Days of Ziklag [2 vols.]

In the summer of 1948, a company of Israeli soldiers seizes a hilltop Arab position, in a place which may or may not be the biblical Ziklag, and holds it for six days, in the end fighting off an Egyptian armored attack. First published in 1958, ten years after Israel’s War of Independence, Days of Ziklag was the first Hebrew novel to deal openly with the brutality of the war and its destruction of pastoral Arab villages. These soldiers begin to question the humanist, socialist heritage of their parents. Within the structure of the seven days of battle, Yizhar examines his generation’s ideological crisis. For this he uses the framework of the small commando group, intimate and dedicated. He exploits their intimacy, travelling through their collective consciousness and laying bare their interior monologue, giving expression to the experience of the 1948 generation. always against the backdrop of the land – its changing hues and moods.

Mo less important in Days of Ziklag is Yizhar’s peerless descriptive ability. He gives perfect renditions of sensory impressions and shows remarkable skill with minute technical descriptions. With its minimal plot, Days of Ziklag maps out space so vast that the book has been called “the fictional study of the Zionist enterprise.”

Although considered to be a book about Israel’s War of Independence, 1948 is mainly the quarry from which Yizhar drew his raw material. It is true that anyone seeking a history of the war will find here an authentic account, but critics agree that Days of Ziklag is universal and ageless – a book about war, life and death.

For Days of Ziklag Yizhar was awarded in 1959 both the Brenner Prize and the Israel Prize.