Part 18: Teen Jewish History** join me as we get down to it for the month of May.

Added: 2026-05-29

[00:00:00]Hello my teen friends. Welcome back for part 18 of our 1-minute educational May video series on Jewish history. If you're just joining today, welcome, but please go back and watch the first videos so the order makes sense. Each video is a small dose of daily incremental knowledge.

[00:00:17]So it's a miracle that Israel survived, let alone won the war. At the war's end, the land was divided, setting the stage for future tumult. Sadly, due to the hostile nature of its neighbors, Israel's early years were defined largely by wars. In 1956, with the Suez Crisis, 1967, the Six-Day War, and 1973, the Yom Kippur War. I encourage you to research and study these wars, but for now, let's make this distinction.

[00:00:48]Every war was fought with the intent to wipe Israel off the face of the map. The early wars in Israel, '48, '56, '67, '73, were defensive wars with neighboring countries' armies that aggressively initiated attacks on Israel with the intent to kill. Despite being enemies, they were recognized militaries according to the international rules of war. They wore military uniforms, and they targeted military objectives, not civilians. The wars that took place afterwards were different. The Lebanon wars and global intifadas in the 1980s through 2005 were different because Israel was fighting terror groups, not globally recognized armies. Terrorist groups don't usually wear uniforms. They often hide among civilians, use them as human shields, and prey on civilian areas. This became the Jewish state's new reality, fighting off terror groups like the PLO, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, all Iranian proxies. And that's what we've been fighting for for 2 and 1/2 years since October 7th. Tomorrow, we'll look at an an important concept in part 19.