Abba Kovner (Hebrew: אבא קובנר; 1918–1987) was a Lithuanian Jewish Hebrew poet, writer, and partisan leader. He became one of the great poets of modern Israel. He was a cousin of the Israeli Communist Party leader Meir Vilner.
Abba Kovner was born in the Crimean Black Sea port city of Sevastopol but soon moved with his family to Vilnius, Lithuania) where he grew up and was educated at the secondary Hebrew academy and the school of the arts. Whil...
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Abba Kovner (Hebrew: אבא קובנר; 1918–1987) was a Lithuanian Jewish Hebrew poet, writer, and partisan leader. He became one of the great poets of modern Israel. He was a cousin of the Israeli Communist Party leader Meir Vilner.
Abba Kovner was born in the Crimean Black Sea port city of Sevastopol but soon moved with his family to Vilnius, Lithuania) where he grew up and was educated at the secondary Hebrew academy and the school of the arts. While pursuing his studies, he joined and became an active member in the socialist Zionist youth movement HaShomer HaTzair.
In June 1941, Nazi Germany attacked Vilna, which was by that time in Lithuanian SSR, and after occupation established the Vilna Ghetto. Kovner managed to escape with several friends to a Dominican convent headed by Anna Borkowska in the city's suburbs, but he soon returned to the ghetto. He concluded that in order for any revolt to be successful, a Jewish resistance fighting force needed to be assembled.
At the start of 1942,...
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