page_title: Abba Kovner
section_title: Israel
hierarchical_section_title: Abba Kovner / Biography / Israel
caption_attribution_description: English: Original Description: THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. IN THE PHOTO, ABBA KOVNER (R) BRIEFING "HAGANA" MEMBERS AT KIBBUTZ YAD MORDECHAI. עברית: מלחמת העצמאות. בצילום, אבא קובנר מתדרך חברי הגנה, מגיני קיבוץ יד מרדכי.
context_page_description: Abba Kovner was a Jewish Hebrew and Yiddish poet, writer and partisan leader. In the Vilna Ghetto, his manifesto was the first time that a target of the Holocaust identified the German plan to murder all Jews. His attempt to organize a ghetto uprising failed, but he fled into the forest, became a Soviet partisan, and survived the war. After the war, Kovner led a secretive organization that aimed to take revenge for the Holocaust by killing six million Germans, but he was arrested by the British before he could carry out his plan. He made aliyah in 1947. Considered one of the greatest poets of modern Israel, he received the Israel Prize in 1970.
context_section_description: Kovner joined the Haganah in December 1947, and soon after Israel declared independence in May 1948 he became a captain in the Givati Brigade of the IDF. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War he became known for his "battle pages", headed "Death to the invaders!", that contained news from the Egyptian front and essays designed to keep up morale. However, the tone of the pages, which called for revenge for the Holocaust and referred to the Egyptian enemy as vipers and dogs, upset many Israeli political and military leaders.  The leader of HaShomer Hatzair, Meir Ya'ari accused him of spreading "Fascist horror propaganda." His first battle page, entitled "Failure", started a controversy that still continues today when it accused the Nitzanim garrison of cowardice for surrendering to an overwhelming Egyptian force.
  From 1946 to his death, Kovner was a resident of Kibbutz Ein HaHoresh. He was active in Mapam as well as in HaShomer HaTzair, but never took on a formal political role. He played a major part in the design and construction of several Holocaust museums, including the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv. He died in 1987 (aged 69) of laryngeal cancer, perhaps due to his lifelong heavy smoking, at his home in Ein HaHoresh. He was survived by his wife, Vitka Kempner, who married Kovner in 1946.
caption: Kovner (right) briefs members of the IDF in Yad Mordechai during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War
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