A Tale of Love and Darkness

I WAS A fiercely nationalistic child when I was in the fourth and fifth grades at Tachkemoni School. I wrote a historical novel in installments called The End of the Kingdom ofJudah, and several poems about conquest, and about national greatness, which resembled Grandpa Alexander's patriotic verses and aimed to imitate Vladimir Jabotinsky's nationalistic marching songs such as the Beitar Anthem: ". Spill your blood and offer up your soul! / Raise high the fire: / Repose is like mire; / We fight for a glorious goal! " I was also influenced by the song of the Jewish partisans in Poland and the ghetto rebels: ". What if our blood we spill? / Surely our spirit with heroic deeds shall thrive! " And poems by Saul Tchernikhowsky that Father used to read to me with wavering pathos in his voice: ".a tune of blood and fire! / So climb the hill and crush the vale, whate'er you see-acquire!"

The poem that excited me most of all was "Nameless Soldiers," by Avraham Stern, alias Yair, the leader of the Stern Gang. I used to recite it with pathos but in a whisper in bed after lights out: "Nameless soldiers are we, we must fight to be free; / all around is the shadow of death. / We have signed up for life to do battle and strife-/ we must fight till we breathe our last breath./ In the day that is red with our blood that is shed, / in the blackest despair of the night, / over village and town our flag shall be flown / for we fight to defend what is right!"