and so pure as the dream of
a new enterprise that you will take part in establishing?
All this is what the movement gives me.8
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 267
Notes
Introduction
1. See, for example, A. Shapira, “A Generation in the Land” [Hebrew], Al-
pa’yim 2 (1990): 178–203.
2. On the symbolic importance of the term “Hebrew,” see J. Klausner, “He-
brew Man” [Hebrew], Ha-Shiloach 14 (July–December 1907): 575–77.
3. On the concept of the Hebrew, the “new Jew,” as the polar opposite of
the Diaspora Jew, see Y. Luidor, “Yoash,” Ha-Shiloah 26 (January 1912):
422–25. Judah Leib Magnes called Avshalom Feinberg a “new Jew”—see A.
Aharonson, “Three Years since the Death of Avshalom Feinberg” [Hebrew],
Do’ar Ha-Yom 1 (Shevat 1920). For more on this issue, see Y. Berlovitz, “The
‘New Jew’ Model in Second Aliya Literature: A Proposal for a Zionist Anthro-
pology” [Hebrew], Alei Siah 17–18 (1983): 54–70.
4. D. Almagor, “The Sabra Is Put in Quotation Marks” [Hebrew], Yediot
Aharonot, 30 December 1977, A1. I would like to thank Dr. Almagor for addi-
tional information on the Sabra.
5. U. Kesari, Memoirs for Tomorrow [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1975), 133–34.
6. Almagor, “The Sabra Is Put in Quotation Marks.” Almagor quoted from
Ketuvim 21 (16 June 1932).
7. M. Shamir, “With the Members of My Generation” [Hebrew], in The
Yalkut Ha-Re’im Book (republication on the fiftieth anniversary of the issuing
of the first collection, Jerusalem, 1992).
8. On the repugnance the native youth felt for the Diaspora and its symbols,
see T. Segev, The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust (New York:
Hill and Wang, 1993).
9. See U. Avneri, “The Floor to the Israeli Generation!” and “Who Are These
Sabras?” Ba-Ma’avak (September 1946).
267
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 268
10. See U. Avneri, “And the Canaanite Was Then in the Land” [Hebrew], in
The War of the Seventh Day [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1969); Y. Shavit, From Hebrew
to Canaanite [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1984).
11. Y. Yatziv, “Sabraism as an Ideology” [Hebrew], Davar, 25 September
1946.
12. On the creation of a Hebrew-native culture, see A. Even Zohar, “The
Growth and Crystallization of a Local and Native Culture in the Land of Israel”
[Hebrew], Katedra 16 (1980): 161–216.
13. A. Keinan, “Hebrews and Not Sabras” [Hebrew], Bamat Elef, October
1949. Republished in Proza in a special issue devoted to “The Literary Failure
of 1948” (August–September 1977): 31.
14. On these Sabras, see R. Alboim-Dror, Hebrew Education in Eretz Israel
[Hebrew], vol. 1 (Jerusalem, 1986), as well as her article: “He Is Approaching,
He Is Coming, the New Hebrew: On the Youth Culture of the First Aliyot” [He-
brew], Alpa’yim 12 (1996): 104–36; G. Scheffer, “The Appearance of the ‘No-
bility of Service’ in the Yishuv” [Hebrew], Ha-Tzionut 8 (1983): 147–80. Ac-
cording to Dan Horowitz, “It is also possible to put in this same group the first
members of the Ha-Noar Ha-Oved youth movement—the members of the gen-
eration of the founders of Kibbutz Na’an, such as Haganah activists Yisrael Galili
and Moshe Zelitzky-Carmel.” (Blue and Thorns: The 1948 Generation, Self-Por-
trait [Hebrew] [Jerusalem: Keter, 1993], 77).
15. On the inferior position of the immigrant fighters in relation to the Sabras
in the mythos of 1948, see E. Sivan, The 1948 Generation: Myth, Portrait, and
Memory [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1991).
16. Books of this type especially worthy of mention are The Sixth Battalion
Tells [Hebrew] (1948); In the Philistine Fields 1948: Battle Diary [Hebrew], 4th
ed. (Tel Aviv, 1950); Chapters of the Palmach: From the Mouths of the Fighters
[Hebrew] (1951); When the Pathbreakers Break Through: From the Diary of a
Palmach Soldier [Hebrew] (1952); Friends Tell about Jimmy [Hebrew] (1955);
and On the Path of the Palmach [Hebrew] (1958).
17. The two official anthologies were Y. Lamdan, ed., In Memorium: Selec-
tions from the Lives and Deaths of the Fallen [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1954); and
R. Avinoam, ed., Scrolls of Fire: A Collection Including a Selection from the Lit-
erary and Artistic Material Left by the Young People Who Fell in the War of In-
dependence and Thereafter [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1952).
18. For example, the portraits of Palmach fighters that appeared in the paint-
ings of Aharon Avni, Mordecai Ardon, Mordecai Arieli, Avigdor Aricha, Naf-
tali Bazam, Ludwig Blum, Nachum Gutman, Moshe Bernstein, Shraga Weil, and
Moshe Tamir. See G. Ofrat (exhibit curator), The 1948 Generation in Israeli Art
[Hebrew], exhibition catalogue, Haifa University Gallery, February 1984.
19. Conversation with Yossi Stern, 1983.
20. E. Davidzon, The Laughter of Our Mouths: A Treasure of Humor and
Satire in Hebrew Literature from its Beginnings to Our Days [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv,
1951), 495.
21. See A. Dankner, Dahn Ben-Amotz: A Biography [Hebrew] (Jerusalem,
1992), 144.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 269
22. Z. Gilad and M. Megged, eds., The Palmach Book [Hebrew], 2 vols (Tel
Aviv: Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Me’uchad, 1953). This was preceded by a partial collec-
tion: Z. Gilad, ed., Chapters of the Palmach: From the Mouths of the Fighters
[Hebrew] (Ein Charod, 1950).
23. For an account of the circumstances under which these books were writ-
ten, see A. Ofek, From Tarzan to Hasamba: How Adventure Books Were Writ-
ten [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1969), 191–205, 219–33.
24. Quoted in Almagor, “The Sabra Is Put in Quotation Marks.”
25. The poems were collected in 1957 in a volume titled You Call Yourself
Youth? [Hebrew].
26. Dankner, Ben-Amotz, 162.
27. Ibid., 161.
28. On the identification of these writers as a young guard see, for example,
D. Cana’ani, “In the Convoy and to Its Side: On the Works of S. Yizhar” [He-
brew], in S. Yizhar: A Selection of Critical Articles on His Works [Hebrew], ed.
H. Naggid (1949; Tel Aviv, 1972), 57–84. Hundreds of books and articles have
been written on this young guard. Those I have found to be of special interest
are Sh. Kremer, Changings of the Guard in Our Literature [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv,
1959); E. Schweid, Three Watches in Literature [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1964); A.
Luz, Reality and Man in Israeli Literature [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1970); G. Shaked,
A New Wave in Hebrew Literature [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1971); G. Shaked, There
is No Elsewhere [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1983); G. Shaked, “From the Sea? On the
Image of the Hero in Hebrew Fiction in the 1940s and Onward” [Hebrew],
Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature 9 (1986), 7–22; G. Shaked, Hebrew Fic-
tion 1880–1980 [Hebrew], vol. 3 (Tel Aviv, 1988); Y. Ben-Baruch, “From the
Ties of Shared Experience to the Literature of War: The Literature of the Pal-
mach from 1948 to the Present” [Hebrew], Iton 77 100 (May 1980): 164–74.
29. Shaked, Hebrew Fiction 1880–1980, vol. 1, 181.
30. On the history of the anthology and its literary and cultural importance,
see the articles by Moshe Shamir and Shlomo Tanai in The Yalkut Ha-Re’im Book.
See also N. Govrin, “Yalkut Ha-Re’im: A Myth of Continuation and a Myth of
Beginning” [Hebrew], in The Yisrael Levin Book: A Collection of Studies in He-
brew Literature through Its Generations [Hebrew], ed. R. Tzur and T. Rosen
(Tel Aviv, 1995).
31. Shamir, “With the Members of My Generation.”
32. On the popularity of this literature among young people of the middle
class and above, see Y. Rimon, “She Walked in the Fields” [Hebrew], Ba-
Machaneh Gadna 12 (1957): 4.
33. The use of Sabra slang charmed some of the critics and bothered others,
but most of them saw it as one of the characteristics of the new literary guard.
See, for example, A. B. Yaffeh, “The Young Prose in the War” [Hebrew], Or-
login 1 (1950): 188–93.
34. E. Ochmani, “To the Credit of Our Literature” [Hebrew], Orlogin 1
(1950): 28–29.
35. IDF Cultural Service, Spectrum of Writers: An Anthology of Literature
by Soldier Writers [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, n.d.).
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 270
36. See Y. Oren, “Taking Leave of the Sabra Image” [Hebrew], in Zionism
and Sabraism in the Israeli Novel [Hebrew] (Rishon Le-Tzion, 1990), 81–95;
Oz Almog, “The New Pillar of Fire” [Hebrew], Politika 42–43 (January 1991):
7–11.
37. Among the most noteworthy of these books in terms of its sharpness and
its influence was Amnon Rubinstein’s To Be a Free People [Hebrew] (Jerusalem:
Schocken Books, 1978).
38. Quoted from K. L. Beker, The Sublime City in Eighteenth-Century
Thought [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1979), 115–16.
39. R. N. Bellah, “Civil Religion in America,” Daedalus 96 (1967): 1–21.
40. He was preceded by A. de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835;
New York: Harper and Row, 1966); M. Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism (1905; London: Allen and Unwin, 1930); W. L. Werner, Amer-
ican Life: Dream and Reality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964); C. J.
Hayes, Nationalism: A Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1960).
41. C. Liebman and E. Don Yehiye, Civil Religion in Israel: Traditional Ju-
daism and Political Culture in the Jewish State (Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1983).
1. Idealistic Euphoria
1. See T. P. O’Day, “Sociological Dilemmas: Five Paradoxes of Institutional-
ization,” in Sociological Theory, Values and Change, ed. E. A. Tiryakian (Glen-
coe, Ill.: Free Press, 1963), 71–89. Also, E. Shils, ed., “Charisma, Order, and
Status,” American Sociological Review 30 (April 1965).
2. From an unsigned letter of April 1948. However, the style indicates that
it was written by Meir Talmi in response to a letter sent by Mishmar Ha-Emek’s
children to their kibbutz after they were evacuated to other kibbutzim in the wake
of attacks. Mishmar Ha-Emek archive, file 3.64.
3. A. Cohen, “To Put to Sleep or to Wake Up: Education and Indoctrination
through Lullabies” [Hebrew], in Transformations in Children’s Literature [He-
brew] (Haifa, 1988), 16.
4. For interesting examples, see M. Regev, “‘Enlisted’ Hebrew Children’s Lit-
erature” [Hebrew], Ma’agalei Kri’ah 7 (1980): 99–166; M. Regev, “Israeli and
Zionist Children’s Literature” [Hebrew], Yediot Aharonot, 8 May 1980, 22; Co-
hen, Transformations in Children’s Literature; M. Baruch, Child Then Child Now
[Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1991). On the ideology of the children’s periodicals, see M.
Regev, Children’s Literature: Reflections (Tel Aviv, 1992).
5. See Cohen, Transformations in Children’s Literature.
6. M. Yellen-Shtaklis, “Prayer” [Hebrew], Davar Le-Yeladim 10, no. 8
(1940): 9.
7. On the relations between the political establishment and the teachers’
unions during the Yishuv period and the political link between the two, see Y.
Shapira, Elite without Successors: Generations of Leaders in Israeli Society [He-
brew] (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Po’alim, 1984).
8. Z. Zohar, The Land of Israel in Our Education [Hebrew], 3d ed. (Jeru-
salem: Re’uven Mas, 1948), 5.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 271
9. M. Tzur, Le-Lo Kutonet Pasim (Without a coat of many colors) (Tel Aviv:
Am Oved, 1976), 127. (Hereafter: Tzur, Without a Coat of Many Colors).
10. Y. Halperin, “School and Parents” [Hebrew], Ha-Chinuch 19, no. 2
(1946): 30.
11. R. Firer, “Consciousness and Knowledge: The Influence of Zionist Val-
ues on Textbooks on Jewish History in the Hebrew Language in the Years
1900–1980” [Hebrew] (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1980), 20.
12. Council of Israeli Teachers, To Youth: The Israeli Library [Hebrew]
(1936), 74–75.
13. See also R. Firer, Agents of Zionist Education [Hebrew] (Oranim,
1985).
14. Firer, “Consciousness and Knowledge,” 70.
15. See A. Koestler, Promise and Fulfilment: Palestine 1905–1931 (London:
Macmillan, 1949), 300. For tables on the arrangement of subjects in the school
day, see M. Rosenstein, “The New Jew: The Link to Jewish Tradition in Gen-
eral Zionist Secondary Education in Eretz Israel” [Hebrew] (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew
University, Jerusalem, 1985).
16. B. Ben-Yehuda, Foundations and Ways: Toward Zionist Education in the
School [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1952), 23.
17. A. Urinovsky, “For the Rectification of the Study of the Bible” [Hebrew],
Shorashim 2, no. 1 (1938): 15–16.
18. Koestler, Promise and Fulfilment, 283.
19. Ch. A. Zuta and Y. Spibak, The History of Our People [Hebrew], 4th
ed. (Tel Aviv, 1936), 13.
20. Ben-Yehuda, Foundations and Ways, 23.
21. See T. Segev, The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust (New
York: Hill and Wang, 1993).
22. Many examples of this method and the means by which an ideological
atmosphere was created in the classroom may be seen in Z. Zohar, Teaching in
the Spirit of the Homeland [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1937); Zohar, The Land of Is-
rael in Our Education. See also Bundle of Letters on the Questions of Commu-
nal Education [Hebrew] 9 (July 1944): 14.
23. Ba-Moledet, collection of essays by students in Yishuv schools from the
Lu’ach He-Chaver contest, 1929 (Jerusalem, 1930).
24. For an especially fascinating collection, demonstrating the idealistic
spirit in which the pupils’ works were written, see G. Maisel, ed., The Child in
Israel: A Collection of Works of Children from the Age of One and a Half to
Thirteen and a Half Orally, in Writing, in Illustration, and in the Playing of Mu-
sic [Hebrew] (published by the editor, 1935).
25. Composition dated 24 Iyar 5798 (1938), in Sh. Zuckerman, A Memor-
ial to His Memory [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1958), 15–16.
26. Published in Afikim 2 (Warsaw, 1933), requoted in Z. Zohar, The Land
of Israel in Our Education, 159.
27. Zohar, The Land of Israel in Our Education, 125.
28. Z. Katarbursky, On the Paths of the Preschool [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv,
1952), 23.
29. Ben-Yehuda, Foundations and Ways, 27.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 272
48. Ahuviya, “The Proof of Strength” [Hebrew], in Like a Plant in the Field:
Anthology of Ha-Machanot Ha-Olim in Ha-Tenua Ha-Me’uchedet (Tel Aviv,
1947), 80.
49. For details on the myth of “our right to the Land of Israel” in secular
textbooks, see Firer, Agents of Zionist Education, 110.
50. Y. Weingarten and M. Teuber, Our People in the Past and Present [He-
brew], vol. 1, pt. 1 (Warsaw, 1935), 57.
51. The term “liberation” indeed appears more frequently than the term “con-
quest” on Israeli war memorials. See O. Almog, “Memorials to the Fallen in War:
A Semiological Analysis,” Megamot 34, no. 2 (1991): 179–210.
52. Ze’ev, “Palmachnik” [Hebrew], in Gilad and Megged, The Palmach Book,
1: 342.
53. For the ideological character of children’s games, see N. Lahav, “Games
of the Land of Israel” [Hebrew], Bayit 4 (1983): 59–61.
54. S. Shalom, “Voices in the Night,” from “The Song of the Times,” in The
S. Shalom Anthology (Tel Aviv, 1954), 37. (The poem itself was written in 1938.)
55. Quoted in Ch. Cheffer, ed., Calendar: The Calendar of the Palmach (Tel
Aviv, 1991), 20.
56. “At Bialik’s Home” [Hebrew], Itoneinu (1933), 12, in Archive of the His-
tory of Jewish and Zionist Education, Tel Aviv University, file 3147/2.
57. R. Alboim-Dror, Hebrew Education in Eretz Israel [Hebrew], vol. 1
(Jerusalem, 1986), 352.
58. For the popularity of books on the fallen, see “Give Me a Good Book,”
Ba-Machaneh Gadna 64 (March 1954): 5.
59. Ben-Yehuda, Foundations and Ways, 36–37
60. See T. Dolev-Gandelman, “The Symbolic Inscription of Zionist Ideology
in the Space of Eretz Israel: Why the Native Israeli is called Tsabar,” in Judaism
Viewed from Within and from Without, ed. H. E. Goldberg (Albany: State Uni-
versity of New York, 1987), 257–85.
61. For the educational importance, see “The JNF Fortieth Anniversary Lec-
ture: The Impact of the Kindergarten,” Hel-Ha-Gan 9 (1942): 11–17.
62. The description is based on Baruch Ben-Yehuda’s account in Foundations
and Ways, 44–45
63. With thanks to Naomi Meshi of Kibbutz Givat Haim, who provided sam-
ples of the JNF certificates.
64. See, for example, “In the Work of the JNF” [Hebrew], in Of Us—Ha-Shomer
Ha-Tza’ir [Hebrew], Jerusalem chapter house, 5 July 1937, Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir
archives, (1) 5.1–3.
65. Quoted in the catalog for the JNF Blue Box Exhibition displayed through-
out Israel to celebrate the JNF’s ninetieth anniversary.
66. Letter by Ch. Ben-Dor, 25 January 1938, Selected Letters and Writings
[Hebrew] (1949), 18.
67. O’Day, “Sociological Dilemmas.”
68. Y. Ahali, Dafna, 31 December 1947, in Avinoam, Scrolls of Fire, 500.
69. M. Salomon, 9 October 1941, in Avinoam, Scrolls of Fire, 390.
70. This refers to works by those called “the 1948 generation.” See G. Shaked,
Hebrew Fiction 1880–1980 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1978), 1: 62–64; E. Schweid,
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 274
Three Watches in Hebrew Literature [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1964), 199. For those
who contest the use of the term “writers of the 1948 generation” as a catch-all,
see, for example, A. Barteneh, “A Morning without Dawn” [Hebrew], Masa
(Davar literary supplement), 6 July 1984; A. Shoham, “A Generation in Israel:
In the Land of Criticism and Distortion” [Hebrew], Masa, 17 April 1983. Among
the fiercest opponents of the term is Menuha Gilboa in her book Wounds of Iden-
tity [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1988).
71. Many literary critics and researchers have addressed this point, for ex-
ample, Z. Shamir, “The Generation of Struggle for Independence and Its Poets”
[Hebrew], Iton 77 100 (1988): 120–24.
72. G. Shaked, “From the Sea? On the Image of the Hero in Hebrew Liter-
ature in the ’40s and After” [Hebrew], Jerusalem Surveys in Hebrew Literature
9 (1986): 7–22. For poetry, see D. Meron, Facing the Silent Brother: Studies in
the Poetry of the War of Independence (Jerusalem: Keter, 1992).
73. For this aspect of the 1948 Generation’s literature, see Y. Ben-Baruch, “From
the Ties of Shared Experience to the Literature of War: The Literature of the Pal-
mach from 1948 to the Present” [Hebrew], Iton 77 100 (May 1980): 164–74.
74. S. Kramer, “The Poetry of the Palmach and Its Breaking,” Mozna’im 20
(1965): 496.
75. For Alterman’s enormous influence on Sabra poets, see H. Shaham, “The
Influence of Natan Alterman’s Early Poems (1938–1944) on Young Hebrew Po-
etry of the Palmach Generation until the ‘Likrat’ group (1922–1955)” [Hebrew]
(Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1990).
76. Shamir, “The Generation of Struggle for Independence and Its Poets,”
122; also her article in Al Ha-Mishmar, 4 May 1979.
77. N. Shein, A Year since His Death (Ein Charod: Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Me’uchad,
1947), 165.
78. Z. Levenberg, in Avinoam, Scrolls of Fire, 411.
79. Y. Samotritch, “To My Land” [Hebrew], in Avinoam, Scrolls of Fire, 46.
80. B. Fachter, “We Are Your Sons” [Hebrew], in Avinoam, Scrolls of Fire, 75.
81. N. Arieli, “Homeland” [Hebrew], in Avinoam, Scrolls of Fire, 35.
82. U. Fried, 3 September 1936, in Avinoam, Scrolls of Fire, 690.
83. I. Golani, 10 December 1947, in Soul and Abyss [Hebrew] (Kibbutz
Afikim, 1950), 40–41.
84. M. Borenstein, “Sons Are We” [Hebrew], in Avinoam, Scrolls of Fire, 13.
85. Letter of 29 March 1938, Ch. Ben-Dor, Letters and Writings [Hebrew], 21.
86. See Tzur, Without a Coat of Many Colors, 217.
87. Letter of 27 March 1938, Ch. Ben-Dor, Letters and Writings, 20.
88. On deserters, see for example the testimony of Rachel Savoray, Haganah
Historical Archives, Brigade 25, file 1, and also of Yisrael Gitlick in the same
archives, Brigade 15, file 3.
89. E. Peled, letter of 16 November 1945, Ashdot Ya’akov, with my thanks
to the writer for providing it.
90. D. Mahancher, letter of 15 July 1948, Gezer’s Day [Hebrew], 88.
91. This feeling is evidenced by the coining of the word “Negevgrad” (de-
rived from Stalingrad) in the battle diary of the Givati Brigade (Battle Sheet, South-
ern Front, 13 July 1948, IDF Archives, brigade file).
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 275
92. G. Yardeni, ed., Yermi of the Paratroopers [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1968), 67.
93. Pa’il, From the Hagana to the Defense Force.
94. Y. Livneh, Simple Words: Poetry of the Heritage (Tel Aviv: Sifriyat Eleh
Ha-Banim, 1950), 71.
95. R. Deutsch, “We Are Coming Back to You, Rafael” [Hebrew], in An-
thology in His Memory (Mishmar Ha-Eek, 1949).
96. R. Zilberman, Alon Palmach 57–59 (January–February 1948): 44.
97. A trickle of this kind of questioning started in the ’50s and became a steady
flow only some twenty years later. Its apologetic character shows the difference
between the two periods.
98. H. Avrech, “Sedom” [Hebrew], 31 May 1948, in Avinoam, Scrolls of
Fire, 477
99. E. Peled, “We are Always Prepared for Orders: Profile of the Palmach
Generation” [Hebrew], lecture given at the Research Center for History of Eretz
Yisrael and Its Settlement, Jerusalem, 10 May 1995.
100. From A. Pinkerfeld-Amir, In Their Lives: Images from the War of In-
dependence [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Amichai, 1961), 121.
101. From Noam: A Memorial Candle for Noam Grossman, Who Fell in the
Judean Mountains [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1948), 20.
32. Anita Shapira comments on this: “Intentionally and consciously the leg-
end was cultivated of the brothership in arms between the warriors ‘there’ and
‘here.’ The partisans were presented as natural-born Palmachniks. . . . Allon, the
Palmach commander, defined this as a meeting ‘of brothers in arms and in ideas’”
(The Sword of the Dove: Zionism and Power, 1881–1948 [Hebrew] [Tel Aviv:
Am Oved, Ofakim, 1992], 466). This “Israelization” of the revolt has been ad-
dressed recently by several historians, including Yechiam Weitz, Yosef Heller,
Charles Liebman and Eliezer Don Yechiye, Henry Wasserman, Moshe Tzucker-
man and Idith Zertal.
33. Alon Palmach 24–25 (December 1944), 35.
34. See A. Chalamish, “The Illegal Immigration: Values, Myth, and Reality”
[Hebrew], in Gertz, Observation Points, 91.
35. From M. Lissak, “The Image of Immigrants: Stereotypes and Labels dur-
ing the Mass Immigration of the Fifties” [Hebrew], Katedra 43 (1987): 150.
36. See H. Yablonka, Foreign Brothers: Holocaust Survivors in the State of
Israel 1948–52 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1994), 56–57, 69.
37. For an in-depth discussion on the attitude in the Yishuv toward Holo-
caust survivors who arrived in the country, see T. Segev, The First Israelis [He-
brew] (Tel Aviv, 1984); T. Segev, The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holo-
caust (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993); A. Shapira, The Walk to the Horizon
[Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1988); Shapira, The Sword of the Dove.
38. For examples, see the anthology In Your Covenant: The Learning Youth
in Israel [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Ha-Machanot Ha-Olim, 1937).
39. Y. Frieman, “What the Diaspora Gave Us” [Hebrew], in Scrolls of Fire:
A Collection Including a Selection from the Literary and Artistic Material Left
by the Young People Who Fell in the War of Independence and Thereafter [He-
brew], ed. R. Avinoam (Jerusalem, 1952), 167.
40. B. Tumarkin, “Diary of Beit Ha-Shita” [Hebrew], 19 February 1937, in
The Years of Ha-Machanot Ha-Olim (First and Second Decades) [Hebrew], ed.
Y. Kafkafi (Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Me’uchad, 1985), 100.
41. The Echo of What Was Done [Hebrew], Kfar Masaryk, 22 November
1947, Kibbutz Ha-Me’uchad archives.
42. In Memory of Friends [Hebrew], training bulletin of the Ha-Machanot
Ha-Olim in Chulata, 1950, 27–28.
43. Yablonka, Foreign Brothers, 135.
44. Mi-Chaver Le-Chaver (bulletin of the Yiftach Brigade), January 1949,
IDF archives, brigade file.
45. A. Adan, To the Ink Flag [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1984), 211–12.
46. Ch. Hazaz, “The Sermon” [Hebrew], in The Sermon and Other Stories
[Hebrew], new ed. (Tel Aviv, 1991), 139.
47. See S. Veitman, “First Names as Cultural Measurements: Trends in the
National Identity of Israelis, 1882–1980” [Hebrew] in Gertz, Observation
Points, 141–52.
48. M. Yellen-Shtaklis, “Dani the Hero” [Hebrew], Davar Le-Yeladim 10,
no 8 (20 February 1941): 9.
49. N. Alterman, “Around the Campfire in Cyprus, or Uzi from Mescha Be-
comes a Displaced Person” [Hebrew], in Ha-Tor Ha-Shvi’i (The seventh column),
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 278
vol. 4 (Tel Aviv, 1987), 169–71. (First published in “Ha-Tor Ha-Shvi’i”[The sev-
enth column], Davar, 21 March 1947.)
50. See G. Turi, “Hebraicization of Family Names in Israel as a Cultural
Translation,” in Gertz, Observation Points, 152–73.
51. See A. Dankner, Dahn Ben-Amotz: A Biography [Hebrew] (Jerusalem,
1992).
52. For the ban on Yiddish films, see Ela Shochet, The Israeli Cinema: His-
tory and Ideology [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1991), 58.
53. The Sabra vernacular included not just special words but also abbrevia-
tions, mispronunciations, new verb forms, and deliberate wrong usages. For more
details see D. Ben-Amotz and N. Ben-Yehuda, The World Dictionary of Hebrew
Slang [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Zemora-Bitan, 1972), 249–50.
54. N. Gertz, ed., Statistical Year Book [Hebrew], Central Bureau of Statis-
tics, 1981 (Tel Aviv: Open University, 1988), table 22B, 56.
55. See Y. Nitzani, Our Activists and Their Training: On the Way to the In-
gathering of the Exiles and the Merging of Tribes [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Histadrut,
Dept. of Immigrants from the East and Yemen, 1947), 10–11.
56. See, for example, Ba-Mivchan 39 (January 1950).
57. See Segev, The First Israelis.
58. For more details on the kibbutz’s lack of success among Oriental immi-
grants, see A. Shamosh, “Be-Zechut Ha-Chikuch” (Thanks to friction), in Ha-
Ma’ayan (Jerusalem, 1988), 70–88.
59. E. Amir, Tarnegol Kaparot (Scapegoat) (Tel Aviv, 1992), 90. (Hereinafter:
Amir, Scapegoat.) On the feeling that “they simply arrived before us . . . ,” see
also S. Michael, Equal and More Equal [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1976), 35.
60. Firer, Agents of Zionist Education.
61. H. R. Turner, “Sponsored and Contested Mobility and the School Sys-
tem,” American Sociological Review 25, no. 5 (1960).
62. Quoted in U. Ben-Eliezer, “The Palmach 1941–45: A Social Elite in the
Construction of Concentrated Power” [Hebrew] (M.A. thesis, Tel Aviv Univer-
sity, 1981), 22.
63. See Na’or, Youth Movements, 17. For the common denominator between
the kibbutz educational system and elite schools, mainly the British “public”
schools, see A. Kahana, “The Influence of Patterns of Kibbutz Socialization on
Its Adolescents,” Ha-Kibbutz 2 (1975): 121–29.
64. Amir, Scapegoat, 66.
65. See Y. Sadeh, “A Little History” [Hebrew], in The Palmach Book [He-
brew], ed. Z. Gilad and M. Megged (Tel Aviv, 1953).
66. On selectivity in the Palmach, see U. Ben-Eliezer, “The Palmach as the
Mirror of Its Generation: Social Sources” [Hebrew], Medina u-Mimshal 23
(1984), 29–49.
67. Haganah History Archive, no. 4631. See also the testimony of A. Negev
(Haganah History Archive, no. 4676) and of M. Rabinowitz (Haganah History
Archive, no. 4147).
68. The hypothesis that those who join a group that requires a severe initi-
ation appreciate and like its members more than those who join a group with
easy entrance conditions was proved in a psychological experiment. See E. Aron-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 279
son and J. Mills: “The Effect of Severity of Initiation on Liking for a Group,”
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 59 (1959): 177–81.
69. On the popularity of these tests at the time and on their importance to
the image of the officer, see A. Barzel, “To Be or Not to Be . . . an Officer” [He-
brew], Ba-Machaneh Gadna 6 (2 December 1956).
70. Ba-Machaneh 12 (15 November 1951).
71. See B. Chabas, ed., The Book of the Second Aliyah [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv,
1947).
72. Ben-Amotz and Ben-Yehuda, The World Dictionary of Hebrew Slang,
84.
73. N. Ben-Yehuda, Between Calendars—1948 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1981),
87.
74. Ibid, 87.
75. The “detective” period in Israel started in the ’30s. For the development
of the local detective story, see Y. Shavit and Z. Shavit, eds., The Hebrew De-
tective Returns: Choice Detective Stories from Palestine and the Land of Israel
[Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1983).
76. Publication of this tremendously popular series, which had a large youth
following, started in 1932. It was based on the real figure of David, a police in-
spector (of the Mandatory Police) in Jewish Jerusalem and a private detective.
For the circumstances surrounding the publication of the series, see D. Tidhar,
In the Service of the Homeland [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1962), 233–39.
77. The following are a few examples from folk literature about Sabra youth:
Jimmy the Palmachnik and his friends organize a fake explosion in their tent,
giving everyone a shock and then arousing bellows of laughter (Avneri, Friends
Tell about Jimmy); Amitai Etzioni’s sapper buddies plant a tear gas grenade dur-
ing a performance at the Kameri Theater (Avneri, When the Pathbreakers Break
Through, which contains stories about many other pranks); members of Para-
trooper Brigade 890 use a smoke grenade to make an unfortunate waiter flee the
restaurant so that they don’t have to pay the bill (M. Yakobovits, Gulliver: A
Man and a Fighter [Hebrew] [Tel Aviv, 1973], diary extracts). (“Gulliver” is the
nickname for Yitznak Ben Menachem.)
78. All the definitions and examples of slang words are taken from Ben-Amotz
and Ben-Yehuda, The World Dictionary of Hebrew Slang, 76, 148, 160, 162,
184, 220; D. Ben-Amotz and Ch. Cheffer, The Complete and Full Bag of Tricks
[Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1979), 6, 47.
79. It is interesting to note that the sobriquet “jobnik” has a completely op-
posite meaning today from what it had originally. In the Palmach it referred to
a man sent out to do battle who did a dangerous job and was therefore highly
respected. See Ben-Amotz and Ben-Yehuda, The World Dictionary of Hebrew
Slang, 46.
80. M. Har-Tzion, Chapters of a Diary [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Levin-Epstein,
1969), 134.
81. “We were a generation that was hooked on the cinema, sometimes go-
ing more than once a day,” wrote Dan Horowitz in his biography, Blue and
Thorns [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1993). “Our lives were influenced by Gary Cooper.
It seems to me that I differentiate between good and bad, and Gary Cooper helped
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 280
me to do so,” Amos Keinan wrote in his Beneath the Flowers [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv,
1979). Similar remarks were made by Chaim Guri in The Mad One [Hebrew]
(Tel Aviv, 1972). Baruch Nadel’s witticism that “Two men created the Palmach—
Yitzchak Sadeh and Gary Cooper” is well known. It was no accident that one
of the Palmach’s urban training camps was called “Hollywood” and its mem-
bers had nicknames such as Bogart and Tosca. Netiva Ben-Yehuda also used Hol-
lywood terms, in a sort of instinctive Palmach reflex, in describing a battle in
which she took part: “One against one. Like in movies of the Wild West” (Be-
tween Calendars—1948).
82. “Kumzitz,” Alon Ha-Palmach 4 (Tammuz, 1942).
83. The Palmach command’s forgiving attitude toward thievery was proba-
bly the reason for the increasing number of stolen cars and motorcycles as well
as the increasing number of break-ins to supply warehouses during the War of
Independence. Stated in the file of the Palmach Military Prosecutor, IDF archives,
2294/50/2951.
84. A. Pinkerfeld-Amir, In Their Lives: Images from the War of Independence
[Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Amichai, 1961), 40.
85. It should be pointed out that some of the older generation, mainly jour-
nalists and educators and those with a European education, considered that this
forgiving attitude went too far, but they were the exceptions. (See, for exam-
ple, the article by Asher Beilin, “A Crooked Generation,” Davar, 4 August 1941.)
86. See, for example, Ch. Cheffer, “The Jeep,” in Ch. Guri and Ch. Cheffer,
The Palmach Family: Escapades and Song [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Palmach Veter-
ans Organization, 1974), 189.
87. See Uri Avneri’s poem, “Samson’s Foxes,” in In the Philistine Fields 1948:
Battle Diary [Hebrew], 4th ed. (Tel Aviv, 1950).
88. For example, see “Numbers and Facts” [Hebrew], in Ben-Amotz and
Cheffer, Bag of Tricks, 89–90.
89. Ben-Amotz and Ben-Yehuda, The World Dictionary of Hebrew Slang, 174.
90. See Palmach, Album [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1959).
91. Quoted in B. Etzioni, ed., Tree and Sword: The Battle Road of the Golani
Brigade [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1950), 399.
92. D. Meron, Against the Silent Brother [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Keter,
1982), 18.
93. Y. Lev, “The Bitter Taste” in From the War: Fiction and Poetry [Hebrew],
ed. U. Ofek (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense, 1969), 256.
94. E. Sivan, The 1948 Generation: Myth, Portrait and Memory [Hebrew]
(Tel Aviv, 1991), 134.
95. Ibid., 150.
96. Ibid., 151.
97. Ibid., 155.
98. Ibid., 134.
99. Ibid., 155.
100. Many articles have been written about the psychological function of ide-
alizing the dead person. For example, G. Tamir, “Long-term Adaptation by Be-
reaved Parents of War Dead in Israel” [Hebrew], in Loss and Bereavement in Is-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 281
3. Dunce Cap
1. Y. Rimon, “Agudat Dorjev Emet” (The organization of truth-tellers), Ba-
Machaneh Gadna 11 (15 February 1957).
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 282
2. A. Shapira, The Sword of the Dove: Zionism and Power, 1881–1948 [He-
brew] (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, Ofakim, 1992), 47.
3. This process is extensively described by many researchers from various
fields. See, for example, A. Shapira, The Disillusioned Struggle: Hebrew Labor
1929–1939 [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1977). For an especially colorful description, see
A. Elon, The Israelis: Founders and Sons [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Schocken, 1972).
4. E. Ben-Ezer, No Tranquillity in Zion: Conversations on the Price of Zion-
ism [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1986), 159.
5. R. Alboim-Dror, Hebrew Education in Eretz Israel [Hebrew], vol. 1
(Jerusalem, 1986), 380.
6. Ibid., 381.
7. D. Meltz, “On the Way to Cultural Experience” [Hebrew], in Anthology
of Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Me’uchad (Tel Aviv, 1932), 199–203.
8. From the diary of Eliezer Smoli, a teacher at the young kibbutz. E. Smoli,
On the Way to Beit Chinuch: From a Teacher’s Diary [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1953).
9. “The Ha-Shomer Philosophy,” in A Guide for Ha-Shomer Managers [He-
brew] (Warsaw, 1917), quoted in The Book of Ha-Shomrim: Anthology for the
Twentieth Anniversary of Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir [Hebrew], ed. Gutthalf and Co-
hen (Warsaw, 1934).
10. U. Ofek, “The First Hebrew Plays Produced in the Land of Israel” [He-
brew], Bamah 18 (winter 1982): 90–93.
11. Yediot Le-Madrichei Chagam, 1 September 1942.
12. D. Dayan, Yes, We Are Youth! The Gadna History Book [Hebrew] (Tel
Aviv: Ministry of Defense, 1977), 69
13. Ibid., 83.
14. Written on 18 April 1944 and quoted in Z. Dayan, Poems and Letters
[Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1950), 32.
15. Sh. Kramer, The Changing of the Guard in Our Literature [Hebrew] (Tel
Aviv: Dvir, 1959), 278–79.
16. T. Katriel, Talking Straight: Dugri Speech in Israeli Sabra Culture (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 1.
17. D. Zamir, “Where Did the Generals Grow? The Social Origin and So-
cialization Patterns of the 1948 Generation in Israel’s Military Elite” [Hebrew],
Megamot 25, no. 1 (1979): 88.
18. E. Fried, letter to the scouts in Lintz group, autumn 1935, in Scrolls of
Fire: A Collection Including a Selection from the Literary and Artistic Material
Left by the Young People Who Fell in the War of Independence and Thereafter
[Hebrew], ed. R. Avinoam (Jerusalem, 1952), 689.
19. S. Kampinski, letter of 13 February 1948, in Avinoam, Scrolls of Fire, 568.
20. Y. Rabin, Pinkas Sherut (The Rabin memoirs) (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Ma’ariv,
1979). For other practically identical examples, see Gur, Company D [Hebrew],
13; A. Even, Arik: The Way of a Fighter [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1974).
21. On this, see Y. Shapira, Elite without Successors: Generations of Lead-
ers in Israeli Society [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Po’alim, 1984).
22. David S., Ein Shemer, “The Moshav Youth Being Tested,” Nativ, Ha-
Shomer Ha-Tza’ir chapter, Petah Tikva, December 1938.
23. Ba-Ma’aleh 16, no. 249 (29 August 1941).
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 283
24. See Kafkafi, The Years of Ha-Machanot Ha-Olim [Hebrew], 77–78, 299,
302, 338, 339.
25. See Y. Shapira, The Historical Achdut Ha-Avodah and Its Power as a Po-
litical Organization [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1975).
26. S. Kampinsky, letter of 13 February 1948, in Avinoam, Scrolls of Fire, 568.
27. The dictionary definitions have been taken from D. Ben-Amotz and N.
Ben-Yehuda, The World Dictionary of Hebrew Slang [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv:
Zemora-Bitan, 1972), 41, 139, 210.
28. D. Mas, Tel Yosef, 9 April 1945, “The Day of Victory,” in Avinoam,
Scrolls of Fire, 612.
29. For the tendency of public officials of the time to use high-flown language,
see the article by Y. Zeidman, The Style of David Remez [Hebrew], in Davar
Yearbook (Tel Aviv, 1953), 373–81.
30. S. N. Eisenstadt et al. The Social Structure of Israel [Hebrew] (Jerusalem,
1966), 104–5.
31. Rachel, “Niv” (Speech), in Poems and Letters [Hebrew] (Kinneret,
1969).
32. M. Duvshani, Lessons in Hebrew Literature and General Literature for
High Schools [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1960), 2: 81–82.
33. See Segev, The Seventh Million.
34. On Israeli anti-intellectualism as provincialism, see Ben-Ezer, No Tran-
quillity in Zion, 162.
35. On the process of severing ties with Jewish heritage and its significance,
see E. Schweid, “The Sorrow of Severed Roots” [Hebrew], in Three Watches in
Hebrew Literature [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1964); Ch. Bartov, “Our Literature be-
tween Yesterday and Tomorrow” [Hebrew], Daf 28 (June 1966): 13; B. Arpeli,
Webs of Darkness [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1983), 110–11, 146–54.
36. E. Uchmani, “The Continuity of Judaism on the Path to Compensation”
[Hebrew], Shedemot 71 (spring-summer 1979): 101.
37. Y. Peres, “The Pioneering Youth Movement” [Hebrew] in Eisenstadt et
al., The Social Structure of Israel.
38. A. Shapira, “A Generation in the Land” [Hebrew], Alpa’yim 2 (1990): 195.
39. T. P. O’Day, “Sociological Dilemmas: Five Paradoxes of Institutionaliza-
tion,” in Sociological Theory, Values and Change, ed. E. A. Tiryakian (Glencoe,
Ill.: Free Press, 1963), 71–89.
40. Z. Schatz, On the Edge of Silence [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Davar, 1929), 88.
41. M. Tzur, Le-Lo Kutonet Pasim (Without a coat of many colors) (Tel Aviv:
Am Oved, 1976), 126.
42. B. Ben-Yehuda, “On the Problem of Youth and their Education” [He-
brew], in The Ways of Youth: Anthology on Youth Affairs in Zionism [Hebrew],
ed. G. Chanoch (Jerusalem: Youth Division of the Zionist Executive, 1937),
170–71.
43. See, for example, D. Horowitz, Blue and Thorns: The 1948 Generation,
Self-Portrait [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Keter, 1993).
44. See Shapira, Elite without Successors.
45. Ch. Guri, “We Are the Locals,” Masa (Davar literary supplement), 13
July 1984.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 284
13. Sh. Ch. Wilkomitz, “About the Schools in the Moshavot of Our Broth-
ers in Eretz Yisrael” [Hebrew], in The Teacher: In Memory of Sh. Ch. Wilkomitz
[Hebrew], ed. L. Riklis (Tel Aviv, 1959), 170.
14. See Praver, “The Way of the Hike,” 48.
15. M. Michaeli, The Student Newspaper and Its Educational Value [Hebrew]
(Jerusalem, 1934), 22.
16. See “Discussion on the Next Classes: Members’ Discussions at Ein
Charod and Tel Yosef,” in Bundle of Letters on Questions of Communal Edu-
cation [Hebrew], vol. 1 (1940), 43–44.
17. M. Zaharoni, “Agricultural Education in Eretz Yisrael” [Hebrew], in Ed-
ucational Encyclopedia [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1959), 2: 430.
18. D. Dayan, Yes, We Are Youth! The Gadna History Book [Hebrew] (Tel
Aviv: Ministry of Defense, 1977), supplement no. 6.
19. Praver, “The Way of the Hike,” 75.
20. Y. Kafkafi, ed., The Years of Ha-Machanot Ha-Olim (First and Second
Decades) [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Me’uchad, 1985), 110.
21. “School Trips” [Hebrew], Hed Ha-Chinuch, 13 Iyar 1955, 3.
22. In With a Pencil of Silver: Shmuel Levin [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, n.d.), 11.
23. R. Enis and Y. Ben-Erev, Gardens and Landscape in the Kibbutz [He-
brew] (Tel Aviv, 1994), 21.
24. Ibid., 56.
25. Z. Gilad, “Beneath the Lotuses” [Hebrew], in Chapters of the Palmach:
From the Mouths of Fighters [Hebrew], ed Z. Gilad (Ein Charod: Ha-Kibbutz
Ha-Me’uchad), 151.
26. Yigal Allon relates the use of wild plants in Kfar Tabor: Y. Allon, My Fa-
ther’s House [Hebrew] (Ein Charod: Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Me’uchad, 1980), 20–21.
27. See Z. Gilad and M. Megged, eds., The Palmach Book [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv:
Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Me’uchad, 1953), 1: 135.
28. See Shimon Avidan’s testimony [Hebrew], Ein Hashofet, 26 August 1984,
Kibbutz Movement Archive, Division 48, file 1.
29. See “The Journeys and the Patrols,” Haganah History Book [Hebrew],3:
445; also Ami Livneh’s testimony, “The Reconnaissance of Mishmar Ha-Emek
and the Area Around” [Hebrew], 30 October 1991, Mishmar Ha-Emek archive,
file 3.63.
30. On reconnoitering in the Palmach, see Y. Eden, The Reconnaissance
Scouts [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1994).
31. See Vilnai, The Field Trip and Its Educational Value, 15.
32. The trips to Masada and the Dead Sea were terminated in 1934 after the
death of a pupil during one of them. One hike was documented in Rafi Tehon’s
book We Went around the Dead Sea on Foot [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1978).
33. See D. Bitan, “Masada: The Symbol and the Myth” [Hebrew], in M.
Na’or, The Dead Sea and the Judean Desert 1967–1990 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem,
1990), 227.
34. The Haganah History Book [Hebrew], 3: 446.
35. The Ba-Machaneh Gadna newspaper used to blazon these marches in
enormous headlines, for example: “When Going, Things Start to Move” [He-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 286
brew], 14 (1 April 1957) and “Who Said It’s Difficult?” [Hebrew], 15 (15 April
1956).
36. Alon Ha-Palmach 24–25 (December 1944): 43.
37. I. Bichosevsky, “In Your Covenant: On Twenty Years of the Movement”
[Hebrew], Ba-Mivchan 32 (Tishrei, 1947).
38. M. Megged, Dani’s Last Diary [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1968), 40.
39. A. Bloch, “Exercises and Shared Experience,” testimony, 15 November
1949, Labor Party Archive 7/28.
40. For the history of the walks see Dayan, Yes, We Are Youth! 202.
41. “The Entire Country Left-Right” [Hebrew], Ba-Machaneh Gadna, 15 (13
April 1957): 3.
42. For a description of such a march by three young women, see R. Savo-
rai, “The Trips” [Hebrew], Me-Bifnim 1, no. 18 (November 1954): 130–38.
43. M. Har-Tzion, Chapters of a Diary [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Levin-Epstein,
1969), 53.
5. Uri of Arabia
1. See the research of Ehud Ben-Ezer, especially the introduction to his book
In the Homeland of Contradictory Longings [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1992).
2. Y. Bergman, “Jewish Folklore and Its Role in the Land” [Hebrew], Moz-
na’im 20 (Elul 1945), 245.
3. This idea was taken from Israel Belkind’s book on the Bilu, The Land of
Israel of Our Time [Hebrew]. See N. Pollak, “The Origin of the Arabs of the
Land” [Hebrew], Molad 1 (Iyar 1967–Iyar 1968).
4. On the myth of the racial link between Jews and Arabs, see chapter 6 of
R. Alboim-Dror, Hebrew Education in Eretz Israel [Hebrew], vol. 2 (Jerusalem,
1990).
5. See Y. Goldstein, The Shepherd Gang: The Idea of the Conquest of Sheep-
herding in the Second Aliya and Its Realization [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Ministry of
Defense, 1993), 12.
6. See Ben-Ezer, In the Homeland of Contradictory Longings, 12. See also
E. Ben-Ezer, “Where Are the Sons of the Desert?” [Hebrew], Etmol 7, no. 2
(1981): 3–5. The theory was also expressed in literature: Amashi, the hero of
The Wanderings of Amashi the Guard by Ya’akov Rabinowitz [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv,
1929), goes out in search of the lost tribes of Israel among the Bedouin.
7. One of the theory’s prominent and energetic supporters was Yitzchak Ben-
Zvi. See R. Yanait Ben-Zvi, “Wandering the Land” [Hebrew], Mozna’im 16
(1963), 117.
8. See Y. Shavit, “Zionism: Between the Decline of the West and the Revival
of the East” [Hebrew], Mozna’im 36 (1972), 141.
9. Rabinowitz, The Wanderings of Amashi the Guard,100.
10. Y. Rivkai, In Our Youth [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv. 1939), 20–21.
11. R. Benjamin, “Three Who Died as One” [Hebrew], Ha-Poel Ha-Tza’ir
12 (April 1910): 7.
12. See David Frishman, “Did You Know the Land?” [Hebrew] in “Impres-
sions from Journeys in Palestine,” Ha-Tzfira 126 (3–16 June 1911).
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 287
36. See Janantini! Or Songs of the Finjan of the Arab Division of the Pal-
mach [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1975).
37. See Battle Sheet, Southern Front, Givati Brigade Headquarters, 9 July
1948, IDF archives, Givati Brigade file.
38. Written by the cultural officer at Combat Headquarters, in Battle Sheet,
no. 1 [Hebrew], the Chorev Campaign, Kislev 23 (25 December 1948), IDF
Archives, Negev Brigade file.
39. From an announcement by the Safed Governor to Safed residents (un-
dated), IDF Archives, file of leaflets, no. 1.
40. See brigade files and file of leaflets, IDF Archives.
41. A. Kadish, To Farms and to Arms: The Hachsharot of the Palmach [He-
brew] (Ha-Merkaz Le-Toldot Ko’ach Ha-Magen, Yad Tabenkin, 1995), 244.
42. “In these trials it was taken into account that most of the accused are in
combat units, faithfully carrying out their tasks, and the prison sentence is there-
fore suspended.” (IDF Archives, 2294/50/2951).
43. See Kadish, To Farms and to Arms, 245.
44. For more extensive reading, see B. Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian
Refugee Problem, 1947–1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989);
and also Yigal Ilam, Those Who Carry Out Orders [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1990),
31–52.
45. See Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 94, 214, 219.
46. Ilam, Those Who Carry Out Orders, 39.
47. Order of the Day, Palmach Bridge 11 (Yiftach), undated, IDF Archives,
Yiftach Brigade file.
48. See U. Ben-Eliezer, Through the Gun Sight: The Creation of Israeli Mil-
itarism 1936–1956 [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1995), 312.
49. See, for example, the short stories: The Prisoner [Hebrew] by S. Yizhar,
Swearing In [Hebrew] by Natan Shacham, and Swimming Competitionm [He-
brew] by Benyamin Tammuz. All three appeared in Battleground [Hebrew], ed.
A. Amir (Ministry of Defense Publishing House, 1992). See also S. Levy, “Pris-
oners in Fiction: The Arabs in the New Hebrew Literature” [Hebrew], Mozna’im
57 (1983), 70–73.
6. Monks in Khaki
1. See Y. Ben-David, “Compensations for the Consumption Standard in Kib-
butz,” Niv Ha-Kevutza, 15.3, no. 59 (October 1966): 475–95.
2. See M. Tzur, “Making Do with Little in the Second Aliya” [Hebrew], Shde-
mot 34 (summer 1969): 105–15.
3. G. Gaffner, “Berl’s Trousers” [Hebrew], in Kan al P’nei Ha-Adama (Here
on the ground), ed. M. Tzur (Sifriat Po’alim: Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Me’uchad, 1988).
(Hereafter Tzur, Here on the Ground.)
4. See C. Adler and Y. Peres, “The Youth Movement and ‘Salon Society’: A
Comparative Analysis of Cultural Patterns of Israeli Youth” [Hebrew], in Edu-
cation and Society in Israel: A Reader [Hebrew], by S. N. Eisenstadt et al.
(Jerusalem: Academon, 1968).
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 289
23. For example, the first part of The Sexual Question by a Swiss psychia-
trist, August Forell, published in 1931 by Ha-Poel Ha-Tza’ir press and the sec-
ond part in 1946 by the publishing house Mitzpeh; The Mysteries of Marriage
by a Dutch doctor-sexologist and a sex manual by Prentice Mulford (both pub-
lished by Ammamit Publishing); a book by Marie Stopes on love and sex; and a
book on psychology that included chapters on “hygiene for sex.”
24. For example, a booklet by Dr. M. Brachiyahu on adolescence, 1930; a
booklet by Y. Norman entitled, How Will I Tell My Son? [Hebrew], published
by the author (Tel Aviv, 1928); and books on sexual hygiene published by Hadas-
sah Health Publishing (Jerusalem, 1935).
25. Different from all the rest and surprising in its openness and factual tone
is the book by Dr. A. B. Matmon, The Sexual Life of Humans [Hebrew], which
includes a chapter on intercourse and instructs in a contemporary fashion. The
first edition was published in 1938 by the Institute for Hygiene and Sexual Sci-
ence of Tel Aviv, and it was followed by another four editions.
26. An example of the conservative attitude toward sex in the kibbutz move-
ment (until the 1960s) can be found in the opinions of Avraham Aderet, one of
the important kibbutz educators: “A full sex life during adolescence without mar-
riage is likely to lead to a debasement of the intimate contact of sexual life by
separating it from the deep spiritual connection and mutual responsibility of fam-
ily life,” and “masturbation is fruitless and can be mastered by self-determina-
tion.” A Letter on Education 4, no. 17 (1960): 19, 23.
27. Tz. Zohar and S. Golan, Sex Education (Merchavia, 1941), 64.
28. P. Barzak, age eighteen, of Kibbutz Geva, 17 September 1948. My thanks
to Mrs. Barzak for providing the letter.
29. Ben-Yehuda, Between Calendars, 298–99.
30. See Eliyahu, “On the Erotic Question,” in the newspaper of the leader-
ship of the Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir chapter (Tel Aviv, 8 July 1934), archives of the
Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir, 3–2.1 (3).
7. Our Gang
1. A. C., “With Yehuda Ya’ari” [Hebrew], Ha-Poel Ha-Tza’ir 29 (January
1963).
2. See Y. Ya’ari, “A Path Strewn with Obstacles,” Book of the Third Aliya
[Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1964), 889–90.
3. Yosef, Gan Shmuel, draft article for the movement newspapers: El Or,
Igeret, Ba-Sha’ar, 1937–38, archive of Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir, 3–3.1 (3).
4. See also M. Alon, Youth in the Kibbutz [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1975), 45.
5. B. Bettelheim, The Children of the Dream (London: Macmillan, 1969),
127–29.
6. Ibid., 87.
7. Ibid., 96.
8. See also “A Longing for a Friend” [Hebrew], in Youth with Others [He-
brew], by A. Aderet (Jerusalem: Ministry of Education, 1971).
9. C. Shafroni, “The School in Ein Charod” [Hebrew], in Anthology of Ha-
Kibbutz Ha-Me’uchad (Tel Aviv, 1932), 313–17.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 291
Epilogue
1. Cana’ani, “In the Convoy and to its Side,” 62.
2. K. Mannheim, “The Problem of Generation,” in Essays on the Sociology
of Knowledge, ed. P. Kecskemedy (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952).
3. In A. Ben-Gurion, ed., Mourning [Hebrew] (Ha-Va’ada Ha-Beinkibutzit
Hvai U-Mo’ed, 1953).
4. On the myth of the European war, see George Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Re-
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 293
shaping the Memory of the World Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1990), 21.
5. Y. Kafri, “The Myth of the Sabra: Was It or Wasn’t It” [Hebrew], Ma’ariv,
5 December 1986, 27.
6. Uri Zvi Greenberg, “He-Chayyim Be-Zechutam Omrim” (Thanks to them
life speaks), quoted in Memorial Service: Poems about Death and Dying (Ap-
pendix to Mourning Anthologies), collected by A. Ben-Gurion (Va’adat Chagim
Beinkibutzit, 1977).
7. Yisrael Gat, “11 Adar” [Hebrew], in Like a Plant of the Field: Anthology
of Ha-Machanot Ha-Olim in Ha-Tenua Ha-Me’uchedet [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv,
1946), 162.
8. Vita, “On Accepting New Members” [Hebrew], in Like a Plant of the
Field, 172.
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 294
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 295
Glossary
agadim Derogatory term for Holocaust survivors in Israel (from the Hebrew
acronym “people of the mournful Diaspora”)
aliya (pl. aliyot) Immigration to Israel—both individuals and waves of immi-
grants (lit. “ascent”) (see under “First Aliya,” etc.)
Amalek The biblical enemy of the Hebrews, who meant to destroy them during
their journey from Egypt to Israel. Often used as a simile for any foe of the
Jewish people or any anti-Semite.
Amida A central prayer in the Jewish liturgy, recited standing (lit. “standing”)
Ashkenazi (pl. Ashkenazim) Jew(s) from east and central Europe
Balfour Declaration Official statement (2 November 1917) by the British For-
eign Secretary declaring that the British government favored the establishment
of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine
Bar Giora Earlier name of the Ha-Shomer organization
bar mitzvah The Jewish initiation ceremony, traditionally held on a boy’s 13th
birthday, marking his entry into the Jewish religious community. Secular
Zionists created nonreligious bar mitzvah ceremonies, and included girls as
well.
beit midrash Center for religious learning, often part of a synagogue, generally
for the study of talmudic texts and commentaries (lit. “house of study”)
Bilu movement First modern movement for pioneering and agricultural settle-
ment in Palestine, founded in 1882 in Kharkov, Russia (from the Hebrew
acronym “House of Jacob, let us arise and go”—Isaiah 2:5)
blorit A waving, uncombed tuft of hair over the forehead, a legendary element
of the Sabra countenance
Chagam One of the first premilitary groups organized in the schools; predeces-
sor of the Gadna
chaver Literally “friend,” also member, comrade
chevreman Slang for sociable guy, good sport
295
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 296
296 :: Glossary
chizbat (pl. chizbatim) A tall story or amusing anecdote, often told around a
campfire
Chizbatron Army entertainment troupe
chutzpah Effrontery, impudence
dugri Unpolished, blunt Sabra idiom
dunam Land measure, now equal to one quarter of an acre but with widely vary-
ing values before Israeli independence
etrogim An early term for native-born members of the Yishuv (lit. “citrons”)
fedayeen Armed Arab infiltrators into Israel after independence
Fifth Aliya A wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine 1932–40, prompted largely
by the rise of Nazism in Germany. Often termed a “bourgeois” aliya, since
many of the immigrants were professionals, arrived with some money and as-
sets, and hoped to maintain a middle-class lifestyle
finjan Sabra term for the pot used to make Arab (Turkish) coffee over an open
fire
First Aliya The first wave of modern, nationalist Jewish immigration to Pales-
tine 1882–1903
Fourth Aliya Jewish immigration to Palestine 1924–28, mainly middle-class
gachal Volunteers from overseas who joined the Yishuv’s military frameworks
(from the Hebrew acronym for “overseas enlistment”)
Gadna Youth corps associated with the Haganah; an outgrowth of the earlier
Chagam
Gideons Secret defense organization that operated 1913–14
hachshara (pl. hachsharot) Agricultural-pioneering training unit; also, the process
of being trained for pioneering agricultural work
Haganah Clandestine Jewish organization for armed self-defense in Palestine un-
der the British mandate; became the basis for the IDF
hagshama Realization or consummation of the Zionist mission, also, the per-
sonal implementation of pioneering values, in particular those involving man-
ual and agricultural labor and military service
Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Meu’chad A kibbutz movement (see also Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir)
Ha-Machanot Ha-Olim Pioneering youth movement, founded in 1926
Ha-Noar Ha-Oved (Ve-Ha-Lomed) Pioneering youth movement (lit: “working
[and studying] youth”)
Ha-Shomer Early clandestine Jewish self-defense organization in Palestine
Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir Zionist youth movement established in Poland, which
later became one of the two kibbutz movements in Palestine (see also Ha-Kib-
butz Ha-Meu’chad) and one of the three largest Sabra youth movements (to-
gether with Ha-Machanot Ha-Olim and Ha-Zofim)
Hasid (pl. Hasidim) Follower of Hasidism
Hasidism Religious revivalist movement of the Hasidim founded in the 18th
century that emphasized song, dance, and emotional worship
Hatikva The Zionist and Israeli anthem (lit. “The Hope”)
Histadrut Early Zionist labor federation established by the pioneers
hora Circle folk dance developed by Zionists
IDF Israel Defense Forces—the Israeli army
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 297
Glossary :: 297
Intifada Arab uprising from 1988 until the mid-1990s on the West Bank and
Gaza (Judea-Samaria)
JNF Jewish National Fund
jobnik Someone serving in a noncombat position in the army
kafiyyeh Arab headdress made from a diagonally folded square of cloth
kibbutz (pl. kibbutzim) Commune, based mainly on agriculture but also engaging
in industry
kibbutznik (pl. kibbutznikim) Kibbutz member
Kibbutz Brigade Youth movement framework for kibbutz children
kumzitz A get-together, often around a campfire, with songs and chizbatim
Lag Be’Omer Festival connected to Bar Kochba’s revolt against the Romans
when bonfires are lit countrywide (lit. “33rd day of Omer”)
Mapai The Socialist-Zionist party (later called the Labor Party) that was the
major political force in the Yishuv period and in Israel until 1977 (lit: “Party
of Workers in the Land of Israel”)
Mistarabim A Palmach unit whose members performed clandestine missions dis-
guised as Arabs
moshav (pl. moshavim) Smallholders’ cooperative agricultural settlement
moshava (pl. moshavot) Village—the first form of Jewish rural settlement in
Palestine, with privately owned farms, founded largely during the First Aliya
moshavnik (pl. moshavnikim) Member of a moshav
mukhtar The headman of an Arab village or community, generally appointed
by the national authorities and serving as a mediating agent between the vil-
lagers and the government
muzhik Russian peasant
Nachal Branch of the IDF combining military service with agricultural/com-
munity work
Oriental Jew Jew from the Islamic world
Palmach The elite, largely independent strike force of the Haganah, closely as-
sociated with the kibbutz and labor movements
Pesach Haggadah The traditional book read aloud at the dinner table on the
first evening of the festival of Passover, celebrating the biblical exodus from
Egypt
pioneers Collectively, people of the first three aliyas, particularly those who
worked the land
protektzia Use of connections and patronage, favoritism (from Russian)
Second Aliya A wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine 1904–14, based on pi-
oneering and Socialist-Zionist ideology. They founded the first kibbutzim and
moshavim.
Sepharadi (pl. Sephardim) Specifically, Jews of Spain and Portugal and their de-
scendants, wherever resident, as contrasted with Ashkenazim, but often used
as a synonym for “Oriental Jew”
shaheed Holy martyr, in Arabic
shofar Ram’s horn blown like a trumpet on the Jewish penitential holidays of
Rosh Ha-Shana and Yom Kippur.
shushu Slang for secret, a secret operation
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 298
298 :: Glossary
Bibliography
Adler, C. and Y. Peres. “The Youth Movement and ‘Salon Society’: A Compar-
ative Analysis of Cultural Patterns of Israeli Youth” [Hebrew]. In Education
and Society in Israel: A Reader [Hebrew], by S. N. Eisenstadt et al. Jerusalem:
Academon, 1968.
Avinoam, R., ed. Scrolls of Fire: A Collection Including a Selection from the Lit-
erary and Artistic Material Left by the Young People Who Fell in the War of
Independence and Thereafter [Hebrew]. Jerusalem, 1952.
Bar-Gal, Y. Homeland and Geography: One Hundred Years of Zionist Educa-
tion [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv, 1993.
Ben-Amotz, D. and N. Ben-Yehuda. The World Dictionary of Hebrew Slang [He-
brew]. Tel Aviv: Zemora-Bitan, 1972.
Ben-Ezer, E. No Tranquillity in Zion: Conversations on the Price of Zionism [He-
brew]. Tel Aviv, 1986.
———. In the Homeland of Contradictory Longings [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv, 1992.
Cana’ani, D. “In the Convoy and to Its Side: On the Works of S. Yizhar” [He-
brew]. In S. Yizhar: A Selection of Critical Articles on His Works [Hebrew],
edited by H. Naggid. Tel Aviv, 1972.
Dankner, A. Dahn Ben-Amotz: A Biography [Hebrew]. Jerusalem, 1992.
Dayan, D. Yes, We Are Youth! The Gadna History Book [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv, Min-
istry of Defense, 1977.
Alboim-Dror, R. Hebrew Education in Eretz Israel [Hebrew]. 2 vols. Jerusalem,
1986, 1990.
Eisenstadt, S. N. et al. The Social Structure of Israel [Hebrew]. Jerusalem, 1966.
Enis, R. and Y. Ben-Erev. Gardens and Landscape in the Kibbutz [Hebrew]. Tel
Aviv, 1994.
Firer, R. Consciousness and Knowledge: The Influence of Zionist Values on Text-
books on Jewish History in the Hebrew Language in the Years 1900–1980
[Hebrew]. Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1980.
299
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 300
300 :: Bibliography
Index
301
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 302
302 :: Index
Index :: 303
304 :: Index
Index :: 305
306 :: Index
higher education, 140–41, 142–43, life of, 166, 170–71; preeminence of,
146–48 159; reconnoitering/intelligence gather-
hikes, 173–76, 258–59, 285n.32, ing by, 172–73; rescue of wounded
285n.35 men by, 250; Sabra folklore as trade-
Hillel, O., 10, 60, 251 mark of, 16; source of name, 67; supe-
Hirbat Hiz’a (Yizhar), 206 riority of, 135; women in, 253; youth
Histadrut (labor movement), xiii, 2, 5, in, 47. See also Nachal; Palmach
97, 173–74, 296 igen migen (derogatory term for Hun-
history books, 192, 193 garian language/accent), 118
History of Zionism, 42 Ilan, Uri, 40
hitfalchut (type of prank), 109 immigration: and humor toward immi-
holidays, 50–53. See also specific grants, 118; illegal, myth of, 86; and
holidays melting-pot concept, 91; as religious
Holocaust: and attitude toward Arabs, conversion, 90–91; and roots, 154–55;
193; insensitivity toward, 82–83; and and transit camps, 97–98. See also
loss of honor, 84; press coverage of, aliya; Diaspora Jews; Oriental Jews
29; and rejection of Diaspora, 82–90; Independence Day (State Day; Israel), 32,
survivors of, in Israel, 86–90, 295; 235
textbook treatments of, 85, 276n.29 individualism, 220
Holocaust and Heroism Day, 85 institutionalization, 132–34, 184
Holocaust Day, 42–43, 84 In the Footsteps of the Fighters, 14
homeland: books about, 162–63, 193; In the Front Position, 14
love for (see patriotism); personifica- “In the Presence of the Statue of Apollo”
tion of, 62; songs about, 21 (Chernikovsky), 78–79
honor, loss of, 84 In the Test of the Battles, 14
hora, 21, 213, 233–35, 296 Intifada, 297
Horowitz, Dan, 252, 268n.14, 279n.81; In Your Covenant, 48
Charly Kecharly, 17 IQ tests, 105
Hoz, Dov, 7 Isaac (Bible), 39–41, 186, 189
“human dust” (term for Holocaust Ishmael (Bible), 186, 189
survivors), 86–87 isolation, 153–55, 167
humor, 11–13, 117–18, 247, 261 Israel, 182, 204–5, 235
Israel Defense Forces. See IDF
idealism, 23, 65. See also socialization Israelis, native. See Sabras
ideological training, 45–55; bar mitzvahs, Iton Ha-Magen, 133
46–48; cult of national saints, 48–50;
daily assimilation, 45–46; holiday cere- Jacob (Bible), 189
monies, 50–53; homeland books, 162– Jaffa, 189–90
63; offerings to Zionist priest, 54–55; janantini, 200
songs, 238–39; swearing-in/pledge cere- Japan, 76
monies, 48; tree planting, 53–54 jeeps, 112–13
ideology: decline of interest in, 150–51; Jeremiah (Bible), 27–28
fanaticism about, 18–19, 182–83. See Jerusalem, marches to, 181
also socialism; Zionism Jerusalem, road to, 119
IDF (Israel Defense Forces), xiv–xv, 296; Jerusalem riots (1920), 189–90
art/media devoted to, 136–37; Jewish Agency, 2
asceticism/sloppy dress of, 218–19; Jewish auxiliary guards, 172
Chagam sponsorship by, 32–33; Jewish Brigade, 83
combat culture of, 34, 201–8; dancing Jewish God, power of, 37
promoted by, 235; elitism/selection Jewish National Fund. See JNF
process of, 104–6, 142; entertainment Jewish religion. See Judaism
troupes of, 241, 248–49; “Follow Jimmy the Palmachnik, 68, 129, 260,
Me!” ethos of, 130; identification with 279n.77
Sabras, 106, 120; institutionalization JNF (Jewish National Fund), 26, 51–53,
of, 132–34; knowledge of land taught 54–55, 162
by, 163; marches conducted by, 179; JNF Day, 21, 32
nicknames for units of, 118; outdoor jobniks, xv, 110, 279n.79, 297
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 307
Index :: 307
Joshua (Bible), 35, 36, 49, 127, 135 knowledge of land, 161–63, 171–72
Judaism: vs. Christianity, 76; on death, Koestler, Arthur, 28, 194
71–72; elitism of, 73 (see also chosen kol ha-kavod le-Tzahal (congratulations
people); on God’s power, 37; on kabba- to IDF ), 136–37
listic mysticism, 61; youth in, 50–51 Kovner, Abba, 34, 84
Judean Desert, 175, 176, 182 Kramer, Shalom, 60, 145
kumzitz, 242–43, 297
kabbalistic mysticism, 61 Kushnir, Tuvia, 171, 182
kacha, 114
Kadish, Alon, 203 Labor Battalion, 103, 247
Kadman, Gurit, 234 labor movement, 17, 32, 139–41,
Kadoorie, 107, 232 141–43
kafiyyeh (headdress), 112, 297 Lag Be-Omer, 21, 35, 37, 41, 244, 297
Kafri, Yehudit, 263 Lamdan, Yitzchak, 38, 60
Karni, Yehuda, 126 land, knowledge of, 161–63, 171–72
Kastel, 120, 250 Land of Israel, 44–45, 160–61, 186.
Katarbursky, Zivia, 31 See also landscape
Katz, Shmuel, 9, 12 landscape, 160–84; Biblical description
Katznelson, Berl, 49, 74, 214 of, 160; environmental education,
Kaufmann, Richard, 169 164–66; field trips, 164, 166–68, 175;
Kehilateinu (“Our Community”), 244 knowledge of land, 161–63, 171–72;
Keinan, Amos, 7, 10, 279n.81; “Uzi natural environment, 168–71; panthe-
and Co.”, 92–93 ism, 161, 163, 168–71, 183; return
Kesari, Uri, 4, 92 to nature, 160–61; Sabra scout myth,
khaki, 212 171–73. See also marches
Kibbutz Beit Ha-Shita, 167, 213 language: and anti-intellectualism, 144–
Kibbutz Brigade, xiv, 297 46; Arabic, 195, 198–99; Aramaic,
Kibbutz Dalia dance festivals, 234 144; Hebrew, 30–31, 95, 122, 144–45,
Kibbutz Ein Gedi, 167 199; Hungarian, 118; Yiddish, 95,
kibbutzim: child-adult transition in, 47– 144, 200–201. See also dialect/slang
48; children on, 228–31; children’s Large Crater, 175
houses/schools on, 229–31; cities Lavi, Shlomo, 127
disparaged by members of, 214–15; leaders, 18, 48–50, 124, 128–29, 132
definition of, 297; economy of, 210; Lebanon War, 17
education in, 139–41, 164–65, 232; Le Bon, Gustave, 233
elitism of, 74, 103; establishment Le-Tzion, Rishon, 193
of, xiii; ethnocentrism/isolation of, Lev, Yigal, 121
153–54; as extended families, 227–28; Levkov, Chaim, 248
farm work on, 165; field trips from, liberation, 45, 273n.51
164–65, 175; as Hasidic sects, 226– Libtrovsky, Y., 104
27; Holocaust survivors on, 88–89; Lieberman, Tzvi: Oded the Wanderer,
influence of, 231–33; landscaping of, 189
169; mischief at, 111; national religion Liebman, Charles, 20
in, 22; oppressiveness of, 230–31; Light Ammunition (Cheffer), 11
Oriental immigrants in, 97; Palmach Lish, Abu (fictional character), 200
members in, 33–34; sexuality/sex literature: city life in, 216; criticism/
education on, 221, 222, 290n.26; discontent in, 56–58, 61; ethnocentric
social personality on, 228; social study of, 29; realism/seriousness of,
talks at, 232; urban students on, 33, 58–59, 60–61; repression of emotions
165–66 in, 59–60; about sex, 221–22, 290n.25.
Kibbutz Mishmar Ha-Emek, 23, 270n.2 See also writers/poets; writings of
Kibbutz Na’an, 268n.14 fallen soldiers
Kibbutz Negba, 119, 120, 197 literature/myth of Sabras, criticism of,
kibbutznik, 297 16–17
“knights of the skies” myth, 136 Lod, 204
“knowledge of the homeland” books, lo mithashek, 115
162–63, 193 looting, 203–4, 288n.42
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 308
308 :: Index
Index :: 309
Nachal, xiv–xv, 34, 231, 232, 297 Palmach, xiv–xv, 297; anthem of, 251;
Nadel, Baruch, 279n.81 anti-city attitude in, 215–16; asceticism/
names, Hebraicization of, 91–95 sloppy dress of, 218–19; Ashkenazi
nationalism, 18–22, 81, 162–63. dominance of, 98; campfires of, 242–
See also patriotism 43; casualties among, 69, 252; class/
national religion. See secular (civil/ ethnicity in, 101; commanders in, 128,
national) religion 202; elitism/selection process of, 103–
national responsibility, 65–67 4, 105; establishment/purpose of, 103–
natural environment, 168–71 4, 149; European Jews rescued by, 86;
natural history, teaching of, 161–63 goals of in War of Independence, 119;
“natural learning method,” 164 gratitude for, 8; Hollywood’s influence
nature, return to, 160–61 on, 110–11, 279n.81; Holocaust sur-
nature walks, 164 vivors in, 89–90; humorous literature
Navon, Arieh, 9, 92, 120, 125 of, 11–13; ideological education by,
Nebi Yosha, battle of, 250 34–35; jobniks in, 279n.79; kibbutz
Nebi Yosha police station, 119 influence on, 231, 232–33; marches
Negev Beasts, 118–19 conducted by, 176–78, 179; as melting
Negev Brigade, 118, 120 pot, 98; mischief by, 108–9, 110–11,
Negev Desert, 175, 176 279n.77, 280n.83; moral behavior of,
Negevgrad, 274n.91 201–4, 206–8; nicknames for units of,
New Page for Literature, Art, and 118–19; outdoor life of, 166, 170–71;
Criticism, A, 14, 156 primacy of, 120–21; reconnoitering by,
nicknames, 118–19, 279n.81 172, 173; rifle oath of, 48; secrecy of,
Night Squads, 103, 172 107, 108; sexuality in, 221, 223–24;
1948 generation, 57, 59, 67–68, 93, 159, singing in, 239–41; youth in, 47; youth
273n.70 movement involvement by, 33–34
Nini, 103 Palmach Book, The, 10, 248
noble savages, Arabs seen as, 187, 193 Palmach Family, The, 248
nostalgic literature, 10 Panpilov’s Men, 67, 128, 130
pantheism, 161, 163, 168–71, 183
oaths. See swearing-in ceremonies parachute-jumping, 133
Ochmani, Ezriel, 14, 15 Paratroopers: elitism of, 104, 105, 106;
O’Day, Thomas, 155 institutionalization of, 105, 133; mis-
Oded the Wanderer (Lieberman), 189 chief by, 108, 110, 279n.77; press
“old circle,” 107 coverage of, 136–37; in Sinai Cam-
“old man” epithet, 82 paign, 120; sloppy dress of, 218
Omer, Dan, 170 paratroopers/pilots/marine commandos,
On Children and Adults, 11 132–37
One Hundred Percent Commandos, partisans, myth of, 84–86, 276n.29,
118–19 277n.32
Only Hebrew Association, 95 patriotism, 55–72; and death, resignation
Operation Uvda, 120 to, 69–72, 275n.97; marches as tests
Oriental culture. See Arabs of, 180–81; and national responsibil-
Oriental Jews: appearance of, 99; assimi- ity, 65–67; rhetoric of, 55–56, 62;
lation of, 96–97, 98; class mobility of, stylistic uniformity, 56–57, 60–61;
102–3; definition of, xii, 297; folklore and surpassing pioneers’ expectations,
of, 100; heroic past of, 100; illiteracy of, 64–65; testimonies as, 61–64; and
98, 99; religiosity of, 98, 99; sense of volunteerism, 67–69; and writers as
inferiority of, 98–100; songs of, 241 public clarions, 57–61
Orland, Ya’akov, 234 Peel Commission (Britain), 196
Oz, Amos, 21 Peled, Elad, 65–66, 71, 85
Pen, Alexander, 79
pacifism, 197 Peres, Yochanan, 155, 216
Pack of Lies (Ben-Amotz and Cheffer), persecution/survival, education about,
11–12, 82, 117, 247, 248 29, 77–78
Palestine Office of the Zionist Organiza- Pesach, 21, 35, 41
tion, 169 Pesach Haggadah, 43, 297
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 310
310 :: Index
Index :: 311
secularization of Zionism, 16–17, 18, 226; and love/intimacy, 220, 223; and
261 workers’ shirts, 212; and youth, 81
self-esteem, 67–69 socialization, 23–55, 258; through
self-restraint, 197, 202–3, 207–8 civilian/military structures, 32–35;
Sepharadi communities, 186 through song, 241. See also education;
Sepharadi Jews, 297. See also Oriental- ideological training; myths, Zionist
Jews soldiers: Arab, 136; heroism of, 121,
“Sermon, The” (Hazaz), 91–92 125, 141; isolation of, 154; jobniks,
“Seventh Column, The” (Alterman), 92, 110, 279n.79; schoolchildren’s letters
123–24 to, 31. See also specific military groups
Sexual Life of Humans, The (Matmon), solidarity, 177–78, 180, 244–45
290n.25 “Song of Friendship, The” (Guri), 80,
sexual relations, 219–25, 290n.25 251
Shabbetai Lozhinsky, 92 “Song of the Partisans, The” 84
Shacham, Natan, 93 “Song of the Rebellion, The” 84
Shachar unit. See Mistarabim songs, 291n.32; educational use of,
shaheed, 297 24; about Europe, 100–101; gospel,
Shaked, Gershon, 13, 58 234, 235–41; about homeland, 21;
Shalom, S., 60, 79; “Voices in the for ideological training, 238–39; of
Night,” 46 Oriental Jews, 241; Russian, 238;
“Shalom Aleichem” hymn, 51–52 socialization through, 241; War of
Shamir, Moshe, 6, 9–10, 13–14, 15, Independence as fostering, 240
93, 156; He Walked in the Fields, 59, South Africa, 76
92 Soviet propaganda posters, 79, 276n.17
Shamir, Ziva, 60 Special Companies, 201
Shamosh, Amnon, 100 Special Forces, 103
Shapira, Anita, 138–39, 155, 190, Spibak, Y., 28
277n.32 spiritual horizons, 152–59
Shapira, Yonatan, 156 sponsored (class) mobility, 101–2
Sharon, Ariel, 68, 104, 133, 134 sports competitions, 122
Sharret, Moshe, 7 Srolik (Sabra figure), 39
shatara (type of prank), 109 status symbols, 112–13
Shavu’ot, 21, 54 Stern, Yossi, 9
Shimoni, David, 160 Stockade and Tower campaign, 201
Shimshon Foxes, 118–19, 172–73 stocking caps, 112
Shlonsky, Avraham, 13, 60, 257 stories/songs, educational use of, 24
shofar, 297 Study in the Spirit of the Homeland
shushu (secret operation), 107, 297 (Zohar), 162
siluk (type of prank), 109 Sukkot, 21
“Silver Tray, The” (Alterman), 124 “surviving remnants” (term for Holo-
Sinai Campaign (1956), 16, 39, 75, 120, caust survivors), 87
134–37 suspense stories, 108
“Sing, Youth, the Song of Our Future” swearing-in ceremonies, 48, 107, 176,
(Bas), 82 177, 179
singing, 234, 235–41, 291n.32. See also Syrkin, Nachman, 74
songs Szenes, Hannah, 40, 49, 86, 260
Sireni, Enzo, 86
Sivan, Emmanuel, 122, 127, 281n.108 Tabenkin, Yitzchak, 33, 49, 82, 84, 101
slang, 246–47. See also dialect/slang Tabenkin, Yosef, 43
Smilansky, Yizhar, 34 tachles (to the point), 144
smoch, 116–17, 132 Talmi, Meir, 270n.2
smoking, 216 Tamir, Moshe, 268n.18
sociability, 244–45 Tammuz, Benyamin, 10
socialism, xiv; asceticism of, 210–11; and Tanai, Shlomo, 13, 14, 60
dance, 217, 234; and elitism, 74, 75; Tchernovitz-Avidar, Yemima: Eight
and equality of women, 222; goals of, on the Heels of One, 11
Almog, The Sabra 10/10/01 3:31 PM Page 312
312 :: Index
Index :: 313