The Diary of Yitzhak Lamdan

Interpretive summaries for Yitzhak Lamdan's diary entries in 1916 continue here. The interpretive summaries go beyond a mere summary of each of Lamdan's entries and also offer analysis of what is being said. You can follow the interpretive summaries below, or you can return to the interpretive summaries from 1914-1915, or turn to the overview, translations, or the concise summaries of the diary entries.

Diary 2 (January - March 1916)

January 1916
January 3, 1916

January 1916

Interpretive Summary – Monday night, January 3, 1916, Hubyn Pershyi

Yitzhak hasn’t written in over a week which is unusual for him. He acknowledges that he there were subjects to write about but things got in the way. In the meantime, his state of mind has changed. He is again feeling the grief and anguish of separation from his family, which he has expressed many times before. Rumors still arrive that there is hope for peace. And they arouse and encourage the heart a bit, even though such rumors have come before. Accompanying these feelings is disgust with himself for writing several entries about his attraction and bubbling feelings for Z. B. All his feelings of love and passion have now been annihilated in the past week, he tells us. And he feels a special valor looking down on such inconsequential matters now. Those earlier entries appear to him now as a “mark of disgrace and a souvenir of transgression.” He quotes from the poem “In a Foreign Country,” which he wrote earlier. He truly identifies now with a line he wrote there: And now like a man of 70 [years] am I…

Read the translation of January 3, 1916 or return to the top of the page.

Interpretations by Howard I. Schwartz
Updated: October 2025
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