Hebrew Writing of the First World War

Almost one and a quarter million Jewish soldiers took part in the First World War, spread through the armies on both sides of the conflict. Their numbers were more or less in proportion to the Jewish populations in the countries involved, and sometimes even greater. There is comparatively little writing about this experience in Hebrew. Those who did write novels, poetry, stories, memoirs and diaries in Hebrew were either serving soldiers on the Eastern Front and in Palestine, or civilians who were caught up in the war in one way or another. Their work reflected not only the tribulations of the trenches, but also the hardship suffered by civilians. Woven into their views of the war is a portrait of the major transition taking place in Jewish political culture at the time, and their growing identification with Zionism.