Shelly Saywell

About the Author: Shelly Saywell is a television researcher and producer who lives in Toronto, Canada.

We trained with the boys, slept in tents with them and fought with them. The unusual thing was that it was not unusual. We all did it. —Yaffa, Palmach soldier

Iam sure many of [the commanders] would rather have made love to me than send me out to fight. But they had no choice. It was total war. —Shifra, Haganah fighter

As one historian wrote: “The Second World War was the centrepiece of the last act of the story; the generation after the war was kept busy with the epilogue.” That epilogue saw the World War end and the Cold War begin, the defeat of colonialism and...