It's good to die for our land?! (Towards the XNUMXth of Adar)/Dr. Yehiam Sorek

Dr. Yehiam Sorek, Historian, Beit Berel College

https://www.hayadan.org.il/soreqtrumpeldor.html

We are not the only nation that cultivated myths for itself and devoted them to its goals and objectives, and we are not the only nation that experienced the shattering of its myths. However, our great sensitivity to the myths of "excavating our lives" causes quite a few problems. Myth busting in cultural or academic garb is not as threatening as the one dressed in national-nationalist garb. The myth that adopts pragmatic tools, mainly military-security, and mainly-mainly ideological, is completely sanctified and as if immune from shattering. Such is, for example, the myth of Masada, which was mobilized in favor of all kinds of Zionist projects such as the pioneers of the third aliyah, the settlements of Huma and Migdal and more, with the slogan "Masada will not fall again". In this context, the question of whether it was a story on her part, or fantasized, is not relevant at all. The developers of the nationalist myth took two elements from it - the confrontation of the few against the many and the demonstration of suicide - and mobilized them for the benefit of Zionist mythologmania, which sought to captivate groups of passionate young people and make them prisoners of political whims, including: "Don't ask what the state owes you, ask what you owe it". And in more blunt language: "obey and report performance". Another myth in the style of Masada's mantra, folded in the classical-dramatic sentence attributed to Trumpeldor: "It is good to die for our country". Very soon we are expected to mark, as every year, on the XNUMXst of Adar, the day of Trumpeldor's fall on the defense of Tel-Hai. Trumpeldor, Zionist and socialist, fighter, commander and leader, is better known as the one who muttered, seconds before his death, the sentence: "There is nothing. It's good to die for our land". To this day, researchers and those just curious about information argue among themselves, whether or not he said this sentence, and perhaps the hero of Tel-Hai, in his dying breath, actually uttered a juicy Russian curse. The truth is, it does not matter at all who is right, and perhaps even uttering a curse in such tragic and grave circumstances, is closer to the truth, than the glorification and heroization of a trial in terms of a message for future generations. What else? The story of the defense of Tel Hai has since become a myth, a symbol of heroism, endurance, fulfillment, pioneering and above all - sacrifice, and it is this symbolism that nurtured and inflated the myth of the mantra of "it is good to die for our country". Add to that songs, stories, cheezbats, the Roaring Harry statue that became a focus for the pilgrimage of schools and youth movements, and you got a deliberate design of education from above, which reflects well the XNUMXs and early XNUMXs mainly. There were those who thought, in the spirit of those years, that the minds of the Dardaks, the young men, and the soldiers of the IDF should be kneaded, and steered towards the message of ultimate sacrifice for the sake of the country, for the ideal, for Zionism, as if everyone identified with the little "Shrolik", with the struggling young country about her life The point is, that Trumpeldor's trial (and again, it doesn't matter as it is whether this is how the man phrased it before his death) was never up for real discussion in Israeli society (some may be afraid of that). Opposite mantras such as "it is good to live for our country" were never voiced. The boy on duty never stood up and shouted: "The king is naked" - because Trumpeldor's mantra serves the twisted and devious whims of generals who throw the scouts into battle; Trumpeldor's mantra serves a frenzy of excitement by politicians who are ready to declare war against any enemy at any moment (in his absence they invent him); Trumpeldor's mantra feeds many pro-militarist elements in our society; Trumpeldor's mantra supports provocative settlements in the heart of the Palestinian population; Trumpeldor's mantra dwarfs the value of man and turns him into a servant in the hands of dark forces, all in the "name of the state"; Trumpeldor's mantra shrinks and dwarfs the skepticism, the doubts and the deliberations, which are at the basis of the existence of humanism and liberal society and more. Perhaps dealing with the myth will present Trumpeldor as a real character, with his virtues and faults, and this only to praise him as a person. In any case, ritual adherence to Trumpeldor's mantra, as well as Masada's delusional myth, may deepen the value of ultimate personal sacrifice, and thereby the moment of self-destruction for all of us. There is nothing more sacred than the value of human life, and there is nothing more wrong and perverse than crushing this value and even in the name of the mother of all idealism.

The history buff

https://www.hayadan.org.il/BuildaGate4/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~~~779970222~~~185&SiteName=hayadan