On the Unknown Soldier Symbol in Israeli Culture Irit Dekel Abstract Te “unknown soldier” symbol in Jewish Israeli commemorative discourse was referred to frst by veneration in Avraham Stern’s poem “Unknown Soldiers” (1932) and then by negation, such as in the popular Yehuda Amichai poem “We Do Not Have Unknown Soldiers” (1969). It is often cited and read in commemorative ceremonies. In negating this category, I argue, cultural strategies of remembrance and forgetting were used as recruiting mechanisms for missions of nation building, which demanded various forms of sacrifce that favor the collective over the individual. Reading the ways in which the “unknown soldier” symbol had been used in the Yishuv Jewish community and in Israel, I suggest that until the 1970s, losing one’s life in battle was a way to regain one’s name as an individual, while afterwards, the use of the symbol, whether negated or revered, points to the anonymity of an individual within a fragmented collective that does not necessarily venerate national sacrifce. WE DO NOT HAVE UNKNOWN SOLDIERS We do not have Unknown Soldiers. We do not have the Unknown Soldier tomb Whoever likes to rest his wreath Should break apart 1 his wreath To many flowers and divide them To leaves and disperse them. And all the dead return home And they all have names. [Yehuda Amichai] 2 “WE”: THE ISRAELI COLLECTIVE AND THE FALLEN SOLDIER The “unknown soldier” is a prominent symbol in the Jewish Israeli commemoration discourse, 3 mainly seen in commemorative texts, such as the much quoted Yehuda Amichai poem, which corresponds with an earlier poem by Avraham Stern, in 1932: “Unknown Soldiers.” 4 Stern’s poem cites Uri Zvi Greenberg’s 5 poem that cen- ters on unknown soldiers, both in reaction to the 1929 riots. 6 Stern set his poem to music; it was the anthem of the Irgun and subsequently became the anthem of the LEHI, a revisionist paramilitary group that violently resisted the British Mandate of Palestine. Since that time, it has been the anthem of the Israeli right wing and radical youth groups. The symbol of the unknown soldier has been central to right as well as to center and left ideas of national defense and militarism. Comparing Amichai’s poem to that of Stern’s, in Amichai, the speaker can be heard representing a collective voice— “We Do Not Have Unknown Soldiers” versus “We Are Unknown Soldiers” in Stern’s poem. Commemorative ceremonies for fallen sol- diers often use Amichai’s poem, in which the unknown soldier is negated: “we” do not have it. This negation differentiates the Israeli remem- brance practices from those of Europe, described by Mosse in reaction to World War I and World War II. 7 Sivan points out the centrality of cited poetry and texts in commemorative rituals and their prevalence in other references to sacrifice. 8 Neiger, Meyers, and Zandberg describe how the use of music in memorial events creates a DOI | 10.26613/sjhss/1.1.7 SJHSS 2017