My wife and I got into the taxi expecting a trip across the holy city, but instead we got a trip through a seminal moment of Jewish history

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n February 11, 2017, my wife and I entered what looked like an ordinary taxi in Ramat Eshkol and headed back toward the center of Yerushalayim. As we passed the walls of the Old City, our driver, David Mizrachi, started pointing out landmarks and telling us what life was like before Yerushalayim was liberated from Jordanian control. He showed us exactly where the Jordanian border had been and described how, as a child, he and his friends had to be careful to avoid the mines when they played outside.

David asked us if we’d ever seen the iconic picture of Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren holding a Torah, blowing a shofar, flanked by IDF soldiers, moments after the Kotel was liberated from the Jordanians. Of course we had, and he said, “The young soldier standing near Rav Goren at the edge of the picture — that’s me.”