"אנו עולים ושרים"? חבלי הקליטה של המשורר יעקב כהן

What are the difficulties facing an elder intellectual who relocates to a new country? How does he experience the process of social and cultural assimilation? The present study deals with the hardships and challenges facing the poet Ya'acov Cahan during the British Mandate and the first decade of the State of Israel. His case is an example of the assimilation process that older intellectual immigrants of his time often encountered. Cahan arrived in Mandatory Israel at the age of 53, after being known in the Zionist movement in Europe as a poet. He fought to establish Hebrew as the national language, and after immigrating to Eretz-Israel was received warmly by the ruling political party, Mapai. However, Cahan's writings and personal letters reveal the difficulties facing an older immigrant in his efforts to assimilate into a new society and culture. Cahan's writings indicate his feelings of detachment and alienation from the receiving society's way of life. Obviously, these feelings made it difficult for him to become "sabra," a native Israeli, an integral part of the receiving society.