לאה גולדברג האנגלופילית: מחשבה מחודשת על אופקי תרבותה ותרבות זמנה

The common perception regarding Israeli author-poet Leah Goldberg (1911–70), that her one foot was rooted in Russian culture while her other foot remained rooted in German culture, is
re-examined in this article. A new reading of her writings is suggested in its place, emphasizing instead her affinities for the Anglo-American culture. The argument is that her dialogue with that culture results partly from Goldberg’s biography, and even more so from the historical transformations which she witnessed.
The initial trigger that led her to delve into English literature is inextricably connected to its being a stark contrast to German writing, which was surely significant with the Nazis’ rise to power. The British 'dryness' served Goldberg as an inoculation against the 'storminess' of the German writing. She was drawn to this culture further owing to the British Mandatory period here in Palestine-Eretz Israel, especially when understood against the background of World War II, when Walt Whitman and other British and American authors served as polestars of democracy and freedom of expression for her in the sea of fascism.
With the conclusion of the war, Goldberg identified the transition that had taken place in Western culture, namely, the strengthening of Anglo-American culture in place of Russian, French and other cultures. Accordingly, she was among the few of her generation whose ear was attentive to the “new music” that beat in the works of the modern English and American authors and poets. This attentiveness can explain the transition to looser writing that is apparent in her later poetry, and how Goldberg became a mediator between the poets of the 'Statehood Generation' (including Nathan Zach, Yehuda Amichai and Dahlia Ravikovitch) and the Hebrew poets of her own generation. Even then, in the 1950s and sixties, her identification with the Anglo-American culture was accompanied by a political component – namely, opposition to the Soviet 'realistic socialism.'