The Diary of Yitzhak Lamdan (A Translation)

Overview

An introduction and overview of Yitzhak Lamdan's Diary is provided below. You can also read and explore the translations of the diary, the concise summaries of the diary entries, or the interpretive summary of each diary entry

Introduction

In June 1914, not long before WWI started, a sixteen-year-old young man began writing a diary in Mlynov. His name at the time was Yitzhak Lubes and he was destined to write and publish a Hebrew poem that made him famous. That Hebrew poem, published in 1927, after he left Mlynov and made aliyah, was called "Masada." The poem spoke to and for a generation of pioneers to the Land of Israel and helped turn the now famous mountain fortress by that name into a powerful nationalist symbol for the State of Israel itself. That young man who started his diary when he was still in Mlynov was later known as Yithak Lamdan and in interesting ways he was the "Francis Scott Key" equivalent of the pioneer generation.

Yitzhak began his diary when he was still living in Mlynov. He started his entries in June 1914 and wrote off and on until 1924 after he was in Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel. The diary is intimate and revealing and thus important for several reasons. It reveals the mindset and turmoil of a young aspiring writer as he was just developing and working out his identity and aspirations. In addition, the diary provides a contemporaneous glimpse into life as it was for one young man in Mlynov in 1914 just before and during WWI. This is the only extant piece of writing from someone from Mlynov before 1929.

When we first meet the sixteen-year-old Yitzhak, he is already a devoted Zionist and in emotional turmoil about his efforts to make aliyah. In fact, we are left with the impression that his emotional agitation prompted him to start a diary. On the very firt page, he is already agonizing about whether the plans he his making to go to the Land of Israel that summer will come to pass. We don't know how Yitzhak's Zionist aspiration started. We do know from essays written later by other Mlynov born individuals that Yitzhak was among only a handfull of young men in Mlynov who dreamed of aliyah at this point in time.[*] After WWI, the Zionist dream would take root more broadly among Mlynov youth, as Zionist youth groups were organized by another young man who would subsequently marry Yitzhak's sister, Malcah, and make aliyah himself.

Yitzhak was born on November 30, 1897 (5th of Kislev 5676) as indicated in his diary several times. He was the youngest of five children. Before WWI, his family had a convenience store operating in his home. When we first meet Yizhak in his diary, he is sitting at a table behind this home and he is distraught that his plans to journey to the Land of Israel are up in the air.

About this translation

This translation was created by Howard I. Schwartz, PhD, with Hanina Epstein.

Each of Yitzhak's diary entry is translated with both footnotes from the academic edition as well as additional footnotes from the translator. An interpretive summary of each diary entry is offered as well. A few explanations to guide the reader are in order here.

An annotated critical edition of the Diary was released in 2015 (Yitzhak Lamdan’s Diary. 5674 [1914]- 5684 [1924]. Annotated Critical Edition. Ed. Avidov Lipsker, Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University, 2015. The diary was written more than 70 years ago and has entered the public domain. A Hebrew version is now published online by the Ben Yehuda Project, a volunteer initiative to create electronic editions of Hebrew literary classics.

This translation follows the scholarly edition of Lamdan's diary published in 2015. The page breaks in Lamdan's diary are marked by square brackets and a page number (for example, [5] meaning the 5th page of Lamdan's notebook). Footnotes from the original scholarly edition are extremely helpful and are translated as well. They appear in the text as numbered footnotes.

The translator adds footnotes as well and these appear with a footnote number followed by a letter [e.g., 49a] in the text and the translators initials [HS] at the end of the footnote. Since the diary is by its very nature a stream of consciousness and not a polished literary work, and since Lamdan already has a poetic bent, the text is sometimes elliptical and at times the exact meaning is not clear. The translator followed the text closely but sought a word order, grammar or idiom that best expressed the ideas and emotions as they would be stated in normal English by a young man.

Translation is always both an act of fidelity but also of interpretation. Since every word has multiple possible renditions in the English language, the translation is necessarily an interpretation. The translator has already translated the Mlynov-Mervits Memorial book and several Mlynov family memoirs into English and thus brings that understanding to the translation of Lamdan's diary. In some cases, that deep understanding of Mlynov history helps uncover nuances about Lamdan and the people he mentions in the diary that were not available to the author of the academic edition.

Symbols used in the translation

[1], [12] etc. indicates a new page in the notebook of the diary
text^8a - a letter following a footnote number indicates a footnote added by the translator
[ ] backets in the text indicates a clarification added to the translation
[HS] - indicates the footnote was added by the translator, Howard Schwartz

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Compiled by Howard I. Schwartz
Updated: July 2024
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