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Yom HaZikaron - Israel's Memorial Day (updated 2015)



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Sanguine




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, May 04 2014, 5:30 am
“Im Eshkachech Yerushalayim…” Even on the happiest day of our life a glass is broken making sure that we never forget our nation’s greatest sorrow. Keeping with that Jewish tradition, the Jewish state precedes Yom HAtzmaut - our Independence day with a day of mourning remembering the high cost we have paid to reach this joy.

Tonight begins Yom HaZikaron – Israel’s memorial day. Growing up in Brooklyn in the 70’s and 80’s, after the draft ended and way before 9/11, I didn’t know a single man who had served in the US army (years later I found out that many men that I knew from my parents’ generation (including my father in law) had served). I know that since 9/11 all Americans got more patriotic but in my childhood Memorial Day meant the start of summer. The beaches opened. A long weekend. Great memorial day sales… Memorial day meant as much as Labor Day. Had nothing to do with soldiers or memorial.

Here, In Israel, Yom HaZikaron – Memorial day means so much to everyone. In America, whenever we heard of a tragedy, natural or man created, the first question asked was “were there any Jews there?” Here in Israel, we’re all Jews. Yom HaZikaron is for our fallen soldiers and also for victims of terror attacks. I don’t think there’s a single person in Israel not affected by this day, especially those of us who lived through the second intifada (2000-2005).

Yom Hazikaron will begin at 8:00 tonight. Flags will be lowered to half mast in mourning, as the sirens wail for 2 minutes throughout the country. All traffic will come to a halt. Many people will be at local memorial ceremonies. Every citizen will stop what they are doing and spend two minutes giving respect and just thinking of all the loss that we have had in our young country.

When everyone takes 2 minutes to think my first thoughts are always of the 3 teenagers killed by a suicide bomber in our local pizza shop on a Motzei Shabbat thirteen years ago. I remember waking my 10 year old daughter for school the next morning and telling her that she will never see her favorite babysitter again. Our community spent that week attending funerals of 14 year olds and going to Nichum Availim at the homes of numb parents and siblings. My 10 year old’s friend had actually asked her if she wanted to go for pizza that night. I had told her No since Sunday is a school day here. I shudder every time I realize my daughter and her friend could have been the ones there.

Next I think of Tchiya, a mother of 5 whose car was shot at by an Arab earlier that year as they returned from a family trip to buy schoolbooks for the new year. Tchiya was killed on the spot. Her husband and oldest daughter were crippled for life. The other 2 children in the car escaped unharmed. Tchiya’s younger son soon entered the first grade with my son. Her unborn child would have been a classmate of my younger daughter who was born a few months before.

Then I think about the Chayalim. Benaya was killed in his tank the last day of the second war in Lebanon – If only the war would have ended a few hours earlier… Every year on the Friday of Chanuka our Yishuv has a 10 kilometer marathon in his memory since he was a marathon runner. Everyone participates. The kids are let out of school to race and cheer. Serious marathon runners from all over the country come to participate. Benaya’s army unit always runs as a group proudly holding their unit’s flag and remembering the battle that they were the lucky ones to leave. At one of the first awards ceremonies I remember Benaya’s mother speaking and saying – We always taught our children the importance of Eretz Yisrael and as religious Jews we would give up our lives for Eretz Yisrael – What can I say when my son died Al Kiddush HaShem protecting Eretz Yisrael – Isn’t that how we raised him? I don’t know how these parents go on with such strong emuna.

Then there is the grandson of a family here. He was a medic. This brave boy was trying to save an injured soldier and risked his own life by going to him even though the shooting was still heavy. Turned out that that injured soldier was the son of a couple who had been my madrichim in Bnei Akiva when I was young. So in one incident I knew the families of both boys killed.

I think about the parents of the soldier in my son’s army unit who was killed in a training accident in just the second month of basic training. We raise our children from birth through each milestone they pass as they learn to walk, learn to read… through all the good and the hard that parents go through. Now when their child entered manhood he was lost to them forever. I saw these parents at the beret ceremony where I proudly watched my son receive his IDF beret after completing basic training. These parents were honored with their deceased son’s beret and a plaque. My son had told me that this couple greeted his unit with food and drinks when they completed their 50 kilometer trek that completed their basic training. Parents trying to keep their son’s memory alive with his comrades. They shouldn’t worry. These boys will never forget their first experience with the reality of the army.

I have so many memories of the time of the intifada (2000 – 2005). How every time I heard the familiar beep-beep-beep, that signals the hourly news on the radio in Israel, I prayed the opening news item would be the soccer scores, expected storms, political unrest or even our failing economy – anything except a suicide bomber killing 10’s of innocent people. No one was safe. The normal act of riding a city bus too many times ended in death. We sat glued to our TVs looking at the burned out skeleton of a bus. The injured people being loaded into ambulances and the bodies covered to be moved to the morgue. We watched Zaka, the arm of the chevra kadisha that identifies bodies, scraping body parts off the street to be properly buried.

And after each attack we watched the funerals and shiva and heard the stories of families destroyed. Parents losing children. Children losing parents. Entire families wiped out. Each story became personal to us. Naava the kallah who sat in a café hearing last loving words from her father, Dr Applebaum, the night before her wedding. Thanks to a suicide bomber Mrs. Applebaum didn’t rejoice as her and her husband walked Naava to the Chupa the next night, she spent that night sitting shiva for her husband and Naava.

Or who can forget the Schijveschuurder family, an Oleh family from Holland, that were shopping and decided to stop for pizza at Sbarros. Both parents and 3 children were killed leaving their 5 other children orphaned. As the parents and children lay dying in Sbarros Moti Schijveschuurder was heard telling his young children to say Shma Yisrael.

I will definitely be thinking of the Fogel family massacre just 2 years ago. Twelve year old Tamar came home on Friday night from a friend’s house to find her parents and 3 of her siblings (11 yo, 4 yo and 3 months butchered to death. At the shiva, 12 yo Tamar pledged to her mother’s memory to make sure her two remaining brothers young brothers were raised in the strong Torah values their parents were raising them.

Each one of these tragic deaths we find we knew the victim or someone who knew them. Or someone who knew someone who knew someone… There are no strangers in this Jewish country. We’re all family. A two minute siren is no where enough time for all we have to remember.

After the two minute siren every community has ceremonies. My stories are not unique to my community or because I live on a Yishuv. Every community has lost someone. If not soldiers, they were lost in terror attacks. Regular people walking in the street, sitting in a café, shopping in the mall, sitting at a hotel Seder or riding on a bus.

Tomorrow at 11:00 AM. There will once again be a 2 minute siren. Together with thousands of Israelis we will be at our local cemetery for a military memorial of our lost soldiers. In Israel, every city and most Yishuvim and Kibbutzim have cemeteries near the community (not an hour away in Long Island). Every cemetery has a military section. The High Schools have their own tfillot, discussions and ceremonies and then let out on time for the teens to attend the ceremonies with their families. At our cemetery, after the ceremony, I see the young adults and older teens visit the graves of their friends who were killed in our pizza shop bombing. While now, thirteen years later, many of these “kids” are now grown with a child or two of their own, Keren, Nechemya and Rachel will never be forgotten. But they will be 14 forever.

After the memorial ceremony families return home. The younger children are all let out of school then. Most companies are close early. A regular weekday. We sit around the kitchen. Cooking eating and discussing thoughts from the cemetery. The radio is playing sad songs from Israel’s wars. Everyone is off but it is not a fun vacation day. On TV there are all sorts of documentaries and interviews with bereaved family members, soldiers, friends.

As the day runs down we start to make plans for the next day.
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At 8 PM the whole community gathers again but now the flag is proudly raised. Yom HaAtzmaut has began. Like an emotional rollercoaster we move away from our sorrow. We begin the festivities with a special Tfilla Chagigit. – For the past 24 hours our tfillot were Yizkor and El Malei Rachamim and now our tfillot are praise and thanks to Hashem for after 2,000 years we have Jewish sovereignty in Eretz Yisrael. We are living through Atchalta D’Geula. Shehechiyanu V’Kiyumanu L’Zman Hazeh. Hodu LaHashem Ki Tov Ki LiOlam Chasdo. The Shofar is blown.

The evening continues with song and dancing, and fireworks. The next day, Yom HaArzmaut, the only “Sunday” in Israel, nobody works. Everybody is out celebrating Israeli style. Tiyulim, Tiyulim, Tiyulim. Hiking through our land. Many army bases are open with displays of tanks and other artillery that children are climbing on. Military planes fly in formation over the beaches. But most important - The parks are filled with smoke as every couple of feet holds another family or group of friends Bar-B-Queing on a mongal.

There are flags hanging on lampposts in every city and every car has a flag hanging from its window. This is a proud nation. We mourned as a family and now we are celebrating as a family.
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I may have gone too long on my Yom HaZikaron stories. (That’s not all of them – I’ll add more next year – NOT NEW INCIDENTS, just ones I didn’t mention yet). I’m sure I’m not the only one with stories, personal or ones that “experienced” by hearing. Why not add them here


Last edited by Sanguine on Tue, Apr 21 2015, 10:43 am; edited 1 time in total
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grace413




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, May 04 2014, 5:52 am
Sanguine, thank your for your eloquent and moving post.

On Yom Hazikaron I try to remember all those who have no one to remember them. Many Holocaust survivors, the only ones left from their families, were brought into Israel as Independence was declared, handed a gun and sent off to fight. Those who died had no one to mourn them.

Then I have my personal loss, my dear friend Genia bat Abba ve'Mary. Genia was born in Poland to Holocaust survivors, the only ones left in their families. They came to Israel in 1962 when Genia was 9.

Genia and I had been friends for almost 30 years when she was killed in a bus bombing in Jerusalem in June 2003. She had a devoted husband, 5 beautiful children, students who adored her and a wide circle of friends. She was wise, kind, optimistic and loving. I still miss her every day.
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someone




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, May 04 2014, 7:51 am
Thank you both for your posts. I was especially touched by what grace413 said about remembering those who have no one to remember them, the holocaust survivors who got off the boats and had guns put in their hands. I remember reading somewhere that some of them had no identification so they didnt know what name to write on the headstones of their graves - so they wrote the number on their arms, that was the only "ID" they had.
Ever since the pigua in Mercaz HaRav Yom HaZikaron has been even more poignant for me, my husband was learning there at the time, we lived a few minutes away and one of the guys who was murdered was a friend of his. My husband was meant to be in the library at that time but had come home because he wasnt feeling well.
As well, I will be remembering Shuli Har Melech, who was killed on his way home from visiting his parents in Kochav HaShachar, on his way back to Chomesh. His wife Limor was injured and gave birth to their daughter 2 months early as a result of the pigua. A few months later I heard a tape of an interview that she gave during the shiva, in the background you could hear their 2 year old son crying "abbba".
Its so easy to get lost in the numbers and to forget that every terror victim and every soldier had a family, a life, a whole potential that was wiped out by wanton cruelty. All of us who live here are here in their merit owe it to them to carry on the fight, to keep our hold on Eretz Yisrael, to be proud that after 2000 years we have finally come home.
Shenizke to see the fullfillment of the prophecy ומחה ד' דמעה מעל כל פנים.
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hila




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, May 04 2014, 7:58 am
I too remember so many of them .. My "first" Yehuda, who was a computer operator who worked with me.

Others too may to mention - but Barak - the last soldier killed in Gush Katif, Dr Gottlieb my chiropracter, in a bus bombing.

There was Yosef Goodman from Efrat - a parachutist who was in a terriblee traning accident, Benjy Hillman - married three weeks, who insisted on going back to fight with his men.


Then Baruch Cohen, Sara blaustien, Ester Elvan - from my yishuv, killed on the roads.

So very many sad stories. Each represents a family split apart, destroyed, and lacking in simcha.


Ad Matai ??
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someone




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, May 04 2014, 8:51 am
I just read an interview on Arutz Sheva with Miriam Peretz. Its pashut lo yeuman what people go through and how strong she is. Anyone who wants something to go into yom hazikaron with I recomend reading it.
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Sanguine




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, May 04 2014, 3:41 pm
Just came back from our local Tekes. Each year they concentrate on different people. Two of the 14 year olds who were killed 12 years ago's mother and sister-in-law spoke. Benaya (the soldier who was killed 6 years ago)'s mother spoke.This lady is amazing. She told that when they finished sitting shiva for Benaya her younger son came to her and said, you know you have to sign to let me go to kravi (after a family loses a son the army won't take another son to fight unless the mother signs OK), she told him - Of course I will sign. It is a zchut to fight in Tzahal.
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yalimommy




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, May 04 2014, 3:42 pm
Sanguine, what you wrote was so poignant, and so true. I was in tears by the time I finished.

I don't think there's a person here who doesn't know SOMEONE who is affected personally by Yom HaZikaron.

There are unfortunately so many to remember, but here are only 2 of many...

Etty Ge'alyah, a mother of 8 from our yishuv, who was shot and killed while driving home from work.
She was the sweetest, nicest, most amazing woman who wrote beautiful poetry and was so involved in chessed.

Ari Weiss, a brave soldier, son of Rabbi Stewart and Susie Weiss from Ra'anana, who made aliya from Chicago. I remember Susie telling me when we paid a shiva call, "I guess we're real Israelis now.....".

Yehi zichram baruch.
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freidasima




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, May 04 2014, 4:25 pm
Sanguine I was waiting for someone to post about yom hazikaron. Thank you for what you wrote.
I think that this year I am all burnt out to deal with yom hazikaron. I know too many of the fallen personally that if I started listing them I could write all night, even if all I wrote were their names.
Dead classmates, dead colleagues, dead friends. Too many wars where I had friends who were killed in action - Yom Kippur, Lebanon I, Lebanon II, I have friends killed in Sinai, in Gaza, in Syria, in Lebanon and let's not even go into the people I know who were killed in piguim, I was just talking about soldiers. ..so many from my college classes who were killed in Lebanon or wounded there losing limbs, eyes, legs, everything. Dead soldiers, missing soldiers, wounded soldiers. I knew too many of them personally.

Yeah well. I guess I'm old and tired if I know so many dead people.
How sad.
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Sanguine




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, May 04 2014, 4:42 pm
freidasima wrote:
Sanguine I was waiting for someone to post about yom hazikaron. Thank you for what you wrote.
I think that this year I am all burnt out to deal with yom hazikaron. I know too many of the fallen personally that if I started listing them I could write all night, even if all I wrote were their names.
Dead classmates, dead colleagues, dead friends. Too many wars where I had friends who were killed in action - Yom Kippur, Lebanon I, Lebanon II, I have friends killed in Sinai, in Gaza, in Syria, in Lebanon and let's not even go into the people I know who were killed in piguim, I was just talking about soldiers. ..so many from my college classes who were killed in Lebanon or wounded there losing limbs, eyes, legs, everything. Dead soldiers, missing soldiers, wounded soldiers. I knew too many of them personally.

Yeah well. I guess I'm old and tired if I know so many dead people.
How sad.

You're burnt out cause you had a personal tragedy this year. I'm sure you're remembering your old friends today. You don't have to list them for us and start describing each. You really lived through the wars. It's your personal memories. Share them with other people who knew them. My contemporaries weren't in the army more than a week or 2. It's different.
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etky




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, May 04 2014, 4:55 pm
someone wrote:
I just read an interview on Arutz Sheva with Miriam Peretz. Its pashut lo yeuman what people go through and how strong she is. Anyone who wants something to go into yom hazikaron with I recomend reading it.


DH and I heard her speak here in Efrat last Tisha B'Av in a social issues related panel discussion. The woman is one of the most impressive people I have ever encountered, on many levels. She is a giant.
I don't go to the tekes yishuvi anymore. Yom Hazikaron gets harder as I get older (and the chayalim get seemingly younger) and I don't like to cry in public. I watch the tekes mamlachti at the kotel on my computer.
I think living in a yishuv heightens the poignancy of the day. You know people so much more intimately - those who were killed and the grieving families - and it''s all concentrated in a relatively small place. Everything, including the commemorative ceremonies, is on a very personal note.
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ROFL




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, May 04 2014, 6:45 pm
I have no words , as I read this tears fall down my face .
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Sanguine




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Apr 21 2015, 10:40 am
Yom Hazikaron 2015 I started this thread last year and I think that we can add to it (or read it) every year. A lot has happened since last year at this time. This past summer Israel went through a long war which sacrificed 67 of our "boys", sons, husbands and fathers, and many are still hospitalized or out still trying to recover.

But this day is not only about chayalim. It is also to remember terror victims. The Har Nof Massacre is probably strongest in people's minds. Or the baby run over in her carriage after her first trip to the Kotel. Or the recent car murder of Shalom Yochai Cherki HY"D.

You can see facts in the article in the Yeshiva World http://www.theyeshivaworld.com......html
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etky




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Apr 21 2015, 11:42 am
Thanks Sanguine for picking up last year's thread.

Well, as I said last year, I don't attend the tekes yishuvi anymore in the evening.

This year however we will be attending two ceremonies in the morning: at DS's high school which lost two additional alumni over this past year: Lt. Yuval Hyman z"l of Efrat who fell in Gaza, during Tzuk Eitan last summer and Capt. Yochai Kalengel z"l from Elazar who was killed in January on the northern border by terrorist fire. The school has been very stricken by these two fresh losses.

Then we will proceed to DD's elementary school where the eighth grade is traditionally in charge of the Yom Hazikaron ceremony which the parents are expected to attend along with the entire student body.
This year the commemoration will spotlight Avraham David Moses hy"d, a 16 yr. old victim of the Mercaz Harav massacre - whose sister is in DD's class, Capt. Hagai Lev z"l, who fell in Gaza in 2002, - the uncle of another girl in the class, and also Yuval Hyman who is the brother of the girls' madricha in Bnei Akiva and who, along with Hagai Lev, was also an alumnus of the school.

So, we are gearing up for all this emotionally. You are right that so much has happened since last Yom Hazikaron: the three boys, the war in Gaza, the horrible terror attacks including, among others, Har Nof and the Hyper Cacher in Paris. It is a long litany.
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morningsickness




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Apr 21 2015, 12:44 pm
I was just listening to Miriam Peretz being interviewd by Avi Mimran on Radio Kol Chai. That woman is an amazing hero. I have no clue how she has so much emunah and love for Hashem even after losing both! her sons.

Adel Biton's mother is speaking now on Kol Chai. Her daughter passed away about a month or 2 ago, from complications that happened as a result of being hit by a rock thrwon by terroists at her mom's car.

Hashem Yikom Damam!
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Sanguine




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Apr 22 2015, 10:39 am
Went to the Tekes in the cemetery today. Same people... Same bereaved parents, spouses children, friends... I saw the mother of Rachel Thayler HY"D, one of the 3 14 yo teenagers killed by the suicide bomber in our pizza shop 13 years ago. Rachel's mother no longer lives here in the Yishuv. She comes for every Yom HaZikaron (probably more often) and is greeted by friends here who were here with her in that hard time. Her daughter is mentioned in the ceremony at night and again today in the Kel Malei at the cemetery. We reassure her that her daughter was not forgotten here and we're keeping an eye on her. Some of Rachel's friends now live here as grownups and they continue to visit her grave. Soldiers and terror victims are never forgotten. Their tragedy belongs to all of us. The families have their own Yarzheit day for the loss. But today we all mourn with them.

I heard in speeches by two different mothers who lost children years ago, women who seem to be "handling things". That the shock to reality on a normal day is when a new acquaintance innocently asks "How many children do you have?". How do you answer. "I have 5" cause the one that died is always your child. But you know the next question will be - "Oh, how old are they". "What are they doing now?" "Well, my baby is 14 yo (forever)". "So young? What is she doing?..." - So how do you answer an acquaintance with your deepest pain? This pain of having a child suddenly taken from you never goes away. If you're strong and well supported by family and friends you manage to keep up daily life. You even learn to laugh and enjoy things. But these people never really stop mourning.
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