Language:
English
Year of publication:
2021
Titel der Quelle:
Yad Vashem Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
49,1 (2021) 209-225
Keywords:
Porat, Dina.
;
Kovner, Abba,
;
Nakam (Organization)
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Influence
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Influence
Abstract:
Dina Porat’s Li Nakam Veshilem is a fascinating, meticulously-researched, and thoughtful account of Abba Kovner’s Nakam (Revenge) group, the plot for revenge, and the attitude of the Yishuv to such revenge in the overall encounter with the Holocaust. Porat details the ultimate failure of the plot to poison the German water supply and also chronicles the exploits of the group that remained in Germany and managed to poison the bread at the Langwasser camp near Nuremberg. While the history of the postwar quest for vengeance has often been presented as a “tremendous story” that captivates the imagination, Porat examines the significance of the plot from the broader perspective of the history of the Holocaust and the State of Israel by means of serious archival research. More fundamentally the book examines the relationship between the Holocaust and the creation of the State of Israel. If during the war the Yishuv was largely powerless to rescue Jews and respond to the Nazi threat, who would decide what was best for the Jewish people in the aftermath of the Holocaust? Who would set the post-Holocaust agenda for the Jewish people? To what extent did the creation of the State of Israel become a valve for displaced rage? Porat’s conclusion suggests that the Yishuv emissaries were justified in limiting Kovner’s and his accomplices’ plans for revenge, because the need to create the state trumped the survivors’ desire in this respect. Porat also raises a philosophical question: How do we make sense of revenge after the Holocaust? And who would carry out the obligation to exact vengeance on behalf of the Jewish people? Acting on behalf of the Jewish people, the leadership determined that the creation of the state (not the murder of six million Germans) would be the only appropriate response to the Holocaust.
Note:
In English and Hebrew.
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
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