Yigal Allon, Native Son. Anita Shapira

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       Yigal Allon, Native Son

      JEWISH CULTURE AND CONTEXTS

      Published in association with the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania

      David B. Ruderman, Series Editor

       Advisory Board

      Richard I. Cohen

      Moshe Idel

      Alan Mintz

      Deborah Dash Moore

      Ada Rapoport-Albert

      Michael D. Swartz

      A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.

       Yigal Allon, Native Son

      A Biography

      ANITA SHAPIRA

      Translated by Evelyn Abel

       PENN

      University of Pennsylvania Press

      Philadelphia

      The publication of this volume was assisted by a grant from the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation.

      Copyright © 2008 University of Pennsylvania Press

      All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.

      Published by

      University of Pennsylvania Press

      Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104–4112

      Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      A Cataloging-in-Publication record is available from the Library of Congress

      ISBN-13: 978-0-8122-4028-3

      ISBN-10: 0-8122-4028-6

      Contents

       List of Abbreviations

       Preface: Last Rites

       1. Mes’ha: The Beginning

       2. Kadoorie Agricultural School

       3. Ginossar

       4. The Start of Security Work

       5. British-Jewish “Cooperation”

       6. The Palmah: Beginnings

       7. The Palmah, 1943–47

       8. Countdown to Statehood and the Onset of War

       9. The Ten-Day Campaigns

       10. Commanding Officer of the Southern Front

       11. Triumph and Tragedy

       Epilogue: The End of Things

       Notes

       Bibliography

       Index

       Acknowledgments

      Abbreviations

AHC	Arab Higher Committee
BGA	Ben-Gurion Archive
BGD	Ben-Gurion’s Diaries
BGWD	Ben-Gurion’s War Diary
BZI	Ben-Zvi Institute
CGS	Chief of General Staff
CZA	Central Zionist Archives
GAR	Ginossar Archives
GHA	Givat Haviva Archives
HA	Haganah Archive
HGS	Haganah General Staff; after 15 May 1948, Israel Defense Forces High General Staff
HNHO	Ha-Noar Ha-Oved
HSHT	Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir
ICA	Jewish Colonization Association
IDF	Israel Defense Forces
IDFA	Israel Defense Forces Archive
IZL	Revisionist National Military Organization
JA	Jewish Agency
JA-PD	Jewish Agency’s Political Department
JSP	Jewish Settlement Police
KA	Kadoorie Archive
KM	Kibbutz Me’uhad movement
KMA	Kibbutz Me’uhad Archive
KMC	Kibbutz Me’uhad Council
KMP	Kibbutz Me’uhad Publishing House
KTA	Kefar Tavor Archive
LA	Labor Archive
LAHA	Le-Ahdut Ha-Avodah
LA-HE	Labor Archive, Histadrut Executive
LA-LI	Labor Archive, Lavon Institute
LeHI	Lohamei Herut Israel (Israel Freedom Fighters) or the Stern Gang
LPA	Labor Party Archive
LPA-BB	Labor Party Archive, Bet Berl
PICA	Palestine Jewish Colonization Association
S.N.S	Special Night Squads (Wingate’s)
SHAY	Haganah Intelligence Service
UNSCOP	United Nations Special Committee on Palestine
UNRRA	United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration

       Preface

      Last Rites

      Yigal Allon was the man and mark of a generation: the generation bred in Eretz Israel during the struggle for Jewish statehood. This book is dedicated to him and his era, when he and his peers in the elite Palmah fashioned the country’s first youth culture, setting the tone for those who came after.

      “Palmahniks” were neither highbrow nor cultivated but a young brigade of daring volunteers. Apart from a handful of writers and poets who sprang up from within, most had little use for the trappings of culture or social graces. And yet their defining experience, which was to stay with them throughout their lives, became the cultural inspiration of the young. The type of person spawned by the Palmah was not without fault. There was about them a callow rawness, an upstart’s brashness, the shallowness of men of action, the intolerance of the self-absorbed. They judged both themselves and others mercilessly, knowing no compassion. Yet they were also capable of openness and high-flying idealism, extraordinary acts of friendship and comradeship, reticence and loftiness, humility and dedication. They had a measure of pride that in their youth took the form of arrogance and over the years was widely translated into independence and self-sufficiency, a personal autonomy, so to speak. Many of the Palmah veterans flowed with the times, changed their lifestyles, forgot the ideals of their youth. All, however, retained that core sense of belonging and fellowship formed on those heady, faraway nights of campfires, coffee, and song. Those who