“We are a people, one people”: How 1967 Transformed Holocaust Memory and Jewish Identity in Israel and the US DANIEL NAVON* Abstract This paper examines how the “narrative-identities” of Jewish communities in Israel and the US were unified through the events surrounding Israel’s 1967 war with Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Using a range of historical materials, I show how key elements of the two communities’ identities were rearranged and untied through a new, shared narrative that linked the Holocaust, Jewish victimhood and Israel. I argue that the old Zionist narrative enabled the new one, which in turn helped bind the two communities discursively, materially and politically. Finally, I discuss the implications for our understanding of identity change and the conflict over Israel/ Palestine. ***** “Even today as we dwell in our own land, evil-hearted and unfeeling people shoot poison arrows at our youngsters as they wander the countryside, turning it into a valley of death. We again face the phenomenon of eternal hatred for the eternal people.” – Yizhak Shamir, 1989 1 When then-prime minister Yitzhak Shamir spoke of the “eternal hatred for the eternal people” at Israel’s central Holocaust com- memoration ceremony in 1989, against the backdrop of the first Palestinian Intifada 2 , he encapsulated key elements of Jewish iden- tity in both Israel and the US. Similar themes have been invoked consistently at the ceremony for the last forty-five years. 3 More generally, recognizing that “it is an axiom of their narrative that Israel is the innocent victim” is essential to any analysis of Israeli and Jewish American identity and their role in the conflict over Israel/ Palestine. 4 However, while the phenomenon of Jews’ persecution is said to be eternal, the sentiment is actually much newer to Zionist represen- tations of Jewish life in the State of Israel. Thus the “axiom of the narrative” can only be fully grasped in the context of the system within which it operates – what I will call Zionist 5 “narrative- identity” – and its diachronic development. Tracing that develop- ment reveals a rapid, dual transformation of Holocaust memory and Jewish identity in Israel and the US during and following the * Daniel Navon is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego. Email: dnavon@ucsd.edu Journal of Historical Sociology Vol. 28 No. 3 September 2015 DOI: 10.1111/johs.12075 © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd