ABSTRACT
Much of the discussion and research on the image of the sons and daughters of the Zionist revolution in the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel) are preoccupied with, or centre on, the 1948 ‘Generation’ (the ‘War of Independence Generation’). The reference here is mainly to those people born during the second and third decades of the twentieth century, sons and daughters of the people who made up the second aliya (or wave of immigration, from 1904 to 1914) and the third aliya (1919-23). The generation in question is customarily called the ‘PALMACH Generation’ (though it also includes members of the ‘Irgun’ and ‘LEHF’, separate underground movements that fought against British rule in Mandatory Palestine).1 To be realized, supposedly, in the lifetime of this generation unit, were the longings of the founding fathers, creators and carriers of the Zionist project of resurrection. Their dream of a ‘new man’ was to be fulfilled, a dream of a ‘new Hebrew’, or, at least, a new and other Jew. This new human specimen would be free of all the afflictions of the Diaspora: ‘rootlessness’ or a tendency towards spiritualization, ‘passivity’ and ‘helplessness’. In the process, he was also to detach himself from the legacy of generations and eras of historical Jewish culture. The more prominent spokesmen and representatives of this generation are the writers and poets associated, for the most part, with the PALMACH.
