Notebook in the hand of Yaakov Drori - founder of Kibbutz Lochamei HaGetta'ot

Notebook in the hand of Yaakov Drori - founder of Kibbutz Lochamei HaGetta'ot

Handwritten notebook of the founder of Kibbutz Lochamei HaGeta'ot [rebels of the Lodz ghetto] - Yaakov Drori. Drori wrote this notebook from 1947-1949, while he recovered from his injuries in the Ranana hospital. He describes the history of the group of chalutzim who helped him establish the kibbutz and the political developments that impacted their attempts to formulate an organized group to build the land. The notebook summarizes the era and includes quotes from letters that he wrote to activists and friends at different times.

The notebook includes personal and touching feelings that accompanied Drori during his pioneering work in Palestine. He describes the yearning for political independence on the background of the events that preceded the War of Independence: "Dear friends! Our fate is like the fate of all pioneering kibbutzim in Palestine and the Jewish Natino in the world. It was not our desire to disperse from our life together and leave the contintuation of the fulfilment of our goal, to be an independent body in the settlements and create a new project named for the ghetto fighters and fighters of Israel. We were forced to fight this war by Arab-British imperialistic reactionism. We must defend and fight until victory for political independence and the liberation of the entire nation in its land. I am sure that the day will come when the war will finish and we as a nation will be liberated and will stand as an international entity....it was our lot to be the remnant of six million Jews who were destroyed and murdered in sanctification of G-d's name by the Nazi beast, and we were tasked with creating and founding a new home whose symbol will be the ghetto fighters and the soldiers of Israel...just a bit more patience and we will reach our goal...."

Drori also writes about attempts to found the Lochamei HaGeta'ot kibbutz during the War of Independence that delayed its establishment: "Since I came to Palestine with my small group of people, after two years of wandering from a concentration camp through Italy and Cyprus, my desire and longing was to unite the remnants of our "Dror" movement in Poland and create a complete entity for settlement characterized by the pioneering spirit of the ghetto fighters....However the new stage in the life of our country called the best of our members before we finished our year of prepartion to fight this war which we have been forced to face by the Arabic-British imperialistic reactionism, our members swore to defend and fight until victory on behalf of political independence and the liberation fo the entire country..."

On occasion, Drori writes about political developments in real time: "Today the radio announced that Marshall from the United States and Bevin from Britian support Folke Bernadotte's proposal to join the Arabic Palestine to Transjordan....Jerusalem will be an international city and the port of Haifa and the city will be a free city..."

Between some pages, Drori includes some relevant newspaper clippings. It also includes personal passages that he wrote to his pioneering friends who helped him with his daily activities, on some pages he quotes relevant Biblical verses. He writes in length about the commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in the future State of Israel [I do not know how someone born in the country will understand and feel about magnitude of the day in which the Jewish Nation in Diaspora stood up to rebel against the human enemy whose goal was to destroy the Jewish Nation from the face of the earth...in my opinoin, we need to show the youth the strength of the nation in the land that he lives is the reality of "Gevurat Tirat Zvi" and the strength of "Gush Etzyon" and "Negba"..he will understand this more when he sees the results of the war for the independence of Israel....]

[158] leaves, without jacket. Some of the letters are written in Hebrew and some in Yiddish. Five of the first leaves are water damaged and are illegible or partially illegible. 

Clear, legible hand.