Key To The Sinai

[Includes 5 figures and 21 maps] Situated between the Suez Canal and Israel and marked by the harsh environment of the central Sinai lies Abu Ageila, an unprepossessing area of low ridges and hills through which passes the best-surfaced road in the peninsula. Owing to its location on the central route, close to the Israeli-Egyptian border, Abu Ageila became the key to the Sinai in the Arab-Israeli wars of 1956 and 1967. The struggle for this barren land in two wars provides an epic story of battle and reveals the influence of experience on the preparation for and conduct of war. In both the 1956 and 1967 wars, Abu Ageila was the main gateway to the Sinai for the Israel Defense Forces. Yet, as Dr. George W. Gawrych demonstrates, there were marked differences between Egyptian and Israeli war plans, preparations, operations, and results in the two battles for the area. In 1956, Israel carried the burden of a constricting alliance with Britain and France and faced other extensive military problems. The result was that Israel fought a difficult and costly battle for Abu Ageila. In contrast, in 1967, the Israel Defense Forces developed a brilliant operational plan and achieved effective unit command and control and attained a decisive victory. Based on extensive research, including personal interviews with Israeli commanders and briefings by Egyptian military historians, Key to the Sinai is a crisp battle narrative of desert warfare and a systematic historical analysis of two armies confronting the changing terms of battle. Students of AirLand Battle doctrine will find reading this Research Survey a stimulus to meeting the challenges of modern warfare.

In both the 1956 and 1967 wars, Abu Ageila was the main gateway to the Sinai for the Israel Defense Forces. Yet there were marked differences between Egyptian and Israeli war plans, preparations, operations, and results in the two battles for the area. In 1956, Israel carried the burden of a constricting alliance with Britain and France and faced other extensive military problems. The result was that Israel fought a difficult and costly battle for Abu Ageila. In contrast, in 1967, the Israel Defense Forces developed a brilliant operational plan and achieved effective unit command and control and attained a decisive victory.

The Yom Kippur War pitted Israel against Syria in the north and Egypt in the south in October 1973. Caught by surprise and surrounded by enemies, Israel relied on the flexibility and creative thinking of its senior field commanders. After Israeli forces halted the Egyptian troops on the Sinai Peninsula, Major General Ariel Sharon seized the opportunity to counterattack. He split the Egyptian army and cut off its supply lines in a maneuver known as Operation Stouthearted Men. Sharon's audacious, controversial decision defied his superiors and produced a major victory, which many believe helped win the war for Israel. This book is a firsthand account of the Yom Kippur War's most intense engagement by key leaders in Sharon's division.

A commander and an officer with the IDF recount their experiences in the Yom Kippur War, offering insight into Israel’s military leadership. At the Decisive Point in the Sinai is a firsthand account of Operation Stouthearted Men—arguably the 1973 Yom Kippur War’s most intense engagement. General Jacob Even and Colonel Simcha B. Moaz were key leaders in Major General Ariel Sharon’s division. Together, Even and Maoz recount the initial stages of the Suez crossing, examine the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) response to Egypt’s surprise attack, and explain Sharon’s role in the transition from defense to offense. They detail Sharon’s struggle to convince his superiors of his plan and argue that an effective division commander is not only revealed by his leadership of subordinates but also by his ability to influence his senior officers. Even and Maoz challenge students of military leadership by offering a case study on effective leadership. “At the Decisive Point is the single best volume I have ever read on the Yom Kippur War. It bridges the gap between the two standard forms of writing on the 1973 conflict?the memoir and the historical monograph?and does so in a very effective manner.” —Robert M. Citino, author of The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War, 1943 “The authors’ work, in sum, presents an interesting and informative account of the Yom Kippur War on the Sinai front.” —Israel Affairs

Agnes and Margaret Smith were not your typical Victorian scholars or adventurers. Female, middle-aged, and without university degrees or formal language training, the twin sisters nevertheless made one of the most important scriptural discoveries of their time: the earliest known copy of the Gospels in ancient Syriac, the language that Jesus spoke. In an era when most Westerners—male or female—feared to tread in the Middle East, they slept in tents and endured temperamental camels, unscrupulous dragomen, and suspicious monks to become unsung heroines in the continuing effort to discover the Bible as originally written.

First established 150 years ago, Chicago Sinai is one of America’s oldest Reform Jewish congregations. Its founders were upwardly mobile and civically committed men and women, founders and partners of banks and landmark businesses like Hart Schaffner & Marx, Sears & Roebuck, and the giant meatpacking firm Morris & Co. As explicitly modern Jews, Sinai’s members supported and led civic institutions and participated actively in Chicago politics. Perhaps most radically, their Sunday services, introduced in 1874 and still celebrated today, became a hallmark of the congregation. In Sundays at Sinai, Tobias Brinkmann brings modern Jewish history, immigration, urban history, and religious history together to trace the roots of radical Reform Judaism from across the Atlantic to this rapidly growing American metropolis. Brinkmann shines a light on the development of an urban reform congregation, illuminating Chicago Sinai’s practices and history, and its contribution to Christian-Jewish dialogue in the United States. Chronicling Chicago Sinai’s radical beginnings in antebellum Chicago to the present, Sundays at Sinai is the extraordinary story of a leading Jewish Reform congregation in one of America’s great cities.