c. 2008 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) On May 14, Israel will mark its 60th anniversary as an independent nation. President Bush and other world leaders plan to attend the festivities in Jerusalem later this spring.

An important new book, “Israel at Sixty: An Oral History of a Nation Reborn” (Wiley) by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober, marks this significant milestone.

The book spans the sweeping six-decade saga of Israel’s extraordinary achievements and its bitter tragedies. The book captures a nation in a violent region of the world that has never known a single day totally free of war, despite peace treaties with neighboring Egypt and Jordan.

Everyone remembers David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister; Golda Meir, the former Milwaukee schoolteacher and future prime minister who was one of two women to sign the new nation’s Declaration of Independence; and current President Shimon Peres, who in 1948 at age 25 supervised his country’s navy, military personnel and arms procurement. These larger-than-life figures are, of course, featured in every book about Israel.

But the Strobers’ book is unique because they spoke with some little-known or unrecognized elderly Israelis who 60 years ago actively participated in the fierce struggle to achieve independence. While they are not household names, even in today’s Israel, their personal stories are essential parts of the legacy of a “nation reborn.”

One such interviewee is Joshua Matza, whose family has lived in Jerusalem for 13 generations. Young Joshua became a member of the Jewish underground in 1945 when he was 14 years old. His first assignment was to roam the streets of his native city at 2 a.m. posting fliers against the British Mandate that occupied the region.

“The British were there, with their small tanks after us all the time. … We were four brothers and three of us were in the Underground. … There were a lot of discussions at home how to get rid of the British and how to establish the State.”

In 1950, when he was only 19, Matza served as a captain in the newly formed Israeli army. In later years, he was Jerusalem’s deputy mayor, a longtime member of Parliament, health minister and most recently CEO of the Development Corporation for Israel.

Amira Dotan served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from 1965 to 1988. She was the first woman to attain the rank of general. Following her retirement, she became vice president of Ben Gurion University and today serves in Parliament.

Dotan told the Strobers: “The idea that Ben Gurion had that compulsory service will be for women and for men was very good. … The fact that no women _ or not enough women _ are in the decision-makers of the IDF harmed the IDF and harmed society. … We should push for more women in all junctures of command.”

In addition to the compelling personal stories, the Strobers’ book contains an extraordinary collection of rare photographs taken 60 years ago and even earlier, including the dusty unpaved streets of Tel Aviv in the 1920s, Britain’s Home Secretary Winston Churchill on the site of Hebrew University in 1921, and a clearly anxious Ben Gurion on May 14, 1948, hand on head, reflecting his extreme tension just as he is about to declare the first Jewish state in 2,000 years.

The Strobers say they did not write their book to simply adorn coffee tables as a decorative literary ornament. “At a time when Israel’s enemies seek to delegitimize the claim of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland, we felt it very important to tell the inspiring and dramatic story of the reborn Jewish state through the words of those people who have contributed to the modern miracle that is Israel,” they write.

Despite its many problems, crises and controversies, Israel has continually grown from strength to strength during its 60 years of existence. Sadly, some enemies constantly seek to undermine Israel’s security, while other adversaries threaten its very existence.

But perhaps Churchill said it best in 1948, when he told the House of Commons that Israel’s independence was “an event in world history to be viewed with the perspective, not of a generation or a century, but in the perspective of 1,000, 2,000 or even 3,000 years.”

(Rabbi Rudin, the American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious adviser, is the author of the recently published book “The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right’s Plans for the Rest of Us.”)

KRE/PH END RUDIN

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