The classic book series is on its way to the Israeli cultural Hall-of-Fame. “The Company of Complete and Definite Secrets” is making a grand enterance to the 21st century.
By ADI SHTAMBERGERHasamba(photo credit: Ohad Romnao)
If you grew up in Israel during the 1970s and 80s, the mysterious words in the headline would be very familiar to you. You could not have missed this wild cry of adventure, nor could you not have known who Yaron Zehavi was.The acronym “Hasamba” stands for “The Company of Complete and Definite Secrets” in Hebrew. It is the name of a series of children’s books comprising 44 (!) volumes. The series is still to this day one of the most loved icons of Israeli culture.The books tell the story of a group of courageous children who reveal secrets, fight bad guys and protect their country against the backdrop of the British Mandate. They also help the illegal Jewish defense organizations of HaHagana, Etzel and Lechi. The first 16 books presented mythical characters such as Commander Yaron Zehavi, the beautiful Tamar, fat Ehud and thin Uzi, who were smart, brave and very patriotic.They were all based on real children who lived on Kibbutz Na’an next to the books’ author, Yigal Mossinzon. The most important character, Yaron Zehavi, was based on the son of actor Bezalel London, Mossinzon’s friend and frequent houseguest. The boy eventually grew up to become well known Israeli Television and theatre icon Yaron London.As children, we were always waiting for the next installment in the series to come out, with a new one usually appearing each year. The books were read and re-read, passed between us and discussed repeatedly with other neighborhood children and classmates. There wasn’t that much pre-teen Hebrew literature available to us back then, especially not the action-packed, thrilling kind. Other books were preachy and educational, filled with moral messages and lessons. We couldn’t get enough of this free-spirited, ground and rule breaking series.The books were refreshingly light, exciting and pure fun. The characters were role models to look up to and be jealous of. We all ran around trying to find the secret entrance to the “Electric Cave”, where they used to meet in the books. On top of that, there were also cute and funny illustrations, first penned by Shmuel Katz, and later on by Arie Moscovitch and other illustrators.Only many years later did I realize how much of my generation’s knowledge of Israel’s history actually came from these books.They were full of values such as love for the country, self-sacrifice in defense of Israel and a general “all for one, one for all” kind of spirit that you rarely see in kids books today.You never even realized while reading them that these values were seeping into your brain. That was the genius of this series. Of course, as is everything in Israel, they were also very political, a fact which we totally missed and couldn’t have cared less about at the time.Yigal Mossinzon wrote the Hasamba series during the 50s, at the request of his son, Ido, who was later killed in the Yom Kippur War. He changed the plots and characters to fit the times, but the basic principles stayed the same – a bunch of kids taking control and responsibility in order to change the world around them, saving the day and making things better.
Hasamba has been filmed twice.The first movie came out in 1971 and immediately gained a cult following. It starred a number of actors who later became icons in their own right, including Shlomo Artzi, Meni Pe’er, Ze’ev Revach and several others. We used to wait for it to be broadcast on TV, which it was almost every Independence Day. The second movie came out in 1985 and was less successful.At the end of September this year, a new TV series called Hasamba – the 3rd Generation was aired on the Israeli HOT cable network.I recently had the privilege of speaking to series creator, Dror Nobelman. “When I was little, I loved the series”, he explained, “So when the Mossinzon family turned to me to ask me whether I wanted to develop a new, modern take on it for TV, I didn’t have to think about it for too long. I tried to make the new series funny and thrilling,” he said.In this new series, the original characters are now much older, played by senior actors. While they are still brave and adventurous, their grandchildren have ideas of their own about how to solve problems and get things done, and they create the next generation of the Hasamba group. Nobelman said, “I hoped the double casting, combining older and younger actors would bring the right audience, and so far we have received great responses from newspaper critics and viewers. The shows ratings are excellent.” When asked if he the new series would use the original plotlines from the books, Nobelman said that they would not, but the creators enjoy sporadically inserting phrases and lines from the original series for the fans’ delight.The political aspect of the books is much more complicated today, though Nobelman said the creators don’t shy away from politics. He said would like to take Hasamba into new territory, such as tackling the modern issue of violence on our roads and going on spying operations in Iran. For those of you who still can’t get quite a handle of what Hasamba is about and require a reference point, Nobelman said he would best describe the series as the Zionist version of “The Fantastic Five.”It seems that this icon of early Israeli culture is enjoying a revival and is here to stay.Chart
