I was there too is a groundbreaking book for an entire generation that fought repressed and unglamorous wars, paid heavy prices and remained transparent. Yonatan Herblin, a gifted writer in his mid-twenties, is a warrior who carries with him deep scars in his soul, one of the first of his generation to process that war and its costs. He does this with talent, tenderness and human love that permeates every word, and proves to be an authentic and touching speaker of the spirit of the times. I was also there accompanying his hero in the days leading up to the Tzuk Eitan war and in the war itself, in the psychologist's room to which he was referred to deal with the shock of the battle, and in his travels as a backpacker in South America. In doing so, he touches on rare themes in contemporary Hebrew literature and plants contemporary phenomena - the trip after the army, drinking alcohol and drug use - not only in the social context, but also in the mental context. Like his young hero, Yonatan Herblin also watches the world with torn eyes that do not always understand what they see, and precisely because of this his experiences and insights are heart-wrenching, and the courage he demonstrates in probing his deepest wounds, which are the wounds of Israeli society as a whole, is inspiring. Yonatan Herblin, twenty-six years old, a student at the Hebrew University of Literature and Philosophy. Yonatan is a former fighter in the GDSAR unit of the Nahal Brigade, and now lives in Jerusalem. The process of writing and working on the book I was there too is a significant part of the processing of the fighting experiences that Jonathan went through with his friends in the Tzuk Eitan War and in the process of recovering from them.
