Waiting

...these will hammer their swords into ploughshares, their spears into sickles. Nation will not lift sword against nation, there will be no more training for war.

- Isaiah 2.4

Memoir Chapters

There is always a sense of freedom here - a spaciousness. The region is a joy. This impulse, Meir told himself, is not an accident. At Shoshana's Estate she was his companion on many trips, even sharing his fate when their trails led them to capture in a Damascus prison. Perhaps this impulse came in the wake of the atmosphere after the Liberation War. Shoshana and Meir were only boy and girl when the war ended. A gift fell to them - the will to walk "to and fro" throughout the length and breadth of the land. Everywhere they found signs before them: Stop! Danger!

Maintaining these boundaries

Maintaining these boundaries was not easy. Unlike in other books, books in which the participants are removed far from the process of writing, the protagonist's picture this time was painted without any poetic license. I knew the story must be published in every detail. All the dialogue is true. They also filmed movies based on his book.

Over the last year I paid many visits to Shoshanna's Estate and talked with Meir. From the balcony of the house I looked out over the mountains and valleys and appreciated the immensity and beauty of the open spaces. Though hidden then, later as I listened to the stories of Meir, their romance seized me as I sat in my room and began to tell the tale. I kept asking myself where it comes from - this impulse to break boundaries and conventions, walk little-trod paths, climb to the mountain eyries, to be the first and last visitor to those precious places no one sees.

Not all actions

Not all actions, while the diaries were being written, were recorded. If unmentioned, the action was unrecorded. But no recorded action was omitted. The diaries join Meir's story on Rose Manor - the story of rehabilitation after injury in a harsh action against the police. This occurred near the edge of Mount Hebron at the time of the Sinai Campaign. Read the discourse presented in the book with a grain of salt, though it is real. In the telling of one story, another unfolded. I asked Meir to come to me and tell me the story of my sister Shoshanna, murdered by Bedouins in the Judean desert at the end of 1954. Shoshanna's story led to Meir's story. Our conversations lasted over a year and were recorded on tape.

Foreword

Dear reader,

Here you are presented with a unique book. If in buying this book you seek a literary standard, remember that no literature is of use but that which claims the author's whole strength. This is a document of my life - this is a document of an era. General events and personal doubts, successes and failures, bad and good fit into the picture - described unembellished and without an attempt to excuse anything. The diary entries, begun by a young boy at Kibbutz Ein-Harod and continued by the same man as an IDF soldier, are submitted to the reader in their full content and original style. No corrections have been made from foreign tongues - to maintain the authenticity of the original ones. Over the years, various papers published some of the entries, but they were often distorted. There is thus no comparison between the passages as they appeared in the press and the events narrated in the diaries as they occurred.

At the store

Introduction by General Ariel Sharon, continued

Combat commanders are tested mainly when they are asked to carry out an assignment independently, when there is no higher officer of a higher rank around to help and rescue them if necessary from the battlefield, an officer who will notice them during a battle. The greatest effort is demanded of an independent officer. He leads his men, fights himself, heads the attack, and brings his men back to their base safely after the battle. An officer in this situation decides whether or not the mission will be carried out and decides how it will be carried out.

Introduction by General Ariel Sharon

Meir came to us when Unit 101 was established. He had been a corporal in the Nahal who could not find peace there for his stormy spirit, for his desire to be active, for his belief that we must and could find a way to overcome the Arab terrorist activity. Within a short time he became the most daring fighter in Unit 101 and the paratroopers, and an excellent scout, perhaps the best that the IDF has ever known.

He outshone the others by far in leadership qualities. His achievements on the battlefield were many. He commanded several operations himself, and played a major role in others. Meir Har-Zion became a symbol of a fighter in the paratroop units and in the army as a whole.

Memoir Chapters: Table of Contents

Memoir Chapters: Meir Har-Zion

Set by Naomi Frankel

Drawings & maps by Sol Baskin

1. Introduction by Naomi Frankel

2. About Meir Har-Zion's book by General Ariel Sharon

3. Dialogue on Mount of the Winds

4. Travel diary

5. Dialogue at midnight

6. Military diary

7. Ahuzath Shoshana

8. The Reprisal Raids: A lecture by Moshe Dayan (1955)

Pirkei Yoman, Meir Har-Zion

The following is the beginning of a (rough!) translation of Meir Har-Zion's military memoir Pirkei Yoman (Memoir Chapters).

About the Author:

Meir Har-Zion, a farmer born in 1934, grew up in Rishpon, at age 13 moved to Ein-Harod. Married with seven children. Servied in the IDF during the years 1952-1956 and since 1959 has lived at Ahuzath Shoshanna next to the Star of the Jordan, east of the moshav of his homeland and above Kibbutz Neve Or in the Jordan Valley.

Ancient predecessor to the reprisal raids

Reprisal raids were nothing new to the Israelis, even 60 years ago when Arik and his men conducted the bulk of their night operations. The following is an excerpt from the second book of the Maccabees about an incident in the town of Joppa (shown at left) by one of Unit 101's most illustrious predecessors:

"The people of Joppa went so far as to perpetrate the following outrage: they invited the Jews living among them to go aboard some boats they had lying ready, taking their wives and children. There was no hint of any intention to harm them; there had been a public vote by the citizens, and the Jews accepted, as well they might, being peaceable people with no reason to suspect anything. But once out in the open sea they were all sent to the bottom, a company of at least two hundred.

When Judas heard of the cruel fate of his countrymen, he issued his orders to his men and, after invoking God, the just judge, he attacked his brothers' murderers. Under cover of dark he set fire to the harbor, burned the boats and put to the sword everyone who had taken refuge there."

- 2 Maccabees 12.3-6

Link to Israeli hymn - Arise and Shine

This song is a translation of Isaiah 60.1-2 in the Hebrew Bible. It seems an appropriate tribute to the astonishing efforts of the heroes of the reprisal raids.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jEq404VLIQ