From right to left: Israel eldad and nietzsche’s reception in Israel

The seven volumes of Nietzsche translated to Hebrew by Israel Eldad (1910-1996) in the 1960‘s and 1970‘s established him as a major Israeli scholar of Nietzsche. Not only was Eldad a brilliant translator; he was also an innovative commentator. His instructive reading of Nietzsche made a decisive contribution to the propagation of Nietzschean discourse in Israel. As one of the leaders of LEHI, the Hebrew underground against the British before the founding of the State of Israeli, Eldad was considered a radical intellectual of the Israeli right and had a Messianic vision of the future of Israel. His outlook was influenced deeply by the Nietzschean Lebensphilosophie. In this article I will trace the role of Nietzsche in Eldad’s political biography, Messianic philosophy and intellectual enterprise.