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Unearthing a key chapter in the development of Israeli history education, this article explores history-teaching at the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa, one of Israel's foremost schools, in the wake of the 1973 Yom Kippur War and against the backdrop of attempts made by the Ministry of Education to reform history education in Israel. It shows that in the context of the great social changes that occurred in Israeli society, Reali history teachers felt that their primary mission was to ensure that their students remained closely connected to their collective past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the literature on the history of history education in Israel is vast, little has been written about it from teachers' perspectives. This article focuses on teachers' motivation for teaching history and explores what formed the ways in which they understood their profession in the 1970s and 1980s, a period of great social and political change in Israel. By focusing on history teachers' reaction to the Yom Kippur War (1973) and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, to the introduction of a new history curriculum (1975) and to the diversification of the Israeli society, the article shows that, in a rapidly changing world, these teachers saw themselves first and foremost as the ones in charge of maintaining unbroken links between their students and their national past. This often put history teachers in conflict with their professional surroundings, giving rise to heated arguments over the question: what should be the purpose of history education? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]