ABSTRACT
The research questions at the hub of this chapter are: How did Uri Zvi Grinberg’s (UZG) emigration to the Land and his adoption of the ‘pioneering ethos’ impact his attitude toward parochial Judaism and Jewish symbols? Was the detachment of the third-wave pioneers from their Jewish tradition and its diasporic expressions (considered to be obstacles to the creation of the free ‘new Jew’) what distanced UZG from shtetl (small-town) European Jewry? Or, perhaps, had it merely provided him with a different perspective? These questions are discussed within the context of UZG’s corpus of poetry and journalistic writings from the time of his ‘Aliyah until 1928. It is shown that as the poet’s Zionistic awareness formed and his affinity for the ‘pioneering ethos’ grew stronger, his sense of closeness and belonging to authentic, shtetl Jewry increased.
