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Six-Day War Vet Reflects on the War that Changed History

(Jerusalem Post) Melanie Lidman - At 2 a.m. on June 6, 1967, Shimon Cahaner was advancing with his paratroop unit toward the Rockefeller Museum in east Jerusalem, the scene of fierce fighting and many casualties. Almost immediately, their battalion commander was wounded, and Cahaner was thrust into the leadership. "I knew in my head that this was something historic," Cahaner recalled on Friday, 45 years later. "I knew it was a very important event, and a really important war for the Jewish people....Jerusalem is not the same as any other place." 15 years ago Cahaner took part in a mission that united Israeli commanders who fought in Jerusalem with their Jordanian counterparts. Cahaner remembered: "We were ready to kill each other 30 years ago....But the Jordanians told us, 'We fought like lions. But you, you fought like people who are ready to give your lives for Jerusalem. Every time we saw people who were wounded, we thought we had stopped you. But it was impossible to stop you.'" "If we don't educate about our right to Jerusalem, we could lose Jerusalem," Cahaner said. Without our history, he added, we are nothing.
2012-05-21 00:00:00
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