Story of a fighter for the freedom of Israel EZRA YAKHIN ELN AK AM ELNAKAM EZRA YAKHIN Translated, by Herzlia Dobkin YAIR PUBLISHING HOUSE TEL AVIV -1992 © YAIR PUBLISHING HOUSE PRINTED IN ISRAEL SEPTEMBER 1992 HIDEKEL PRESS - TEL AVIV THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED TO THE PARENTS OF THE FIGHTERS TABLE OF CONTENTS Dr. Israel Eldad - Introduction to the book of a fighter and a comrade 9 PART 1 - ON THY WALLS, O JERUSALEM! In Blue Lettering 11 There was no King in Israel 14 Tale of a Snake 20 Itbach el Yahud! (Kill the Jews) 22 Down with the White Paper! 27 Bar Mitzva 29 A Telegram Boy in Jerusalem 32 How to Join the Underground 41 The High Commissioner is wounded 44 Blowing the Shofar at the Western Wall 45 Brith Hashmona’im 49 A Lehi Man am I 52 Conspiracy 54 The “Season” 59 Old Hillel 61 A Legend called Ya’ir 65 The Accused become Judges 71 Rebellion 74 The Ma’as (The Deed) 75 Tomorrow We meet at “X” 78 Ha’im is expelled from School 88 “A Girl’s been looking for Me” 91 A Boy sleeps on the Stairs 95 The One Who refused to submit 99 One a Communist, One in the Hagana, One in the Etzel and One in the Lehi 102 Brith Hashmona’im secedes from the Lehi 105 I’m a Petit Bourgeois 108 Every Comer in the City is an Ambush 113 A Tale of a Passport 121 A Punch in the Belly and a Kick in the Arse 127 What will I tell my Parents when they ask: “Where is your Brother?” 128 PART II - MY COMRADES, SONS OF GLORY In the Division 134 How to get a “Sick” Report 136 Off to the Course... and the Sea 142 Jerusalem seems Further and Further Away... 144 The Return Home 148 Mr. Khalil’s Stick 152 Sans Home, Sans Family 155 “You’re on Observation Duty this Evening” 158 “Datan, I envy You!...” 170 A Trap set at Night, during the Curfew 175 A Grenade between Two Hearts 182 The Target - MacMillan 184 “Canoodling behind the Rocks...” 187 “The General!” 190 ,The Center is silent 199 Where is the Boy? 202 “You are needed in the ’Youth’ Division.” 211 There’s a Pasting in the Triangle this Evening 215׳ Elnakam 219 Ariella 222 Them...” 224׳ They hang“ The Youngsters of Ra’anana 228 PART III - “OUR EYES ARE TURNED TOWARD ZION” Let there be no Division! 235 The End of King George! 240 Let the Sabre speak! 244 Why I couldn’t draw my Gun! 247 A Meeting in the Hospital 253 “When I shout ‘Moshe!’ You shout too!” 256 The Whole Land is a Frontier 249 The Slogan - A United Front 261 Islands of Hebrew Government 272 Grieve for the Jewish Quarter! 280 A State is declared in Tel-Aviv 282 May 15, 1948 284 Until the Arrival of the U.N.O. 292 This Night the Old City will be freed! 303 Dear Reader, During the years which have passed since I wrote my book “THE STORY OF ELNAKAM”, many underground comrades have given me additional details about the actual circumstances of the deeds in which they too were actively involved, and also other facts of actions which I had only heard about. In writing this book I did not intend (nor do I now intend) to give the reader a detailed historical biography. I wanted to tell my own story, but in the nature of things it is also the story of the youth of my generation who joined the underground movements. If I have inadvertantly left out or forgotten those comrades who took part in the same actions as I - I ask their pardon. I am especially sorry if I have done an injustice to those close comrades whose vital actions should have been, but were not recorded; this was because of the injunction of the leaders of the underground which prohibited publication of certain actions and insisted that the heroes of those events remain anonymous - even to us, the fighters. However, I do particularly want to mention my comrade-in-arms Zvi Frunin who, only days after this book was written, did his history become known to me. Zvi, who worked side by side with Yair and was the leader of underground cells in Haifa and Tel Aviv, never surrendered. The British never succeeded in capturing him even though his picture appeared in all the newspapers with a price on his head. And this during the black days after the murder of Yair when many of the best of our fighters were arrested or gave themselves up. Ezra Yakhin. 7 Some Remarks on the Book of a Freedom Fighter and a Friend At first glance it would seem that there is no shortage of books dealing with the underground: historical books, personal reminiscences, political and ideological analyses, and the literature of the underground itself such as proclamations, pamphlets etc. Yet there is still something lacking no less important than all of these, an element that would bring those days and, even more so the nights, alive for the contemporary reader, make him participate in the fighters’ experiences, their moods and emotions, sense what the Jews were feeling in the street, at home, in the synagogue day after day, night after night, feel the reality behind the newspaper headlines, beyond the thunder of explosions, watch and listen with them, know their longings and fears, sense the flesh-and-blood reality of the underground and its peculiar environment. To do all this it seems there must be poets and artists, dramatists and interpreters skilled in the art and craft of representation. All these will come in time, who can doubt it, even though they have held back till now for reasons not to be discussed here. There is no subject under the sun too lowly to serve as material for their writing, sculpting and painting; all has been grist to their mill but for this unique treasure of dramatic experience - a treasure assiduously ignored as if relegated to oblivion by force. Is this a manifestation of self-abnegation, an attempt to escape from ourselves? One Arab’s death in the ’48 war, another’s suffering at the hands of the Israeli ‘oppressor’ - these are “interpreted”, considered worthy of dramatization. But for two or three exceptions, has any attempt been made to create an epic, an educational model out of the heroism and self-sacrifice of the men who died on the scaffold, of the youth caught putting up proclamations and tortured to death by a minion of the Empire? They are still to come, these artists, and future generations will yet be nurtured by the song, story and drama of those days of glory, just as we, in our time were nurtured on the tales of Dvora the Prophetess, of Samson, of the Holy Temples and the Ten Victims of Tyranny. But what in the meantime? In the interim it is most important to prepare documentary material, a living testimony not only in the font} of catalogs and descriptions of operations or collections of proclamations and speeches but living evidence in 9 its most literal form and meaning, facts of life of the underground, the living cells, their formation, their cohesion into a fabric palpitating and glowing, often to go up in flames - the testimony of the rank and file. Such a testimony in offered is this book, showing how a Hebrew youth found his way to the underground movement. The stress is laid not on the technical ways and means of the process but rather on the emotional development leading to such a step; what he read, heard, felt before taking the crucial step. We not only find here the mechanics of pasting proclamations on'the walls but see his emotional involvement with the deed, an involvement investing those proclamations with a power not less than that of the written words, a power that was transmitted the following morning to all those who read them. We read how a decent, honest boy is driven to deceive not just the British policeman but his own father and mother, motivated by a love so deep that it sanctifies his behaviour, makes it acceptable and even compulsory. The authenticity and scope of the book are deepened and widened by the considerations of state to be found in it and also by the manifestations of love and hatred with which it abounds. For it is only the pseudo-intellectual eunuchs who mock the “emotionalism” of the underground, those whose inability to feel makes them hate anything imbued with emotion. This book is a revelation of the inner feelings of a youth in the underground. It has the additional grace of being imbued with the very atmosphere of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is not only the scene of the action, with the stress placed on the battle for the city, but we get an insight into the lives of the Jerusalem suburbs where patriotism and faith go hand in hand. This is a stylised reconstruction of actions and experiences and also a fighter’s lament for the liberty of Israel, rising from the very roots of the people and their faith, roots going back for generations. The dominant characteristic of this testimony is its authenticity. Without the help of such a testimony no historian, let alone a poet, may hope to understand that generation and its struggle, sense the flesh-and-blood reality of waging a war in the underground. This war is seen here through the eye of the writer, symbolically enough an eye that was wounded and turned to bleeding flesh during the battle for the Old City.