Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Centenary Conference for Avraham Stern - Yair

Avraham Stern - Yair was the founder of the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel (FFI, or Lechi in Hebrew) and the Hebrew University conducted a conference dealing with him as a graduate of the university, MA in Classical Languages and Hebrew Literature, 1934.

The pictures:



Part of the crowd




Two cousins: Yair Stern, son of Avraham Stern - Yair and Amira Stern, daughter of David Stern, Avraham Stern's brother



Geula Cohen talking on Yair's poetry



The sons of the Lechi commanders: (l - r) Yair Stern, Yair Shamir, Aryeh Eldad, Elisha Yellin-Mor

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yisrael,

What did the "4 sons" say? I am on the edge of my seat waiting to find out!

Anonymous said...

me too

mnuez said...

Damn cool post and pics. I was actually at some major Stern commemoration ceremony some ten years ago or so. It was fantastic. Like at the Betar ceremony, we all sang the old songs (most of us were actually old people too) and then there were some great speeches. My favorite of course had to be the one that I believe was the very last. Ezra Yakhin was speaking and it looked like Geulah kept trying to get him to finish up. She looked very uncomfortable. Finally I saw why, she knew what he was coming to - his speech climaxed with "going up to har habayit to slaughter the Amaleik-palestinians!". He may not have called them Palestinians but he was serious about the subject and actually wrote a book on it. Unlike Elnakam, this one was not translated. :-)

mnuez
www.mnuez.blogspot.com

P.S. Chayalim Almonim is a bit too noir and pre-Begin for my tastes. It seems to have reflected the time when the sentiment among the remnants of the Jabotinskyites was "milchama l'dror - artzeinu milchama - v'im met hadror, tichi hanikama!", a sort of useless dark-hole of vengeance. I may of course be wrong, but I believe it very very likely that we only have a Jewish State because of Begin's different attitude and his awesome hachraza in 1944 of the Irgun's aims with his promise of a reborn Jewish state. To me, Shir Betar is canonical - and thanks more to Begin than Jabotinsky.

YMedad said...

a) each one of them felt they had followed in their fathers' footsteps, all felt the responsibility of upholding the Lechi pride and each, except Y. Stern, had good relationships with their fathers.

b) Chayalim Almonim was written in 1932 if I recall and reflects on the 1929 riots.

Anonymous said...

Yisrael,

Does your comment mean that Shamir-son would be considered "right-wing" and that Yellin-mor-son is a Communist and a "peace now" type?
I ask this because as I indicated in my comment to your previous post, the children of those from the "Fighting Family" (both ETZEL and LEHI) who went into politics or became part of the Establishment (e.g. Shamir's son who is, as I understand it, a business executive), almost without exception, have gone with the Left.

YMedad said...

Dear BK,

Yes.

Shamir is Right; Elisha is Peace Now.