Six Days, One Miracle

American Jews were part of 1967's triumph
April 10, 2008 - Michelle Mostovy-Eisenberg, Staff Writer

Moshe Dayan, one of the masterminds behind the Six-Day War victory

As the date of Ruth Pinkenson Feldman's high school graduation from Akiba Hebrew Academy neared in late spring 1967, she wondered if the ceremony would even take place.

After all, remembered the Bala Cynwyd resident, "how could you have this big celebration, even for such an occasion, when Israel was at war?"

All eyes were on the Middle East then, as tensions began to rise between the Jewish state and the Arab countries that surrounded it -- Egypt to the southwest, Lebanon directly north, Syria to the northeast, and to the east, Jordan.

Jewish people watched and waited with bated breath to see what would become of their ancestral homeland.

"Border Tense, but Calm as Worried World Waits," read a headline on the front page of the May 26, 1967, issue of the Jewish Exponent. "Community Rallies to Aid the State of Israel," read another, as "community leaders called hurried conferences and took concerted action to bring pressure," and "do what they could to aid Israel in its current crisis."

The local Jewish community -- including its youth -- began to raise awareness for the plight of the tiny country, as evidenced in the actions of the confirmation class of Old York Road Temple-Beth Am.

By late May, its members had circulated a petition to be sent to President Lyndon Johnson, seeking his support for the threatened Jewish state; more than 500 names were acquired from local high school students. This showing of support roused an emotional reaction from their rabbi.

"When we think of our American Jewish youth, we often picture them as being without Jewish loyalties," wrote Rabbi Harold B. Waintrup to his Abington congregation in a newsletter from May 29. "Here, in this crisis in the Middle East, they reveal a sense of commitment and concern far surpassing our most liberal estimate ... their Jewish sensitivities are far deeper than we have imagined."

Matters worsened in the weeks leading up to June 1967, as Syria began shelling the northern Israeli communities near the Golan Heights. Then, Egypt began amassing thousands of tanks and an equal number of soldiers at its border with Israel, and closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships, as unified Arab action was sought.

On the morning of June 5, at 7:45 Israeli time, the Jewish state launched a pre-emptive strike against the Egyptian air force. Jordan followed this with an attack on Netanya, western Jerusalem and just outside Tel Aviv.

On Tuesday, June 6, Israeli units organized to attack Jordanian forces in the West Bank.

Another Arab-Israeli war had begun.

'This Is It'
Despite the events taking place half a world away, the 17th graduating class of Akiba did, in fact, have its ceremony after all -- on June 6 at 8 p.m. in the sanctuary of Har Zion Temple, then located in Wynnefield, though the scale of the reception was toned down.

The commencement speaker for the class of 1967 was Elie Wiesel.

Feldman said that she vividly remembered sitting on the bimah as the Holocaust survivor stood at the podium to address the 20-some members of her class; tears started to form in his eyes as he spoke. He paused, she said, and buried his head in his hands.

"He couldn't believe that he was reliving this -- that in his life, he was seeing it again," she recalled. "It was a very memorable experience.

"I was so scared," she went on. "It was so chilling -- that we were on the brink of destruction again -- and I was graduating from high school.

"I felt, 'Oh, my God, this is it.' "

The heaviest fighting of the war came on June 7, as the Israeli infantry moved toward Ramallah. Later, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan had paratroopers enter the Old City of Jerusalem via the Lion's Gate, and they captured the Western Wall and the Temple Mount.

Everyday life for American Jews continued, but it shrank in importance as the events in Eretz Yisrael heated up, and apprehension over the Middle East spurred American Jewry into action.

"Help in Israel is needed now!" read a full-page ad in the June 9, 1967 issue of the Exponent.

Calls poured into the offices of the paper, and other Jewish agencies and organizations, as people inquired about how they could help.

Walter H. Annenberg sent a $1 million donation to the Israel Emergency Fund set up to support humanitarian services in the war-torn Jewish state. He was one of many philanthropists who gave funds to help; more than $5 million was raised from the Greater Philadelphia area in less than two weeks in June.

Besides monetary support, Philadelphia Jews also quickly organized rallies, such as a community-wide demonstration coordinated by the Jewish Community Relations Council on June 11 on Independence Square, as well as drives to gather blood, medicine and other supplies to help Israel in her time of need.

Jane Zolot of Merion recalled the number of people who came in to the Hadassah of Greater Philadelphia office "during those tense days" to donate blood.

"No one knew what was happening," remembered the longtime Hadassah member. "People who had never been involved before came out. It was such a time of unity in the Jewish community. They were so driven by their concern for the survival of the state."

She added: "We really thought Israel would be destroyed."

In addition, rallies were held throughout the United States to showcase public support for Israel.

At one such rally, a large one held in Harrisburg, Gerald I. Wolpe, rabbi emeritus of Har Zion Temple in Penn Valley, who was then head of a congregation in the state capital, recalled how he gave the main address. He told those present that Israeli soldiers were giving their blood over there, so American Jews "needed to give money here." His speech was "recorded and sent to Jewish communities throughout America," as "rallies were held all over the place."

That speech was credited with helping Harrisburg become the largest per-capita contributor to the special fundraising efforts during the dire situation in 1967.

Like many other Jewish young people emotionally moved to help the tiny nation half a world away, Feldman volunteered her time on behalf of the war effort. She recalled taking "a huge wad" of checks -- donations for Israel -- from the office at Har Zion and running with them in her hands down the block to the bank to be deposited.

"People were doing anything they could to help Israel," she added. "People were giving money, and you couldn't stop the flow."

Just like Feldman's account of wondering if her graduation would be held, Zolot stewed over whether or not to postpone her son Andrew's Bar Mitzvah, which was scheduled for June 17.

"How could we celebrate if anything were to happen to Israel?" recalled Zolot. In the days before 24-7 news coverage, she listened to the radio and nightly news reports for updates.

Then an amazing thing happened.

By June 8, Israel had captured the Sinai Peninsula. After gaining the Old City, Israeli troops captured parts of the West Bank, including Hebron. On June 10, Israel controlled the Golan Heights as the Syrian army fled.

Then, on the morning of June 11, the news Zolot and other Jews had been waiting for came over the radio, and her son's Bar Mitzvah could go on as planned. A cease-fire had been signed. Tiny Israel had prevailed.

It had been just six days.

The number of Israeli casualties was relatively low, considering the danger the soldiers had faced: 777 were killed along the three fronts, and several thousand wounded.

"What an incredible miracle," recalled Feldman, of hearing about Israel's victory. "No one knew there was an Israeli army, let alone a triumphant one."

An "Action Rally for Israel" was held in Philadelphia on June 17, the week after the war.

Golda Meir, along with Mayor James H.J. Tate, addressed the crowd of about 5,000 people who gathered to hear her firsthand account of what she'd witnessed in Israel just days before-hand.

A Historical Change
In retrospect, the Six-Day War, a seminal moment in the still-young state's life, changed American Jewry's connection to Israel. Over the course of a few days, less than two decades after achieving statehood, Israel came dangerously close to being lost forever to the Jews.

The war "was over so relatively quick," expressed Rakhmiel Peltz, a professor of sociolinguistics and director of Judaic Studies at Drexel University, but the effects of it on Jewish life in the following years "were tremendous," as it galvanized American Jewry toward Eretz Yisrael.

"There was an almost unconditional feeling of pride" among Jews toward Israel after 1967, he added. "It stimulated Zionism and the Jewish community in general."

"It changed a lot of attitudes," agreed Wolpe. "You were dealing with, 'Here we go again,' and people had said, [after the Holocaust], 'Never again,' but it did."

"It was a frightening time," he recalled, and because of the possible disappearance of Israel in 1967, Jews "realized how close they had come to extinction."

After 1967, a "theme permeated the collective consciousness of American Jews and Israelis," he added, as the realization set in that the outcome of the short war "could have gone the other way."

That sense of vulnerability was felt by one Israeli who was living in Philadelphia at the time.

Israeli-born Aaron Griver had just taken up his position as cantor at Congregation Brith Israel in Philadelphia when the war broke out. He still had several family members back home who fought against the Arabs.

But what stood out the most for Griver, now a resident of Northeast Philadelphia, was not the war itself -- though he went with a contingent of 30 busloads of people from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., for a demonstration to show support for Israel -- but what occurred on his first trip back to Israel after the war.

Griver recalled visiting one cousin in particular, who was still in the army. Yossei invited Griver to join him and his fellow troops on a night mission to the Suez Canal and the Sinai. Wearing an extra uniform borrowed from his cousin, the cantor joined the group in the 10-hour trip from Jerusalem to the deep south. Once there, Griver remembered, his cousin told him the reason for the journey: to use metal detectors to look for the remains of fallen Israeli soldiers buried in the sand by the Egyptians.

But perhaps the most resonant emotional aspect associated with the Six-Day War was the reunification of Jerusalem.

The year before the war, Shelley Kapnek Rosenberg was on a summer-long trip to Israel with Camp Ramah to see all the sites. But the one spot she wanted to visit most -- the Western Wall -- was off-limits. Even though she knew this fact in advance, she recalled, it was different when she was actually confronted with it.

"You would go, and there was a wall and barbed wire and you could look over, and the Kotel was beyond that," explained Rosenberg, now a Jenkintown resident and a writer. "You could only look at it from a distance."

Then, on a trip to Israel in 1973, Rosenberg and her husband, Ken, were finally able to visit the wall. The experience was an overwhelming and memorable one for them both.

Israel's victory in 1967 also paved the way for what was to occur, both good and bad, in the next decade -- increased aliyah from the Soviet Union and the United States, among other places; the rise of the Palestine Liberation Organization; the growth in Holocaust awareness and education; and the surprise attack on Israel during Yom Kippur in 1973.

To the history books, it was the war that lasted just six days.

But it could also be said that that brief period in time still reverberates today, nearly 41 years later, as Israel's 60th birthday approaches. Some of the land Israel won control of as a result of the war -- the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Golan Heights, as well as the place Israel is probably most fearful of ever losing control of again, eastern Jerusalem -- remain points of heated, and often deadly, contention between Israelis and Arabs.

That frightening, yet realistic, picture was painted by Peltz when he noted, "We're still living the effects of the Six-Day War."