Before this publication, only one of Stern’s poems was readily available in a complete translation. What’s more the footnotes also offer historic background and other information that shed light on Stern’s ideas. In his footnotes Edberg demonstrates how Stern repurposed lines from Jewish liturgy and verses from Tanach to inspire young Jews to take action on behalf of the cause of Zionism. The balance of the book contains over 50 poems with extensive explanatory footnotes. This section is not without superficial flaws but is engaging and thought-provoking. The book has a nearly 20 page introduction that provides an overview of Stern’s story and that of the LEHI. However, his admirers knew little about the “other” Yair: Yair the poet.”Įdberg’s translation brings Stern’s distinctive poetic voice to English. Yair –as his friends knew him– believed that only the expulsion of the British from the Land of Israel would enable the Jewish People to establish an independent Jewish state, and he foresaw that this goal could only be achieved by force. “Those who revere his memory know a great deal about Yair Avraham Stern, who in the 1940s established the underground LEHI movement to fight against the British regime in Palestine. In 1998 Stern wrote in Haaretz about Stern stating:

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was a member of the LEHI’s three man high command after Stern’s assassination. After Stern’s 1942 assassination by British detectives In Tel Aviv his soldiers later formed the LEHI (Fighters For the Freedom of Israel.) It’s only in the last 20 years or so that English speaking readers have been able to really learn the details about LEHI’s story.Īvraham Stern (Yair) was the founder and leader of the Stern Group (maligned by the British as the Stern Gang). The Complete and Translated Poetic Works of Avraham Stern published by Yishai Edberg is the first book of English translations of history’s key Zionist revolutionary.įor decades Israel’s left-leaning academic establishment, as well as Jewish educators in the United States, successfully fought to minimize the impact the Stern’s LEHI group, and the Irgun underground Stern had originally fought in, had on London’s decision to end the British Mandate. It can be argued that this happened in June. If (slot) slot.addService(googletag.It’s not too often that the release of a new book of poems that are over 80 years old can be seen as a transformative moment in the American Jewish community. (function (a, d, o, r, i, c, u, p, w, m) Abraham Stern, Israel’s own revolutionary - The Jerusalem Post

Stern by Zev Golan