הקטרוג והאמונה: אורי צבי גרינברג וקיבוץ משמר העמק

This article deals with a corpus of poems written by the Hebrew poet, Uri Zvi Grinberg [UZG], in the summer of 1936, entitled: ‘Neither God, nor king, nor hero’. This corpus includes twenty-seven poems, divided into three poem cycles, that were incorporated into the closing section of his book: The Book of Indictment and Faith. The discussion focuses on the poem cycle: ‘Face-to-face’ that opens this corpus and includes harsh descriptions targeting the members of Kibbutz Mishmar Ha-‘Emek in three of the cycles poems. This article clarifies the historical circumstances that caused UZG to verbally attack those kibbutz members. It also examines the reception of these aggressive poems during different historical periods and amid various interpretive communities, based on evidence found in the archives of Kibbutz Mishmar Ha-'Emek and the Shomriya Educational Institute. Another question answered in this article is whether UZG'S words of harsh indictment against Kibbutz Mishmar Ha-'Emek and the collective settlements of the Ha-Shomer Ha-Tsa'ir ultimately rend the covenant UZG had initially forged with these pioneers when he arrived in Israel and of whom he had announced: ‘The proletariat in Israel called me to be their poet’.