holy tongue and the tongue of the martyrs: the Eichmann Trial as reflected in Letste Nayes

The Eichmann trial is usually acknowledged as the first crucial turning point in the attitude of Israeli Jewish public toward Holocaust survivors in general and their possible role in the Israeli ethos in particular. The aim of this paper is to examine this view by studying the views expressed by the survivors themselves in Yiddish Israeli media. It will be shown that many of the survivors grasped their assigned role in Israeli society after the trial as a disappointment: their material loss and their heroism were indeed acknowledged for the first time by the Israeli public, and this was a partial blessed change; but acknowledgment of the magnanimity of their cultural loss was never acknowledged because the Israeli ethos was built upon its rejection.