This story begins with two items on a mantelpiece: one, a family photo of our relatives in Israel; the other, a little copper locket souvenir of Israel which, when opened, produced an accordion-like series of photos of the Holy Land.

To a six-year-old passing the mantelpiece a dozen times a day, these objects were often the subject of immense curiosity. Who were these cousins whom I'd never met, but with whom my mother corresponded, it seemed, on a regular basis?

The copper photo locket was interesting, at first, because it was something to open and close. But, as I got older, I would look at the old black-and-white photos of biblical sites in Israel in a bit of wonderment, trying to place them in some kind of context with my Hebrew school lessons. Israel, it seems, was always a part of my persona. In 1956, when I was seven, the Suez Campaign took place. That war became part of our evening table talk, especially—but not only—because of our relatives living in Israel.

What a young child remembers! I recall my father reading from a newspaper that "Israel had captured thousands of Egyptian army blankets" and picturing the scene in my mind's eye. In our house, the French, who had helped finance the Suez Canal, stood tall in those days, as their government, in particular, was closely allied with the Jewish state.

My parents were immigrants from Eastern Europe, and they were both solidly anchored in Zionism. My father told me that, in his house in a Russian shtetl, there was always a picture of Theodor Herzl, and a Keren Kayemet pushke (charity box) on the mantelpiece. On the evening before his family left for America in 1913, my father told me that he and his best friend pledged "to meet again in Palestine."

My mother had a similar orientation. In 1913, as a young girl, she was chosen, along with a friend, to bring greetings to the opening of the newly built synagogue in Bangor, Maine. In her remarks, she informed the congregation about her youth group, the Young Maccabeans. "Its members," she stated, "try to enthuse themselves [with] that noble Hebrew spirit which animated the Maccabeans…our purpose is to once more uplift the Hebrew flag without wishing in any way to detract from the greatness of…or our allegiance to, the Stars and Stripes."

For me, like so many others of my generation, the Six-Day War was a defining, personal moment. In May 1967, we watched the drama unfold in slow motion: the removal of United Nations peacekeepers from the Sinai; the closing of the Straits of Tiran by Egypt; the darkening of the geopolitical sky during the drift toward war; and the general feeling that tiny Israel was going to be abandoned by the world's democracies.

We felt good about the fact that our ambassador to the United Nations was Arthur Goldberg, and that President Johnson seemed favorably inclined toward Israel. But, hearing the venomous speeches of Arab representatives and those in support of them, especially the Soviets, made one wonder about where all of this was leading.

On the morning of June 5, I was in the high-school cafeteria, waiting in a knot of friends for classes to begin. Graduation was only 10 days away, and we were all in a pretty jocular mood. My best friend—who had apparently heard the news from the Middle East before leaving for school—came up to me and said, "Boy, you guys are really giving it to the Arabs."

The rest of the day was spent calling my father between classes and listening to the radio in the school office, to get any bit of information about what was transpiring. In the afternoon, I learned that Israel had destroyed the Arab air forces on the ground.

It seemed as if my heart pounded for six days. Each evening, the TV was always tuned to the network news and broadcasts from the U.N. Security Council. We watched with pride and fascination as Abba Eban, the most eloquent diplomat of his era, addressed the Security Council, sitting only a few feet from those who were representing Israel's Arab enemies. His comments were, at the same time, strong and magnanimous. He proposed peace between Israel and the Arabs.

Almost from the beginning, those hopes—and that extended hand—were dashed and rejected. The famous Arab "Three Nos"—no recognition, no peace, no negotiations—were declared at a summit meeting in Khartoum led by Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser, in September 1967.

That was followed by the War of Attrition between Israel and Egypt, and then, not too long after, by the Yom Kippur War. Along the way, Arab rejectionism and the rise of Palestinian terrorism left in their wake thousands of Israeli casualties, both military and civilian.

Recently, we observed the 30th anniversary of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's visit to Jerusalem and the warm welcome he received from Prime Minister Menachem Begin and from all Israelis and Jews, like us, in the Diaspora. The peace with Egypt—albeit cold—and that with Jordan gave us the hope, and expectation, that more of the same could, and would, follow.

Indeed, the 1993 Oslo Accords and the "handshake on the White House lawn" suggested a breakthrough in resolving the most contentious of the Israeli-Arab conflicts—that with the Palestinians. Today, 14 years later, we are still waiting. Israelis—despite intifadas and murderous suicide bombings, incitement, and unbridled terror—by an overwhelming majority still favor a two-state solution to the conflict. The Annapolis Conference of 2007 is the latest attempt to bring this about. We must be hopeful—but history, and my natural cynicism, tells me the jury is certainly still out.

I visited Israel for the first time in 1972, as a graduate student. At my first free moment, I contacted the cousins in the picture on our mantelpiece. They are a real halutz family: kibbutz members who, from their arrival in Palestine in the early 1930s, have suffered the tragedies and experienced the triumphs of so many Israelis.

One cousin was killed on the Golan Heights in the first days of the Yom Kippur War; an older brother in a military plane crash died (on his way home to see his ailing father) a year later. They are a talented and cultured family, with a special focus on music and art. I still stay in close contact with the matriarch of the family, my cousin Dalia.

I made it a point to visit Israel every year thereafter. I took a job with the American Zionist Federation in 1975 and, a year later, married an Israeli, herself an immigrant from India.

My sister and her family made aliyah in 1976. I have been fortunate, working as a professional in the Jewish community for almost 35 years, to visit Israel at least once a year. During that period, I've met with most of Israel's top policymakers.

Following what happens in Israel has become part of my daily routine. As many of you do, I often start my day by looking for news from the Middle East.

And sometimes, even when I'm not looking, the news comes at me anyway. The frustration that, after so many years, peace has not been attainable grates on us. Even the Annapolis gathering, which should have been a cause for a modicum of optimism, was shaken only days before its opening, when the Saudi foreign minister, ostensibly there to support peace between Israel and the Palestinians, announced he would not even shake the hand of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Two days into the Six-Day War, Eban addressed the U.N. Security Council: "Israel in recent days has proved its steadfastness and vigor. It is now willing to demonstrate its instinct for peace. Let us build a new system of relationships from the wreckage of the old. Let us discern across the darkness the vision of a better and brighter dawn."

What better gift could Israel—and all of us—receive on its 60th anniversary, than the realization of Eban's vision.