Hugh Nissenson’s Notes
from the Frontier provides a very clear, firsthand account of life on a kibbutz
near the Syrian border in 1965, and then in 1967 after the Six Day’s War.
Of course, most of what Nissenson writes about is no
longer applicable. At the time, infiltration
was the major security concern in the State of Israel. Arabs from Jordan and Syria would sneak into
Israel at night, and cause mayhem. Nissenson’s
kibbutz, in the Hula Valley, a stone’s throw from Syria, was particularly
vulnerable to attacks; this paranoia fills his accounts of life
on the kibbutz.
The narrator then returns during the Six Days War,
and see the colossal destruction and changes.
With a kibbutz member he drives up the Golan Heights, and sees the view
of the Syrians had long had of the Hula Valley since 1948.
And the book ends there, on note that does
not really end. Because even in 1967,
Nissenson is perspicacious enough to realize that the conflict is far from over. That really, it has just begun.
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