WhatsappIsrael’s Remembrance Day is different than other memorial days. Everyone feels the pain. Too many lives were lost. Yet the Jewish people have stayed strong.
Israel’s Remembrance Day
Israel’s Remembrance Day, or as it is called in Hebrew Yom Hazikaron, is a sad day for Israel. Jews living in Israel and worldwide remember those who were murdered defending the Jewish people. Whether it was a soldier on the front lines or a daughter out to coffee with her father when a suicide bomber murdered them, they are all defenders of Israel. Everyone choosing to live in the Jewish homeland is keeping the Jewish people strong.
It is May 2019. Sadly, the death roll has risen. 23,741 Israeli soldiers. 3,150 civilians. All killed for being Jewish – for living in their Promised Land. Thousands upon thousands of world’s lost. Loved ones are grieving. The entire country mourns. On this day, everyone feels like family.
A Poem
This is a poem written by Nathan Alterman. After the adoption of the UN Partition Plan in 1947, Chaim Weizmann said, “A State is not handed to a people on a silver platter.” Alterman then wrote this poem:
The Silver Platter
The Earth grows still.
The lurid sky slowly pales
Over smoking borders.
Heartsick, but still living, a people stand by
To greet the uniqueness of the miracle.
Readied, they wait beneath the moon,
Wrapped in awesome joy, before the light.
— Then, soon,
A girl and boy step forward,
And slowly walk before the waiting nation;
In work garb and heavy-shod
They climb
In stillness.
Wearing yet the dress of battle, the grime
Of aching day and fire-filled night.
Unwashed, weary unto death, not knowing rest,
But wearing youth like dewdrops in their hair.
— Silently the two approach
And stand.
Are they of the quick or of the dead?
Through wondering tears, the people stare.
“Who are you, the silent two?”
And they reply: “We are the silver platter
Upon which the Jewish State was served to you.”
And speaking, fall in shadow at the nation’s feet.
Let the rest in Israel’s chronicles be told.
