Abba Kovner. To what extent did his failure with the Nakam influence his activity in the Israel Defense Forces? (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2019 in the subject History of Europe - European Postwar Period, grade: 1,0, University of Innsbruck, language: English, abstract: Led like sheep to the slaughter: In the collective memory, the Jews are primarily depicted as the defenseless victims of WW2. There is little room for resistance in the great narrative of the Second World War and Nazi repression. When thinking about resistance, assassination attempts such as the one attempted by Stauffenberg or other scholars in exile come to mind. The Jews themselves were passive and did not revolt; at least that is the idea that the false myth of the Diaspora-Jew replicates. Today, research shows that there were at least 26 ghetto-uprisings; and three revolts in concentration camps are known of. There was Jewish resistance and it continued even after the war had ended. For example, the Jewish brigade, a military formation of the British Army commanded by Anglo-Jewish officers, tracked down and executed Nazi war criminals, but also individuals like Abba Kovner, a partisan fighter from the Vilna ghetto, felt the burning desire to avenge the Jewish people.

This seminar paper therefore intends to explore the research question: To what extent did Kovner's failure with the Nakam influence his activity in the Israel Defense Forces? My thesis statement goes as follows: Kovner's failure with the Nakam enabled him to redirect his vengefulness by taking on a more future-oriented attitude, joining the Israel Defense Forces and fighting for a place where the Jewish people could belong. In the First Arab-Israeli War, Kovner found a new outlet for his hatred of Germans; he directed his vengeance towards the Egyptians who were threatening to harm the newly established fatherland, Eretz Israel. In the position of information officer, he poured his hatred and anger into the composition of battle pages, which played an important role in motivating the soldiers in the IDF but at the same time were considered highly controversial due to Kovner's extremist rhetoric.