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Here’s Why Today Is Israel’s Saddest Day Of The Year
Today, Israel collectively mourns the loss of 23,320 lives in the wars the country has fought since its establishment in 1948. Over the last year, 116 soldiers and civilians lost their lives as a result of war and terror.
At 8 P.M. Tuesday evening, a minute-long siren sounded around the country. After the siren, a memorial torch-lighting ceremony was held at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount in the old city of Jerusalem.
At 11 A.M. on Wednesday, a two-minute siren sounded; and life came to a standstill. The video below shows Israeli citizens in the city of Tiberias during the two-minute siren.
After that, a ceremony honoring the victims of terror took place at Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem.
On Yom Hazikaron (Remembrance Day), Israelis show emotions they hide for the rest of the year. As Professor Dan Shuftan explained during a lecture in the UK earlier this year, “as soon as a war is over, Israelis wipe the dust off their clothes and seem to continue with their lives as if nothing has happened.”
One Israeli I interviewed a couple of years ago explained the way Israelis cope with war and terror as follows: “We are used to putting a stone on our hearts; otherwise, we would not be able to conduct our lives here–but underneath this stone we are bleeding.”
More than just remembering the fallen, the day also gives Israelis a chance to show their respect for the ‘family of bereaved’ – an umbrella term for all those families who lost their loved ones to terror or war – currently numbering 9,753 bereaved parents, 4,958 widows, and 2,049 orphans (under 30); together, they number 16,760.
In the past year, as a result of the summer war in Gaza, the 67 fallen soldiers added 154 bereaved parents to the ‘family’; 26 children were orphaned as a result of Operation Protective Edge; including two who were born after their fathers fell.
On social media, people posted pictures, songs, or poetry to express their sorrow and solidarity with the bereaved families.
Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu spoke about his personal experience with the loss of a beloved family member. His brother Yoni was killed during Operation Entebbe in July 1976, when the IDF elite unit Sayeret Matkal rescued 106 hostages who were held at Entebbe airport in Uganda after their plane was hijacked by a Palestinian European terror group.
He recalled how he felt that Yoni died twice that day–first when he was informed by IDF personnel that his brother was killed in action, and secondly when he had to tell his parents – who were living in New York at the time – that their beloved son was dead.
He told the families of fallen soldiers during the memorial service at Yad LeBanim in Jerusalem:
I know your pain and longing. Thirty-nine years after my brother’s death, the grief does not fade. The grief did not fade for my late parents until their final days.
The bonds that tie us to our land and our country are strong and eternal. We are among the few people with a connection to their homeland spanning thousands of years, and there is no other people torn from their land who defied the rules of history and returned to establish a national life in that land. Israel is the source of our life. The blood of our loved ones is soaked in its soil, and when the pain rises and the torment of loss increases, we will take comfort in the fact that our sons and daughters fell during the noblest of missions: ensuring the existence of our nation. I say the existence of our nation because the Jewish people have no future without the State of Israel – and it will have a future if we succeed in defending our country.”
Tonight, Yom HaZikaron will be followed by Yom Ha’Atsma’ut (Independence Day), arguably the most joyous day in Israel. The State of Israel will celebrate 67 years since its founding.
Yom Ha’atzma’ut is always on the 5th day of the Hebrew month Iyar.The date was chosen by Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, because it happened to be the expiration date of the British stewardship in Palestine. But there was an additional reason to choose Iyar 5th as the date for the declaration of independence for the Jewish State.
The declaration came seven days after Holocaust Remembrance day, when Hitler’s genocide of the Jewish people is commemorated. That was the incomprehensible and inexplicable conclusion of the 2,000-year exile of the Jewish people.
Lucy Dawidowicz titled her history of the Second World War The war against the Jews because Hitler did not just want to conquer the world.
The German dictator was obsessed with the Jews because he was aware of the Jewish claim to be the chosen people, the people who were given the task of teaching God’s compassionate righteousness to the world. So it was no coincidence that the Talmud tractate Pessachim was found in Hitler’s bunker in Berlin after he committed suicide. That part of the Talmud deals with Pesach, the Festival of Freedom and Redemption (Exodus from Egypt).
So Hitler took inspiration from the story of the Exodus and thought that he could succeed where Pharaoh failed. The resurrection of Israel in its ancient homeland after Hitler’s failed attempt to obliterate the Jewish people was the ultimate victory over the Nazis for the Jews. That is why Yom Ha’atzma’ut follows on the very heels of Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Ynet contributed to this report.
This post originally appeared on Western Journalism – Equipping You With The Truth
Source: http://www.westernjournalism.com/heres-why-today-is-israels-saddest-day-of-the-year/
