ABSTRACT
“In blood and fire, Judah fell; in blood and fire, Judah shall rise again,” declared the celebrated Hebrew poet Ya’akov Cahan (1881–1960) in his often-quoted Hebrew-language poem “Biryonim” (“Hooligans”). Although written in 1903, in response to the notorious pogrom of that year in Kishinev, Russia, in retrospect Cahan’s words foresaw conditions under which the State of Israel entered the world in 1948 and under which it has persevered since. The country proclaimed its independence in the midst of a war, and has been embroiled almost continuously in some form of armed conflict throughout its 70-year history.
