Yom Kippur War: Leonard Cohen: »I feel good in the desert. War is OK.”

It is a strange book, one that leaves questions unanswered and perplexes you. Should it be a hero’s memorial book? With the poet and troubadour Leonard Cohen as the main character. A patriotic war diary that records Israel’s threatened situation in October 1973, the surprise attack by Egypt and Syria, on Yom Kippur, the highest Jewish holiday, the Feast of Atonement.

nd.DieWoche – our weekly newsletter

With our weekly newsletter nd.DieWoche look at the most important topics of the week and read them Highlights our Saturday edition on Friday. Get your free subscription here.

Born in Canada in 1934, singer-songwriter, writer, poet and painter Leonard Cohen was in crisis. His last tour of Europe had sobered him up. He didn’t want to be turned into a plaything in the music business. He had announced his departure from the stage and was looking for new tasks. So he made his way to Israel to support soldiers at the front. Not with a weapon in hand, but as an artist and singer, with the guitar at the ready. Cohen, the son of an influential Jewish family from Canada, is 39 years old and he describes Israel as his “mythical homeland.”

In this book, excerpts of previously unpublished notes by Cohen, who died in Los Angeles in 2016, are printed for the first time. The poet left behind a total of 45 typewritten pages, written in his longed-for place, the Greek island of Hydra. The notes are sexually charged, mystical, enigmatic, mysterious, difficult to decipher, not grasped by reason, but rather by feeling. “Cohen’s manuscript about the war raises more questions than it answers,” admits editor Matti Friedman, adding: “He is not prepared to explain directly what he was thinking.” Friedman tries to explain, but fails .

The song “Lover Lover Lover” was written in those October days in Israel. There is a verse in Cohen’s notebook that was ultimately never sung by him: “I went down into the desert/to help my brothers fight/I knew they weren’t wrong./I knew they weren’t were in the right/ But bones must stand upright and walk/ and blood must move/ and men walk and draw ugly lines/ across the holy ground.” The artist is torn between the horrors and atrocities of war and inner peace, Kindness.

“We sang wherever we were asked,” Cohen writes in his diary. “Here and there it was suggested to me that I was useful.” And then the doubts again: “Men were killed. I started ending our show with a new song. The chorus was: Lover lover lover lover lover lover lover come back to me. I said to myself: Maybe with this song I can protect some people.”

The strange lines follow later: “We had to take cover every now and then. I feel good in the desert. War is okay. People at their best.” And then these notes in his diary: “The helicopter lands. In the strong wind, the soldiers rush to unload it. It’s full of wounded people. I see her bandages and hold back my tears. It is young Jews who are dying. Then someone tells me they are Egyptian wounded. My relief amazes me. I hate this. I hate my relief. This cannot be forgiven. There’s blood on your hands.”

How do such reflections fit with the fascination with the military that emerges in an interview from 1974: “War is wonderful. They will never abolish it. It is one of the few opportunities where you can show your best side. He is so economical when it comes to gestures and movements. Every single gesture is precise, every effort is total. Nobody is fooling around. Everyone is responsible for each other. The feeling of community, kinship and brotherhood, devotion. You can feel things there that you simply can’t feel in modern city life. That is very impressive.” Like Ernst Jünger, Cohen invokes something like the “purity” of war.

The volume also contains unknown photos of Cohen among soldiers, including a photograph showing him next to General Ariel Sharon, later prime minister and prime minister of Israel. Cohen noted: “I am introduced to a great general, ‘the Lion of the Desert’… We drink cognac while sitting on the sand in the shadow of a tank. I want his job.”

Matti Friedman brings together a lot of everyday war life, portraits, voices, opinions, fates, chance encounters. Three weeks of defensive war, 2,700 dead Israelis. In the end, victory. And at the same time the germ of new wars.

The book seems a bit fragmented, at times lost in the romanticism of war, then again overly speculative because too little is learned about the protagonist’s true thoughts and feelings. The poet Leonard Cohen, who is generally considered to be peaceful, is demythologized. Patriotism and heroic stories dominate – not necessarily helpful in the tricky, latently warlike situation in the Middle East.

Matti Friedman: Who through fire. War on Yom Kippur and the rebirth of Leonard Cohen. A.d. English v. Malte Gerken. Hentrich & Hentrich, 200 p., hardcover, €22.

Subscribe to the “nd”

Being left is complicated.
We keep track!

With our digital promotional subscription you can read all issues of »nd« digitally (nd.App or nd.Epaper) for little money at home or on the go.
Subscribe now!