Reflections on the Yom Kippur War: Then. Since. And Today

An older woman who lost her family in the Holocaust appeared in a documentary film called “Numbers” that I watched a few years ago. She recounted the moment when her four-year-old son asked about the numbers on her arm.

Very bad people had put the number on her arm, she told him. He asked her whether there had been Maccabees (Jewish warriors in biblical times) to protect her. And she told him that there were not.

“I’ll be your Maccabee,” he promised. “I’ll protect you.”

As a young soldier her brave little boy did his best to protect his mother and country in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which broke out fifty years ago to the day. Today.

It did not end well for him. All she reveals on camera is that he paid a steep price. In the context of war, that can mean many things, including the ultimate sacrifice.

Of a Jewish population in 1973 of 2.8-million, Israel’s losses in the war were staggering. 2,656 dead. 7,251 injured. 294 POWs. Not all returned home alive.

Then just in its twenty fifth year of existence, the State of Israel came close to destruction by the dominance and surprise attack by Syrian and Egyptian armies. At 2 pm on Yom Kippur, October 6, 1973. The holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

The biopic “Golda” was released recently to coincide with the anniversary of this war that continues to traumatize the country, profoundly. Starring Dame Helen Mirren, the film is focusing significant attention on the war and the woman who led Israel at the time. Prime Minister Golda Meir.

It is gut wrenching to watch. And I expect you will be relieved to know that I have no intention of reviewing the movie.

Everyone is reviewing Golda.

In addition to the movie, the Government of Israel has drawn interest to the “event” by releasing massive amounts of archived material previously not available to the public. I will leave it to the historians and political scientists to sift through it all and help us re-interpret that critical period in Israeli history.

Nor will I get into the paradox as to how Golda is revered in North America and somewhat loathed in Israel, where she continues to be blamed for the massive defense and intelligence failure in 1973.

Or the paradox of her being worshipped in present-day Ukraine, where solders and fighters boast about their local lioness, born in Ukraine. The improbability of it all; as Golda’s family fled that country to escape deeply entrenched and violent antisemitism.

In North America, she is seen as a heroine: a woman who left the comfort of the Goldene Medine, America, for the hardship of Mandatory Palestine and, later, Israel. Golda was a woman of deep conviction and principle who held her own at the table with the men, and then some. We – North American Jews - were raised to be proud of Golda. She may have been from Ukraine but she had been raised in America. She spoke English like the Midwesterner she was, with an equally strong accent in Hebrew. We saw her as the Prime Minister who led Israel from disaster to victory, not the author of the near annihilation of the Jewish state.

I remember clearly the day when war broke out and the terror that gripped my parents, neighbors and community. My father had survived the Holocaust in Romania – and, consequently, slipped into one of his borderline rage periods. “Don’t tell me it can’t happen again,” he said to me one day when I tried to discuss it with him. “It already happened.”

Many could not believe that we were going to witness such a cataclysm, so soon after the Holocaust. It just can’t be. But it almost was.

During the Yom Kippur war, there was never enough news or information and whatever we did receive was invariably worse than the day before. I remember watching the US network news with my parents and seeing rows of Israeli soldiers, captured, blindfolded, sitting cross legged, hands bound behind their backs, heads bowed. Abject humiliation.

Many years later, when I was serving as the Canadian Ambassador to Israel, I met a man who had been taken prisoner by the Syrians and tortured for nine months. Decades later, his physical disabilities were evident, less so the psychological scars. He had taken up ceramic sculpture to communicate and depict the extreme cruelty which he had survived. He painted his works. I just remember lots of red. Bright red splatters and pools everywhere. We met in 2016, and he still could not speak of what he had endured. His therapeutic medium was clay. He had returned from war a broken man to his loving wife and children who, miraculously, found a way to live again as a family.

Just think about that for a moment. Pause.

Then, there’s my acquaintance who lost his father at age 7. An air force superstar, he was taken prisoner by Syria and tortured to death. The Syrians particularly despised Israeli pilots for their brilliance, daring and effectiveness. His young widow and children were beyond shattered.  

Today, I think about the 2,656 families who heard that dreaded knock on the door and did not want to open it. Because on the other side was a loss they could not bear to hear about.

The whole thing was too much for so many. It is not something that is discussed much but many young men and families left after ‘73. They had fought in two brutal wars – 67 and 73 – so close in time. Most people are not built to withstand such extreme hardship.

Those who left were judged harshly by Israeli society – which looked down upon them with contempt. To abandon this great historical enterprise – the rebuilding of the Jewish state – after two thousand years of yearning……it was an incomprehensible betrayal of the nation.

An elderly woman I know well lost her whole family in the Holocaust. After her liberation from Auschwitz, she made her way to Mandatory Palestine, where she created a new life. The

eldest of her three sons left Israel – and his parents – immediately after the ‘73 war and has returned only once to visit, for his father’s funeral. I am sure there is a lot in the mix but I am also certain that his involvement in two wars was at the root of his decision to disappear himself.

Not everyone is built to be a real-life Maccabee.

One young man who lived with his new wife in Jerusalem was ticked about having to spend the holiday period that year stuck in one of the isolated army posts along the east bank of the Suez Canal. The front line.

When the Egyptians attacked on Yom Kippur, he was among the first to fall. He didn’t stand a chance.

His wife, then in her mid 20s and a friend of mine, mourned him forever. She never remarried or had children. She simply did not have the ability to put herself back together again. Today she is a depleted, sad woman.

Today, we remember and honor.

Tomorrow, we resume the difficult task of managing nationhood and sovereignty.