Finding work that is accessible equally to those familiar with Jewish history and Hebrew poetry and those who are not, is rare. However, Suddenly, the Sight of War: Violence and Nationalism in Hebrew Poetry in the 1940s by Hannan Hever is comprehensible, yet critically engaging because Hever is able to find a balance between poetic interpretation and attention to historical details. The book manages to take a particularly turbulent and traumatic period of Jewish history and contextualize it chronologically through an analysis of poetry written in pre-state Israel between World War II and the War of Independence, a time which played a pivotal role in establishing and reshaping a modern national identity for the Jewish people.

Hever characterizes Hebrew poetry written during the 1940s as being driven and reshaped predominantly by both violence and death. He also emphasizes that Hebrew poetry was written in response to the intense level of brutality the international Jewish community had been exposed to leading up to the 1940s; many Hebrew poets abstained from writing about war when World War II initially broke out. When news of the Holocaust finally reached Palestine, poets fixated on the horrors witnessed by survivors. This reaction, per Hever's claim, had shaped the Israeli nationalist perception of the self surrounding both victimhood and defeatism. Poets focused on feelings of isolation, terror, and death—which would then be used to justify the Israeli use of violence against the Palestinian people in the late 40s.

Part one of the book discusses the symbolist movement in Hebrew poetry both before and during World War II. It also delves into the disagreements of Hebrew poets over integrating Jewish morality into discussions about war. Hever also discusses central figures in Hebrew symbolism, including Natan Alterman, Avraham Shlonsky, Leah Goldberg, and others. For them, “poetic expression is eternal and universal, and, because it was not directly answerable to the real world, it didn't have to adapt to events of war” (17). To better understand the connection between Hebrew symbolism and nationalism, Hever analyzes the symbolist representation of death as it appeared in poetry, particularly, the image of the “living-dead who are granted significance in the life span of the national collective” (41).

The second part of the book shifts the focus to a discussion about how the Holocaust shaped Zionist symbols into ones of victimhood and agony. It also discusses debates poets had within their work about the value of revenge and how it fits into the Jewish faith. Hever provides a detailed examination of such themes as they appear in Alterman's The poems of the plagues of Egypt, which was published in 1944. Alterman employs a historical analogy between “biblical past and World War II, to highlight the suffering, and to justify acts of resistance and revenge” (76). The poems created a debate among poets and critics who failed to identify with Alterman's humanization of innocent Egyptian civilians.

The third and final part of the book analyzes the further development of Hebrew poetry and traces how the image of the Jewish “victim” was transformed during and after the Independence War into a nationalist tool for justifying violence and cruelty against the Palestinian people. Hever brings back the image of the national living-dead, “the fighter whose material existence is lost but whose imagined national presence in the collective memory” (175). He also examines a collection of poems by Amir Gilboa who opposes the “fundamental poetic conventions of Israeli war poetry” (188) where the “symbolist mode of imagery didn't suit the new cultural situation that emerged at the end of the Independence War” (200), which eventually led to the emergence of the image of soldiers in Hebrew poetry.

Hever is particularly adept at acknowledging the voices of marginalized Hebrew authors such as women poets during this period. Throughout the text, he mentions well-known female poets like Leah Goldberg and Yocheved Bat-Miriam. Pursuing a similar track, Hever is also quick to acknowledge that many Hebrew poets in the 1940s overlooked or entirely dismissed poetry written by Yemenite or North African Jews. He also is careful to note early on that, after the creation of the Israeli nation-state, Hebrew poetry is not just limited to members of the Jewish community: Hebrew poetry written by Palestinian Israelis diversifies and adds depth to the Hebrew poetic canon. He notes the significance of poets like Anton Shammas, Salman Masalha, and Naim Areidi, and discusses how their identities both as Arabs and as Israelis complicate the assumptions of Hebrew writers and poets that they were writing to an entirely Jewish audience.

Suddenly, the Sight of War: Violence and Nationalism in Hebrew Poetry in the 1940s is an excellent synthesis of poetic analysis and historical contextualization. Hever is a renowned scholar and author known for his work on contemporary Hebrew literature. He demonstrates his vast knowledge in this book while managing to keep it accessible and engaging for scholars or anyone interested in understanding Hebrew poetry from the 1940s.