Israel will shortly be commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the Six Day War. It is easy to forget how the tension built around the world, the bellicose statements coming from Egypt and elsewhere promising the imminent destruction of Israel. There is a new website www.sixdaywar.co.uk which really captures the feelings at the time, what the politicians were saying in the Middle East, in Israel and in the West. Uniquely, it also gathers the feelings of the average person, their worries, their experiences, both inside Israel and around the world. It is an excellent resource for teachers,students and for journalists. It deserves to be widely circulated.
What are your memories of this time? If you would like to help them add to this site, why not send your own account of your experiences and feelings in the lead up to the war.
I remember being a school-girl at the time and our head teacher in Liverpool telling the morning assembly that they should pray for Israel 'which is about to be destroyed'.
This was my first inkling of how much Israel meant to the world at large and also made me feel proud to be Jewish. I was too young to volunteer for the Six Day War, but my husband's older brother and sister did so, as did thousands of others.
So many emigrated to Israel at that time, or shortly after, as well.
After that War, I was no longer just a member of the Jewish community of Britain, but someone who knew that if the chips were down, we had a home that we could call our own.
I have fond memories of that head teacher, who is still alive and living in Liverpool. She was and is a deeply committed member of the Church of England. And maybe that is why I ended up teaching other members of the Church of England, including Bishops, as well as accepting the request from former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, last year, asking me to join his Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East.
Do send your own reminiscences to the site above and to me as well, if you want.
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