"Ha-Degel": Uri Kessari's Childhood Newspaper / "הדגל" — עתון נעורים של אורי קיסרי

Uri Kessari (1901-79) was a noted Israeli journalist whose long career included affiliation with Davar, Doar Ha-Yom (where he was Ithamar Ben-Avi's assistant and secretary-general of the editorial board), Ha-Aretz and Ma'ariv. He also founded and edited the weekly Teisha Ba-Erev and Ha-Olam Ha-Zeh, and was, inter alia, a theater critic. Recently, a newspaper that he edited as a child in Tel Aviv has come to light — Ha-Degel ("The Flag"), begun in 1911 as a weekly (it later became a fortnightly) by a group of pupils at the Gymnasia Herzliya in the newly founded city of Tel Aviv. The group called itself "Agudat Kadima" ("The Forward Association"), defining itself as "a federation of children striving for spiritual development." This paper was to run for three years, with a total of 37 issues. Four goals were articulated by the association: reading books, presenting plays, organizing hikes and publishing a newspaper. According to the young editor, the newspaper, which represented the culmination of the association's activities, hoped to acquaint pupils with contemporary Jewish writers. Ha-Degel's contents included original and translated stories, brief sketches and poems devoted to holidays and special events, local and foreign news, and personal items related to the students' lives. An early and consistent collaborator was the young Nahum Gutman (1898-1981), later to become a noted painter and children's book writer. Another contributor was a talented new immigrant from Poland, Yitzhak Yaffe, who, far away from his family, committed suicide several years later. Yet another figure referred to was David Hacohen (1897-1984), later to become a prominent political personality. The newspaper conveys a great deal of information on the lives of these young people in the early years of Tel Aviv.