“Admatenu Esh Lohevet” – “Our Land, A Blazing Fire” – A Never-Before-Published Story Addressing the Struggles of Hebrew Youth in Eretz Israel Amid the Challenges of the 1936-1939 Arab Riots, by Hagana Member and Senior Commander Moshe Matari – Handwritten Pages, and the Book Typewritten.
A story about the Zionist movement’s struggle for independence in the face of the war declared by the Arabs of Eretz Israel against the Jewish people’s construction enterprise. In the introduction to the story, Matari explains that the high command of the Hagana was still grappling with outdated military concepts while daring gangs fought in the mountains at a level the organization had not encountered before. A plot that deals with the struggles of Hebrew youth in Eretz Israel against a wave of terror they had never known, alongside the Zionist movement’s promises of political independence. The story itself is typewritten from beginning to end (19 pages). The table of contents and an additional 9 pages, dealing with the Zionist movement’s attitude toward the White Paper, written in Moshe Matari’s handwriting, serve as an introduction and background to the story.
Moshe Matri was a senior commander in the Haganah and one of the commanders in the defensive battles against the Arabs in the War of Independence in 1948. After the establishment of the state, he served as the head of the Civil Division in the IDF Planning Directorate and spent much of his life documenting the struggle for the independence of the Jewish people in their land. Among the books he authored is “Twenty Years of Shield and Sword in Haifa” – 1988, and others.
