Hidden Scripts the Social Evolution of Alterman’S “Don’T You Give Them Guns”

ARTICLES Hidden Scripts The Social Evolution of Alterman’s “Don’t You Give Them Guns” Efrat Ben-Ze’ev ABSTRACT: Nathan Alterman’s poem “Don’t You Give Them Guns” echoed European post–World War I anti-war literature. Curiously, the poem turned into a key text in a ritual instituted by members of the elite Jewish underground fighting force, the Palmach, which was established during World War II. This article is an attempt to understand how a pacifist poem came to be used by Jewish-Israeli soldiers at the heart of the 1948 War of Independence. In terms of theory, the analysis dwells on the relations between text and social context, arguing that alternative social ideas conceal themselves in poetry and other literary forms. These texts can be likened to undercurrents that preserve hidden social concerns. To follow the changing role of such texts, the article considers the fate of “Don’t You Give Them Guns” from its birth in 1934 to its later manifesta- tions in the early twenty-first century. KEYWORDS: anthropology and poetry, anti-war poems, hakhshara, Nathan Alterman, 1948 War, Palmach Don’t You Give Them Guns Come sit yourself beside me nurse, lest my last breath go unknown. Death comes in such a silence here, and I am cold, alone. The oil lamp shines its yellow haze, wind the darkened garden beats, Israel Studies Review, Volume 29, Issue 1, Summer 2014: 1–17 © Association for Israel Studies doi: 10.3167/isr.2014.290102 • ISSN 2159-0370 (Print) • ISSN 2159-0389 (Online) 2 | Efrat Ben-Ze’ev before you here consumption sat, a gentle nurse—and sweet. She held me, though I were a child, and bid me cry and have no shame. For orphaned sons, for widowed wife, an old and whimpering babe. Sister, you must know, please tell me why do sick men seem so small? I was once a man and soldier, in cannons’ face I stood so tall. It was a while, I concede, they left me little of that past: a medal and consumption, nurse, do you know of poison gas? The sky was more than sky that day, soft wind rolled the valley floor. May was the sweetest of all Mays Our mother nature bore. Like boys let out for holiday armies marched in dizzy fun. The air was rich with happy spring, tobacco smoke and sun. Steel helmets passed from head to hand, our hair and voice let loose. Oh high chin and oh proud step, you can’t escape the noose. Young apple trees burst into song, my mother hugged me on the way. And through the grain the whistling wind Came laden with its May. When horror struck we knew its smell so only mother asked, why do you hide from me my son, why do you wear a mask? We fitted well the rubber straps And took the cloud head first. I stabbed a small one in the skull, three big ones through the chest. Hidden Scripts | 3 Soldiers all had lost their song, the world had lost its sense. Among the bombs we killed in fear and so much innocence. I still remember, as all should, they were as good as us, just ought not to have been sent to war, ought not to have been given guns. It’s over now, the war is gone. You are here—the lamp still glows. Ten and seven years have passed. They killed me there—but slow. Even death is silent here, polite and patient to the last. Only my bitter lungs still spit murder, hatred, and the gas. Only I remember how— so different in that burst— I stabbed a small one in the skull, three big ones through the chest. Nurse, one moment, I’ve two loved ones, Fine good-hearted sons. When my day comes, oh for heaven, Don’t you give them guns. — Nathan Alterman, 1934 (translation by Yahav Zohar) In the course of a study on 1948 memories, I stumbled upon a commemorative rite that incorporated Nathan Alterman’s anti-war poem “Don’t You Give Them Guns” (Al Titnu La’hem Rovim). The rite was initiated within one Palmach hakhshara (Kaddish 1995) immediately after the men’s first baptism by fire in January 1948. The hakhshara was a closely knit group of young men and women that originated in Zionist youth movements and agricultural schools of the early 1940s. It was designed to combine military instruction with the founding of new settlements, and its com- mon division of labor was that the men were the fighters while the women served as support (with some exceptions). The hakhshara that adopted Alterman’s “Don’t You Give Them Guns” during the war continued to observe its commemorative rite thereafter, cre- ating and maintaining an annual fixed program. The question that triggered 4 | Efrat Ben-Ze’ev the following inquiry was why this pacifist poem surfaced in the heart of fighting and established itself as a key text for the hakhshara members. Slightly expanding on this question, this article considers the poem’s his- tory, both before its adoption by the hakhshara and during its later use within other contexts. The aim here is threefold. First and foremost, it is to document the details of this commemorative rite, including the circumstances that led to its establishment and the positioning of the poem within its program. Second is to consider this piece of ethnography as a case study that sheds light on the relations between a key text and its social context. More specifically, the question is how poetic recitation serves as a conduit to express an alternative message to the more articulated, mainstream one. Finally, as the poem’s title later took on a life of its own, divorced from its original meaning, we see how new contexts preserve part of the text yet transform its meaning. Before proceeding, some notes on the methodology are necessary. The Palmach veterans were interviewed between 2002 and 2005 (see also Ben- Ze’ev 2011: 127–166). They were then in their early to mid-seventies, no longer at the height of their careers or fulfilling central roles in Israeli public life. Their image of being ‘forever young’ (Spector-Mersel 2008) was difficult to maintain, and they were stepping down from their quasi- mythical role as the founding generation (Ben-Ze’ev and Lomsky-Feder 2009; Harris 2009). Moreover, they were contemplative and disappointed, lamenting the gap between what they had hoped for as youngsters and the present, occasioned by the failure of many aspirations. Having retired, they had more time to exchange opinions with one another, possibly finding solace in this sharing. At this stage in life, it seemed that the bonds of their youth were reinstated and reinforced. They met for their yearly reunions, at lectures, and on tours, often recording and videotaping the events. Many of them published memoirs and circu- lated them among other hakhshara members, devoting significant space to their 1948 experience. The 20 interviews that I conducted with the hakhshara members were with its core actors—those who had remained in touch and kept the commemorative rite going. All interviews were conducted at the interview- ees’ homes, mostly on a one-to-one basis. They tended to last between one hour and two hours, and as they were concluding the veterans often brought out memorabilia. They would fetch a book, a photo album, memoirs jotted on single sheets of paper or arranged in a booklet, a videotape of a joint activity, and the like. Hence, the ethnography of this study was composed of all these components put together. The poem was another curious ‘artifact’ and will be treated here as the vantage point from which the whole can be profitably viewed. Hidden Scripts | 5 This article will work its way chronologically from end to beginning. I will first consider the use of the poem’s title in recent years and then move back in time to describe its role for the active Palmach hakhshara. Finally, I will touch on the poem’s origins, typifying the evolution over time of World War I poetry. Before focusing on the poem itself, however, the article briefly considers some of the work on the interrelation between texts and social context in the field of anthropology. Anthropology and Poetry Texts such as novels, memoirs, and poems are often integral parts of eth- nographies. Alton Becker’s (1979) analysis of Javanese shadow theater touched on the union between cultural text and context. His argument was that the theater is understood by the audience due to the latter’s acquain- tance with prior social texts. Cultural constraints predefine the audience’s spectrum of interpretation. There is a single mythological world that gov- erns the theater’s protagonists and symbols. It is through the combination of the theater’s contents and the cultural context, he argued, that the epis- temology of Javanese society can be revealed: the wholeness of society is manifested through the same principles in different arenas. Since this article’s scope is narrower, and it is assumed that the readers are fairly well acquainted with the 1948 context, the bulk of the discussion will be dedicated to the text itself. I have chosen “Don’t You Give Them Guns” as a focal point for three main reasons: its salience during the 1948 War, its canonical endurance throughout the lives of the hakhshara members, and its uniqueness—a pacifist text playing a major role in the heart of war. Becker’s argument about the union of text and context suggests that we can learn something about Jewish-Israeli society by paying attention to the text as a complementary source.

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