Shimon “Katcha” Cahaner leads Israeli troops thorough the Lion’s Gate into Jerusalem in 1967 after defeating Jordanian troops on Ammunition Hill. Photo courtesy Jewish National Fund
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Honoring Jewish veteransMay 15, 2008
It is high ground in Jerusalem that was held for nearly two decades by Jordanian forces, and before then, by Palestine’s British rulers.
But in the early morning hours of June 6, 1967, paratroopers of Israel’s elite 55th Brigade captured Ammunition Hill, allowing the long-divided city to fall into Israeli hands.
Today its trenches and bunkers stand as a monument to one of the bloodiest battles of the Six-Day War, where 37 Israelis and 70 Jordanian fighters died in less than five hours.
One man who emerged as a hero that day was Shimon “Katcha” Cahaner, a deputy battalion commander who followed an officer named Ariel Sharon into battle.
“I am not religious at all,” Cahaner told area supporters of the Jewish National Fund at a breakfast meeting in Morristown. “But entering Jerusalem was a special feeling. I felt it in my foot and it has come to my heart. Like the other soldiers who came to the Old City of Jerusalem through the Lion’s Gate, I touched the stones. It felt like an electricity shock. Unbelievable. It was like something special.”
Forty-one years later, Cahaner — who retired as a colonel from the Israel Defense Forces — is spearheading a far different sort of campaign on Ammunition Hill — one that is taking him from his home in Jerusalem on a speaking tour in America.
Addressing a filled conference room at the law firm of Korff and Rosenblatt on May 12, Cahaner said he came to help JNF raise money for a “Wall of Honor” on the hill that will pay tribute to Jews of all nations who served in their armies.
His memory of the battle, on the second day of the war, is still fresh.
“We had a plan to parachute in Egypt, in the Sinai Desert, and to fight there. Our government believed [Jordan’s] King Hussein would sit quiet, but he joined to the war and the situation around Jerusalem changed,” he said. “We run to the buses and they took us up to Jerusalem at seven o’clock in the evening. After five hours, we had to start to fight against the Jordanian army. To prepare a brigade, we needed 12 hours minimum to teach them, to get equipment.
“So I said to my soldiers, ‘all the values you got in your regular service, this will be your weapon, your ammunition.’”
Cahaner said that 10 years ago he met on Ammunition Hill with the Jordanian soldiers he had once opposed in battle.
“They said, ‘We fought like lions, but you fought like suicide people. We couldn’t stop you.’”
Six hours after that battle began, the Jordanian army “almost broke completely, and after another two hours they got an order that ‘anyone who can should run away across the Jordan River,’” he said. “It is just because our spirit worked more than our weapons in Jerusalem. I feel we must give this information to our new generations.”
Cahaner tells Jewish National Fund leaders a wall of honor for Jewish members of the world’s armies must be built on Ammunition Hill for future generations. Photo by Robert Wiener
As chair of the memorial site, he is looking for $10-12 million to renovate the hill and its museum.
“In Jerusalem, there are three major places,” he said. “One is the Kotel. It has all of our history, our heritage. The second is Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum. We must teach and show what happened in the Holocaust — not just that it is unbelievable that human people did it, but much more for being strong enough so that it will never happen again. The third is Ammunition Hill. It is supposed to be the main place of education.”
A year ago, Cahaner said he convinced the IDF to move its command headquarters to Ammunition Hill so that “more and more people and organizations will come to visit.”
At the age of 73, Cahaner has dedicated his life to perpetuating the reality and symbolic meaning of Ammunition Hill in a unified Jerusalem under Israeli control.
And yet, he remains “first of all, an optimist” about the potential of peace with Palestinians, even if it entails a redivided city.
“If somebody told us that in 1970 that in another seven years there would be peace with Egypt and in another 25 there would be peace with Jordan, many people would think he was a crazy one,” he quipped. “I believe there must be peace with the Palestinians and with others. It might take more time. Everyone will have to give up something. There must be compromise. And I believe there will be peace.”
Honoring Jewish veterans
AS IT SEEKS donations to help build the Wall of Honor on Ammunition Hill, the Jewish National Fund is offering plaques paying tribute to individual Jews, past or present, who served in the military of any country. The plaques cost $5,000 apiece. For $180, donors can have servicepeople included in an on-line honor roll.
For further information, contact JNF at 973-593-0095.
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