Between the Universal and the Local: Representations of Current Events in Lea Goldberg's Writings for Children during the British Mandate

Abstract

Lea Goldberg played a pivotal role in the children literature arena during the Yishuv period. Beginning in 1936, only a year after her immigration to Mandatory Palestine, Goldberg served as associate-editor for Davar Leyeladim, the leading Hebrew children’s weekly, published by the official newspaper of the Histadrut (the General Federation of Labor). Additionally, over 500 hundred of her works for children, including poems, stories, translations, essays, literary criticism for young readers, and even comic strips were published in the magazine. It was a tumultuous era. The Arab Revolt (1936–1939), the outbreak of WWII and the publication of the MacDonald White Paper of 1939 all exerted a direct impact on the Jewish communities in Palestine and abroad. These political and national crises of the day also greatly affected the educational and literary fields. Though most pieces in Davar Leyeladim touched on current events, Goldberg declared her unflagging commitment to aesthetic and humanistic universal values even in those anguished times. The poets’ role, she claimed, is to remind their readers what is important and beautiful in the world. Her writings for children epitomized this approach at first, but gradually changed as the war in Europe intensified. The article explores Goldberg’s unique treatment of current events in her writings for children, and her efforts to reconcile Labor Zionist ideals and aspirations with her own aesthetic convictions. The conflicts and contradictions between local and universal ideals engendered some of her most fascinating works for children that have not as yet assumed center stage in scholarly research.