This week marks the 59th anniversary of the Six Day War. It was a moment that returned us to Jerusalem and to the biblical homeland of the Jewish people. We look back at historical milestones for many reasons.
Firstly, they remind us that in a world often clouded and unsettled, God’s guiding hand still breaks through. Over the past two and a half years, there have been moments in which His presence felt unmistakably near, set alongside periods of deep darkness and concealment. We pray for a future that more closely resembles the clarity and triumph of those six days in 1967.
We also look back because it provides perspective. As difficult as the present can feel, that broader view reminds us how much has been built and secured. In the weeks before June 1967, the country braced for catastrophe. Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser spoke openly of driving the Jews into the sea. Families sent women and children abroad to safety in Europe and the United States. Mass graves were prepared in public parks, in anticipation of heavy losses.
Set against those days, the present, as frightening as it may seem, looks different. Our current strain is real, but we are not as exposed as we were then.
Finally, we look back to understand how those moments shape our present. Tracing the line between earlier events and current struggles reminds us that we are living chapters in a much longer story. We are the “past” of the future. Generations will look back at our experiences and measure how they shaped their own struggles and, hopefully, their successes. What we live now will echo forward long after us.
How did those defining, history-altering six days in 1967 shape the reality we now inhabit, and how do they continue to mold the struggle we are still living through?
A cultural revolution
The state was founded upon a largely secular agenda, shaped in part by Marxist and socialist visions that sought to build a new, egalitarian society. In that early vision, there was also an effort to recast Jewish identity, to move away from religion in order to form a new profile of the Jew. The image of the defenseless victim of exile was deeply uncomfortable, and religion was often seen as bound up with that past.
Close to 80 years after the founding of the state, Israel feels like a very different country. Many Israelis, even without full halachic observance, carry a deep spiritual attachment to Jewish life. They observe some mitzvot, even if not all, and the language of tradition has reentered the public space. The recent war has both drawn out and revealed this reality, as religious expression has surfaced among soldiers and across broader Israeli society.
During this lengthy war, religious Israelis have played a prominent role in the defense of the country and have borne a painful share of its losses. Setting aside the still-thorny issue of haredi non-enlistment, religious Jews today are far more integrated into the center of Israeli life than they were during the state’s earlier decades.
There are many factors behind this cultural transformation. It has unfolded across decades, expressed in different stages, most visibly in the political and social upheaval of 1977 that brought Menachem Begin to power. However, the opening moment in this process was the war of 1967.
Something about the return to the landscapes of the Bible stirred a deep chord within the national consciousness. Returning to Tel Aviv and Haifa in 1948 carried its own significance, but returning to the terrain of our ancestors touched something more elemental within the Israeli spirit.
In 1967, deeply secular Israelis stood at the Western Wall with tears streaming down their faces, acknowledging that for the first time in their lives they felt something unmistakably spiritual, even a brush with the presence of God.
Jews come home
Israel was meant to be a home for all Jews. The dream of gathering exiles from across the globe is woven deeply into Zionist ideology. Yet in the first decades of the state, aliyah remained limited. Many who arrived did so under pressure, fleeing persecution in Arab lands in the wake of 1948.
Far fewer came from Western societies. Jews there had built strong and comfortable communities, and they saw little reason to move to a young country that was financially fragile and militarily threatened. This dimension of the Zionist dream, for a time, seemed stalled.
At this stage in our history, thank God, a majority of the world’s Jewish population resides in Israel. Aliyah has increased, even if it has not yet reached the levels we would hope for. Several factors have contributed to this growth, most notably Israel’s emergence as a strong and stable economic force. It is not difficult to imagine a near future in which Israel rivals, and in some areas surpasses, leading Western economies.
Recent surges of antisemitism have also played a role, reminding many Jews of the fragility of life in the Diaspora.
Alongside these practical considerations, something deeper has shifted. Israel is no longer viewed merely as a refuge or an option among many, but increasingly as the center of Jewish life and a core anchor of Jewish identity. That renewed connection has expressed itself in concrete ways: summer visits, gap year programs, and the purchase of homes and property, all reflecting a deeper investment by Diaspora Jewry in the long-term future of Israel. The current war has only intensified this trend, stirring a renewed sense of Jewish identity and connection to Israel among Jews across the world.
Much of this change can be traced to the aftermath of 1967. The decisiveness of that victory restored a measure of Jewish pride, while the reunification of Jerusalem anchored that moment within a larger sweep of Jewish destiny. The war of 1967 can rightly be seen as the point at which the Jewish world renewed its engagement with the State of Israel.
Today, this feels almost self-evident, but it was not so during the state’s earlier decades. A broader recognition has taken hold that, without Israel, the Jewish future stands on uncertain ground. The shift in consciousness that now feels so natural began to take shape in the wake of 1967.
The US-Israel alliance
The past two and a half years have underscored the importance of the alliance between Israel and the United States, but that relationship took shape in its current form only after 1967. In the early decades, American support was cautious and restrained, and Israel relied much more heavily on France for arms and military cooperation.
The Six Day War marked a turning point. Israel’s decisive victory demonstrated both military capability and strategic value at the height of the Cold War, reshaping how it was viewed in Washington and laying the foundation for a much closer partnership.
Over the decades that followed, that alignment deepened, strengthened by shared concerns, including the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, which threatens Israel directly and challenges the broader Western world. The alliance also provided critical political and diplomatic backing and helped open pathways to warmer ties with parts of the Arab world. It is hard to imagine Israel’s growth over these decades without that support.
At the same time, the past years have also exposed potential strains. The relationship remains vital, but its future is less settled than it once seemed. The foundations laid in 1967 are still in place, even as the current moment feels more uncertain. We hope that this bond continues to endure with strength and clarity. ■
The writer, a rabbi at Yeshivat Har Etzion, was ordained by Yeshiva University. His latest book, Reclaiming Redemption, Vol. II: Faith, Identity, Peoplehood, and the Storms of War, is available at mtaraginbooks.com.