When we gathered at Elkhart Lake the news was already filled with reports of rising tensions between Israel and Egypt. At the time the president of Egypt, Gamal Nasser gave a speech to union members declaring that if the country were to go to war, “…our basic objective will be to destroy Israel.” It renewed in my parents and much of the Jewish community in Milwaukee memories of a speech Nasser had made before the United Nations some seven years earlier. In that speech he talked about taking back Palestine and, “…the annulment of Israel’s existence.”
As a kid I had always thought of Nasser as fitting the description my father often used, which was a guy “full of hot air.” When my vocabulary grew to include the term rhetoric his speeches served as an easy to understand illustration. However, as word of his throwing out UN peace keepers and blocking Israeli ships was reported, a surprise to me because my image of both Israel and Egypt was of waterless places blanketed by sand, I, too, worried about a possible war.
On a typical early June day long before Twitter, the internet or even CNN, when most discussions centered around the end of school and plans for the summer, rumors about an Israeli-Egyptian war spread through the halls of John Marshall Junior Senior High School. By the time I got home the news bulletins were constantly interrupting regular programming on television and Israel was fighting Jordan and Syria, as well as Egypt.
Such news only heightened my anxiety over what it would mean to be a Jew in a world where the place we had read in the torah was promised to Moses and his people was blown to smithereens. I had seen maps of little Israel stuck among the much larger Egypt, Syria, and other Arab countries. To me it was David and Goliath all over again.
Up until that time my only frame of reference for modern military battles had been World War II and Vietnam. The only planes I had seen in movies and news reports were German, Japanese, British and American. Yet, that night they showed a swarm of Israeli fighter planes taking out airfields inside Egypt. My image of middle-eastern soldiers doing battle on camelback was shattered.
Since we couldn’t get together during the week Donna and I would talk on the phone. She amazed me when she said her mother had talked to family in Israel. It was never clear if these were shared family members since we were fourth cousins, but that was of little consequence. In a time when few people made long distant phone calls it astounded me that her parents would spend the small fortune it had to cost to call Israel.
We went that Friday night, and met up with a number of friends, for Sabbath services at her synagogue, Temple Menorah. After Rabbi Lehr gave an eloquent sermon about coming together as a community to show the world we were united behind Israel, Donna decided to approach him after the service. He confirmed boys and girls as young as sixteen could join the Israeli army, and as a Jew she would receive citizenship and could enlist with her parents’ permission.
Before we reached my car I reminded her she was opposed to the war in Vietnam. She insisted there was a difference. She clearly articulated her belief that Vietnam was morally reprehensible tyranny and Israel was fighting for its right to survive.
Fortunately the Six Day War ended the next day and I no longer had to worry about my girlfriend leaving me to go and fight in the holy land.
Do you remember the Six Day War? How about memories of other wars? Tell us in the comment section.
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