I HAVE A MISSION

Colonel Gur's 55 Parachute Brigade was assigned to General Narkiss's command, and he was instructed to break through the built-up area north of the Old city of Jerusalem. The city was defended by a very heavy concentration of Jordanian forces. An hour before midnight of June 5, 1967, the historic battle for Jerusalem began. Dubi and his brigade were wearing the wrong type of uniform for street fighting. Heavily loaded with their supply packs, they were used to clear the mountains surrounding the city of Jordanian troops. The battle was fierce, with many men on both sides killed, but those still fighting were too involved to stop or shed a tear. Smoke from exploding grenades billowed in the air, cannon fire created large craters in the landscape and machine gun bullets tore into the night amid the screams of pain from the wounded and the dying on both sides. The noise was deafening and the fighting continuous.

After a fierce night battle, resulting heavy casualties, the Israelis entered St. Stephen's Gate at eight-thirty in the morning and by ten o'clock reached the Western Wall. It was during the final bursts of gunfire of the bloody Six Day War that Dubi discovered the purpose of his survival. In the midst of the fighting, his face black from the dirt and smoke, he heard the shrill, piercing sound of the shofar, preceded by the long-awaited words over a transistor radio held by one of the paratroopers that the Western Wall was once again in Israeli hands. Dubi was overcome with emotion and cried.

When the Israeli soldiers heard the news on the radios carried by the paratroopers, they could not contain their joy; the same men who were unable to cry for their fallen comrades shed tears for what had been lost for two thousand years and was now theirs again. A paratrooper near Dubi opened the collar of his uniform and removed his tallit and kissed it. The announcer's voice was filled with emotion. Music poured from the radio as the song "Jerusalem of Gold" filled the air like a national anthem, and for an instant time stopped as every Jew felt his soul soar to the heavens with the knowledge of their victory. The excited voice of the announcer rose over the sounds of the shooting as the Israeli soldiers, realizing that two thousand years of exile had come to an end, pushed ahead until they stood before the Western Wall.

Jerusalem was Jewish.

Jerusalem was united.

Jersualem was Israeli.

When Dubi heard the shofar, he felt the first spark of an idea that would lead him to the creation of the mission in his life.