Remembering Israel’s fallen

May 8, 2011 - 8:41 PM by

The Remembrance Day ceremony in Ma'aleh Adumim on Sunday night.

The daily hustle and bustle that typifies Israel came to a halt a few minutes ago, as around the county sirens rang out and ceremonies were held to mark the beginning of Rembrance Day.

The country’s main ceremony took place at the Western Wall plaza in Jerusalem’s Old City with the participation of President Shimon Peres and Chief of General Staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz.

At our local ceremony amid unseasonably brisk weather, it looked like a couple thousand residents turned out for the 45-minute proceedings, which included reading out the names of over 60 hometown soldiers who lost their lives defending their country. All told, 22,867 soldiers have died since the founding of the state, a huge toll for the small country.

Much of the crowd in Ma’aleh Adumim was filled with high school students and younger, yet there wasn’t any of the usual rambunctiousness and levity that gatherings of kids usually brings, as they understood the solemness of the event. In fact members of the local branches of the Tzofim (scouts) and Bnei Akiva took active roles in the ceremony, preparing touching songs and readings.

It’s impossible to sit through a Remembrance Day ceremony without feeling like you’re witnessing the real Israel and finally understanding what makes the people here tick.

As my wife pointed out, the two-day period encompassing Remembrance Day and Independence Day which begins at sunset on Monday as the solemn holiday makes way for the joyous one, is really the only time of the year when the country feels at one, the bickering and political divides momentarily halted to make way for unity.

Behind us, as a teenage boy onstage read a letter that a soldier had written to his girlfriend in the event he was killed in battle, a young female soldier sitting behind us with her friends burst into tears. It brought the abstractness of the day into sharp focus and brought back the reality that there’s no such thing in Israel as a faceless army. It’s a people’s army, and we’re the people. That’s why we mourn, and that’s why tomorrow, we’ll celebrate.

Tags: • Category: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, War 

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One Comment on Remembering Israel’s fallen

  1. Mourning in blue and white | ISRAELITY on Mon, May 9th 2011 8:49 AM

    2. [...] preparation for today’s Israel Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers, a bunch of mothers I know and don’t know ‘gathered’ on Facebook yesterday to [...]

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