Although some elements of his party, including at least one cabinet member, did not share his views on the centrality of a unified Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel, the premier himself never lost an opportunity to remind an audience that his military past was intertwined with that of the holy city, that he had, in fact, been born there, and that he would therefore not be the one to abandon it. In this respect, the attachment professed by Rabin matched that of the public to as high a degree of unanimity as one can ever see in a democracy.

The affection of the Israeli citizenry for its capital has been demonstrated many times and in a variety of ways, but never in recent memory as vividly as during the days when young Rabin was leading his regiment into battle on the road linking Jerusalem to the coastal plain. As a young intern, having recently joined the staff of the Hadassah University Hospital, I had the occasion to witness events seldom seen and the privilege of participating in some of them.

Jerusalem is indeed a strange city. In 1947, the daily activity of the majority of its people took place in offices-most of them governmental-which could have been situated anywhere else. Its hills grew practically no food. Even water had to be pumped 2,000 feet uphill from the valley and reached only part of the inhabitants, the rest using rainwater saved in cisterns for the long, dry summer. In spite of this, its population had kept growing and the various communities made a crazy quilt both inside the old walled city and outside it. There were Jewish enclaves surrounded by Arab communities, and Arab neighborhoods within Jewish areas.

At the end of 1949, the United Nations decided upon termination of the British mandate on May 15 of the following year. Palestine would be divided into two states, one Arab and one Jewish, with Jerusalem becoming an international city. The final vote was taken on Nov. 29. On Nov. 30, the troubles started.

One usually thinks of the beginning of a war in terms of one momentous event such as the invasion of Poland or the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In Palestine, and especially in Jerusalem, war crept in gradually. For the first few weeks, sporadic sniper fire from the Arab houses caused some disruption. The road to Tel Aviv, passing through several Arab villages, became gradually more hazardous and food became scarcer, especially fresh produce. The Arabs occupied the water pumping station and shut off the flow. Within the city, a shake-down readjusted the population lines, with both Jews and Arabs who lived in exposed areas being forced to move, until a continuous dividing line replaced the checkerboard pattern.

By early spring, the Jewish part of the city was completely surrounded and isolated, except for the arrival of an occasional convoy of food from Tel Aviv. Trucks, although partly protected by armored plates and escorted by armed men, made it up to Jerusalem only rarely. Within the besieged city, there were two isolated pockets, cut off from the main body, one in the walled city and one on Mount Scopus, where the Hebrew University and the Hadassah hospital were located.

Being one of the younger physicians, I soon gave up my hospital work and devoted myself entirely to the medical evacuation from the battle lines to makeshift hospitals in the rear (that is, half a mile back). To this day, I say that my position was much better than that of the poor civilians: As I moved from one front to another, I would pass through the city and see the rows of housewives standing in line, under the artillery bombardment, to receive the daily ration of one gallon of water per person, delivered from a horse-drawn cart. God bless those old cisterns that saved the day!

People were hungry, thirsty and dirty, but no feeling of deprivation came even close to matching that of the smokers, bereft of their nicotine, some of whom tried various dried grasses or leaves as a replacement. Since none of these substitutes were used a second time, you may be justified in concluding that they were not a great success.

The idea of giving up did not seem to enter people's minds. Tomorrow would be a better day. What finally broke the siege was the ability of the army to hold on to some mountains and cols south of the now impassable road. People too old to man defense positions were used to move boulders and create a path that could be used by four-wheel drive vehicles. Food and ammunition could now reach us.

The good old days were never that good, of course. If I remember them fondly, it is partly because this is possibly the time in my life when I was the most useful, and partly because it is during the Jerusalem siege that I had the good fortune to meet the girl who would become my wife. But that, to borrow from Kipling, is another story, my child.