Yom HaZikaron: My Brothers, Heroes of Glory

Ever since I moved to the U.S., I visited Israel, my homeland, about twice a year. Over the years, I’ve managed to experience every Jewish holiday in Israel, but for some reason I always missed Israel Independence Day.

Finally, due to a family simcha, I landed in Israel a few days before Yom HaAtzmaut, Israel Independence Day, which follows Memorial Day for the fallen in Israel Defense.
When in Israel, I usually stay with my older brother in Tel Aviv. His wife Shoshana has a brother and sister. Both are bereaved parents who each lost a son, and when my brother asked if I’d like to join them for the memorial service for fallen IDF soldiers held in Hertzelia where his brother-in-law lives, I agreed.

Such ceremonies take place throughout the country, in cities, towns and kibbutzim. It begins with a mourning siren at 8 p.m. precisely. As we traveled from Tel Aviv, I had no concept how powerful an emotional experience I was about to have.

My brother parked the car and we marched toward an expansive vista. Simple chairs stood in long rows in front of the stage. It was 7:40 p.m. and the place filled up quickly. I looked around, checking out the crowd. This was not the audience I might see at the symphony orchestra, nor the gathering I’d find at a cantorial concert and not the crowd that reverently applauds popular singers. The crowd assembled was of diverse background: Ashkenazi, Sephardi, secular, Orthodox, etc. The common denominator was bereavement.

The atmosphere was different from other get-togethers. I searched my brain for a word that could define it: Restraint. A shared atmosphere of restraint and mutual respect reigned in this place. Everyone conversed quietly. Two minutes before 8, those in attendance began to rise. The conversations stopped. A complete silence fell on the place. The quiet was palpable.

Even though I was ready for the siren, I was jolted. Whether because of the special occasion, the perfect silence that preceded, and perhaps because it was my first time after many years – the siren sounded different to me. It made me shiver, permeating every pore, every organ of my body.

Slowly I looked around. Some stood in a tense silence, others downcast. Some murmured Psalms and others stood straight with eyes shut or gazing straight ahead. I noted tears in some eyes, and suddenly a woman in the row in front of me burst out in a choked sob. The siren itself sounded suddenly like the wail of the bereaved mother. I shivered with goose bumps all over.

The siren died down and the assembled sat. As the moment came for the reading of the names of those who had fallen in Israel’s wars, there appeared on two screens on either side of us, pictures of the soldiers, beneath the dates of their births and deaths. Most were young with bright smiles.

The image of a handsome youngster with shining black eyes and a wide smile revealing pure white teeth, appeared on the screen and from behind me burst out a cry, “My baby, Oh my baby.” I turned around slowly and two rows behind me I saw an elderly Yemenite woman striking her palms and shaking forward and back. According to the dates, her son fell in the Yom Kippur War. He was 23 when he died. Had he lived, he could already be a grandpa. And here his elderly mother still wails for the son taken in his prime. Tears welled in my eyes.

Name followed name; picture chased picture. Suddenly a bitter gasp followed by an anguished cry, as a young woman called the name of the deceased again and again and an elderly man sitting next to her, held her tight.

New tears welled in my eyes pushing out the earlier ones. A lump rose in my throat. I managed to swallow it. I went through this over and over again during the ceremony. Image chased image as I continued to cry. My brother, who sat next to me, looked over at me but didn’t comment.

The picture of my sister-in-law’s nephew appeared. I didn’t know him well, but I well remembered the words of my brother when he spoke to me on the telephone after the funeral. He told me that at the funeral the grandmother yelled out bitterly: “Why, God? Why do you take my grandchildren? Take me!” The pictures of the two cousins, the Hertzelian and the Jerusalemite both hang in the bereaved families homes. Unlike the picture of Dorian Gray, their pictures will never age.

I started weeping quietly and my back was trembling. A kind person behind me noticed it and placed a consoling hand on my shoulder. I didn’t know a single one of the fallen whose pictures continued to appear, but I knew who they were. They were my friends from the neighborhood, from school, from Boy Scouts, from the army. They were my fathers, uncles, cousins, my brothers, heroes of glory.

The ceremony ended. I got up from my place and walked among the crowd. I didn’t stand out. I wasn’t the only one with red eyes.

Suddenly I noticed a startling phenomenon. On my right and left I saw bereaved families greeting with joy and love friends in sorrow. They exchanged hugs and asked one another how their year went.

It dawned on me that they met each year at this ceremony every year like a school reunion. The atmosphere turned upbeat and freer as people were laughing and sharing stories.

My brother popped next to me. “I see that the years in the diaspora haven’t corrupted your sense of solidarity and identity.” I nodded without speaking and he continued, “May the memory of the fallen be for a blessing. Yet, we should not forget that the total number of IDF fallen in all Israel’s wars, equals approximately the number of martyrs in the Holocaust that were led to the gas chambers of Auschwitz every two to three days.”

A siren concluded the observance of the Memorial Day the next day at 11 a.m. Unlike the one that opened Memorial Day, this one sounded to me a little more soothing.

I was on Jeremiah Street in Tel Aviv. Merchants stood at the doors of their stores, drivers by their cars and pedestrians on the sidewalks. They all stood at attention, honoring those who are no longer with us.

Later I walked the length of the boardwalk. An ultra orthodox man was walking toward me; black hat, black coat, peyes and beard. Among the Haredim, there are many who do not honor the Day of Independence. Still emotional, my impulse overcame my sense of restraint “Say, did you stand at attention when the siren sounded?”  He stopped and gave me a piercing look. With a strong and confident voice he asked me: “How long did you serve in the IDF?”
“Me? Well, like everybody else, the regular military service.”

“Just to let you know, I served in the Golani Brigade and I lost comrades in arms. After 16 years, I retired at the rank of colonel. Of course I did, during the siren!”

Embarrassed, I jumped to attention and my hand snapped to my forehead. “Sir, I salute you!”
What irony! Of all the tens of thousands of ultra-orthodox Jews, I fell upon a Golani commander who had become religious. A fighter who gave of himself many times what I had given.

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