Few events in our long history intertwine so closely  the fear of a new catastrophe with the unrestrained joy of salvation, rejoicing, and triumph. The victory over a numerically far superior opponent that had been armed and trained by a powerful superpower renewed the image that had been tarnished during the years in the diaspora, and the Jews once again appeared before the world in their ancient role of intrepid warriors and wise commanders.

The six days in June 1967 destroyed many myths that had built up over millennia creating a repulsive image of the diaspora Jew doomed to eternal punishment. These myths were dispelled under the pressure of facts that evoked astonishment mixed with religious awe. In the Six-Day War, God, undoubtedly, was on the side of the Jews.

The war broke out in the midst of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union, at the height of its military strength and international influence, completely favored the Arab side. Modern military technology and economic aid were flowing into Egypt and Syria.[1] Syrian attacks from the Golan Heights on Israeli kibbutzim evoked a reaction: in an air fight on April 7, 1967 the Israelis downed six Syrian MiGs and subsequently brought armed forces into the demilitarized zone. Confident of an Arab victory, the Soviet Union considered it a propitious moment for unleashing a major armed conflict. On May 13 a Soviet parliamentary delegation visited Cairo and informed Egyptian leaders that Israel allegedly had concentrated from eleven to thirteen brigades along the Syrian border. The Soviet regime intended that disinformation to push Egypt and Syria into a confrontation with Israel.

On May 15, the nineteenth anniversary of Israel’s independence, Egyptian troops moved into the Sinai Peninsula and deployed along the Israeli border. Without consulting the General Assembly, UN General Secretary U Thant agreed to Gamal Nasser’s demand of May 16 to withdraw the UN emergency contingent in Sinai. On May 18 Syrian troops took positions along the Golan Heights.

On May 23 Egypt closed the Strait of Tiran to all Israeli and foreign ships heading for Eilat, blocking Israeli’s only link with Asia and oil supplies from Iran, thus giving Israel a legitimate casus belli.

On May 30 King Hussein of Jordan signed a mutual defense treaty with Egypt, thus joining the Egyptian-Syrian alliance that had been formed in 1966 and placing Jordanian troops on both banks of the Jordan River under Egyptian command. On June 4 Iraq joined the military alliance. Armed forces in various Arab countries were mobilized. The armies of Kuwait, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq allocated fighting units and arms for the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian fronts.[2]

The potentially destructive course of events in the Middle East aroused a wave of anxiety in the Jewish Diaspora for the fate of the young Jewish state, evoking fears of a new Holocaust. The anxiety quickly turned into a wave of solidarity with Israel that enveloped the entire Jewish Diaspora and a considerable part of the Western world. American Jewry responded most powerfully to this alarm, and Israeli army reservists and Jewish volunteers stormed the air flights in order to reach Israel and fight on its side.

The wave of solidarity penetrated even behind the Iron Curtain. In a totalitarian police state the citizens are isolated from the outside world, have difficulty in obtaining objective information, and cannot display their feelings publicly. But people knew how to read between the lines; in addition, hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews flocked to their radios, trying to break through the Soviet jamming to the western “voices” (Voice of America, BBC, etc.). The Soviet government at this time threatened military intervention if any power would try actively to help Israel.

The war lasted just six days, in itself a symbolic number. I remember it as if in a dream…. At the time our family lived in Sverdlovsk (now restored to the pre-Soviet name, Ekaterinburg), a large industrial city on the eastern slope of the Urals Mountains. During the weeks just before the war and during the war itself, I couldn’t think of anything else. I remember being struck by the remarks of one television commentator who declared that Israel was an alien body in the Middle East that had no chance of survival and it was necessary to become reconciled to its disappearance. Not that I knew a lot about Israel, but people who had survived the Holocaust found refuge there and the commentator gloated over the possibility that fate was preparing yet another horrible catastrophe for them.

On the first day of the war Soviet papers reported that the Arabs had downed 72 Israeli planes and on the second day—something similar, and I began to think: My God, how many planes does Israel have, for how many days will it suffice? Soviet propaganda patently rejoiced at the Arabs’ “successes.” On the third day, unable to bear the Soviet malice, I set up a large antenna on the roof of our five-storied building,  aimed in the direction of the jamming station in order to reduce the interference, and I listened to the “voices” all night long.

Israel, it turned out, was winning and Soviet propaganda changed its tone. On the third day, the state that only two weeks ago had been sentenced to death by the Soviets became a “BRAZEN AGGRESSOR.” This clumsy but venomous propaganda, like the Nazi propaganda, affected part of the local population, arousing antisemitic instincts. Yet the switch was so drastic and the lie so patent that not only the Jews refused to believe it. I matured several years in one day. I never before felt so strongly that I was a Jew than at that moment, never before felt so acutely that the country in which I was living and for which I labored was an enemy of my people. The Six-Day War helped reveal this terrible truth.

The fateful period before, during, and immediately after the Six-Day War exerted an enormous effect on the American Jewish community. After three weeks of fear and trepidation and six days of victorious war, American Jews filled the synagogues to express their gratitude. Some spoke of a miracle, a sign from the Almighty. American public opinion supported Israel, the sole democracy in the Middle East. At a time when the American army was tied down in Vietnam and communism was asserting itself in Eastern Europe, Israel’s crushing victory afforded consolation, being perceived as a victory of America itself. In American eyes, the Jews emerged from this war as popular heroes.

For the Jews the victory signified much more than simply heroism: it became a watershed in contemporary Jewish history, allowing Jews once again, this time positively, to acknowledge their common national fate. It also helped them realize that this fate was now linked to the State of Israel. For many American Jews the Six-Day became a turning point in their national consciousness; it changed not only how they perceived Israel but also how they perceived themselves. At the end of the war Israel became their religion, the highest object of their policy, philanthropy, and pilgrimage and as such a new source of their loyalty and solidarity.[3]

The war had a similarly transformative effect on Soviet Jews:

I grew up with a split soul, the Zionist activist Yosif Begun told me.[4] On the one hand, I understood that I was a Jew and that was burdensome to me. On the other hand, at home a reverential attitude toward Jewishness reigned—it was important for my mother. I was in a state of constant duality. At the beginning of the second grade when the teacher listed each pupil’s nationality in her register, I found this a terribly humiliating procedure. When she called on me, I couldn’t get myself to say that I was a Jew. I said that I was Belorussian. And for some time it was recorded in her book that I was Belorussian. I was terribly embarrassed…. If at the time, when I was still in the dark about many things, I could have become Russian, I probably would have. When I more or less began to understand where things stood, that sensation passed. By the Six-Day War I was already a proud Jew, and that war helped me make up my mind to leave.

“How many years did you work in Kolyma (far northern Siberia)?” I asked Vitalii Svechinskii.[5]

I left there in 1967. After labor camp I worked there for another eight and a half years as a free worker. I returned to Moscow immediately after the Six-Day War. Still in Siberia on the day the war started, I was walking in the park in Magadan  and saw Pravda on the newsstand. A crowd stood around: again Israel was being denounced as an aggressor. I also was standing there and suddenly felt, “I can’t live here any longer…this isn’t serious; what am I doing? Why am I wasting my life?”

How did the Six-Day War influence you?” I asked Boris Ainbinder.[6]

I was completely disillusioned with the Soviet Union. I understood that it was almost impossible to change anything there and that it was not my task to try. They didn’t want us there, we were alien, let them deal with it. On the other hand, there was a country where Jews were living…. Of course there was euphoria after 1967….

The Six-Day War transformed many Soviet Jews in a fundamental way. It undoubtedly turned my life upside down. It was all too strong—anxiety, triumph, propaganda, revelation….

The surrounding milieu began to change: the anti-Jewish jokes disappeared; others began to look at us differently and we began to look at ourselves differently. Being Jewish was no longer a mark of Cain but rather a distinction. The fifth point in the Soviet identity card (that lists nationality) magically switched from a negative to a positive and became a source of inner joy and pride.

The process occurred rapidly and was accompanied by a colossal burst of national energy. Thousands of passionate advocates of a Jewish national revival pushed away from this starting line, gradually finding each other and those who had started earlier on a nationalist path.

The anti-Israeli and antisemitic propaganda continued to annoy and wound but it betrayed the impotence of the Soviet leadership in a situation that it had created with its own hands: just as the entire world perceived Israel’s victory as a victory for the West, so too the Arabs’ defeat was seen as a defeat of the Soviet Union.

“Yasha,” I turned to Yakov Kedmi,[7] “on June 13, the day after the end of the war, you declared that you renounced your Soviet citizenship….”

“On June 13,” he responded, “the Soviet Union severed diplomatic relations with Israel and on that day I severed my relations with the Soviet Union.”