One from the GHL
One from the GHL () is a Hebrew poem, later composed as a song, written by Nathan Alterman during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. It refers to the tens of thousands of holocaust survivals and other Jewish refugees that have immigrated to the newly created state of Israel and were immediately drafted in to the IDF and sent to the front lines with no military training. Many of the new recruits died in battle shortly after their immigration to Israel. The name of the draft is G.H.L.- Hebrew acronym for oversea draft. Overall some 20,000 newly arrived  immigrants were drafted to the IDF during the war composing a third of the Israeli army manpower, some three hundreds of them died in battle. Nathan Alterman wrote this poem in his weekly column in the daily newspaper Davar and published it in the last day of the war, in protest of the inhuman treatment of these soldiers. The poem criticizes with irony the instrumental use of the state towards the soldiers compared with pretension of the state to serve as homeland to Jewish refugees. Later the poem was composed as a song by Shem Tov Levy and first performed  by Arik Einstein in his 1985 album "land product". It is often sung during the Israeli Remembrance Day and in ceremonies marking the 1948 war of independence.