Understanding Israel

RISHON LEZION, Israel — The Jerusalem Post edi­to­ri­al­izes on Memo­r­ial Day and Inde­pen­dence Day in the Jew­ish state:

Do you want to under­stand this coun­try? Accom­pany us dur­ing the 48 hours that take in Remem­brance Day and Inde­pen­dence Day…

At 8 p.m. last night, a siren ush­ered in memo­r­ial ser­vices through­out the land. Tele­vi­sion and radio broad­cast the main cer­e­mony from the West­ern Wall plaza. Stir­ring our emo­tions, the cam­eras showed the memo­r­ial flame being lit, our flag at half-mast and the honor guard at atten­tion, with the Wall illu­mi­nated in the background.

When our dis­persed peo­ple began their return to this land in the 1880s, who could have fore­told that the cul­mi­na­tion of that home­com­ing would be too late for mil­lions of them? Who, more­over, could have known that the 1948 War of Inde­pen­dence would be but a down pay­ment on fur­ther wars to come?

Another siren will pierce our heart this morn­ing at 11 o’clock in remem­brance of the 22,570 men and women — of the defense forces, police, secret ser­vices and the Jew­ish under­grounds — who fell defend­ing our national renewal; from 1860, when those Jews already here first began try­ing to build their lives out­side the Old City walls, up to Oper­a­tion Cast Lead this year…

INDEPENDENCE Day cel­e­bra­tions begin at 8 p.m. Tues­day night. For many, the tran­si­tion from somber com­mem­o­ra­tion is jar­ring. Yet there is no bet­ter way to demon­strate the link between the tears of sac­ri­fice and the joys of independence.

And so, we wipe away our tears and begin count­ing our bless­ings: In 1948, this coun­try started out with 600,000 Jews; today there are 5,593,000. Since Inde­pen­dence Day last year, more than 150,000 babies were born; more than 12,000 Jews made aliya.

Keep count­ing, and Hag Sameah [Happy Hol­i­day].

In the United States, every­one cel­e­brates Memo­r­ial Day with bar­be­cues to com­mem­o­rate those who lost their lives in defense of the coun­try. But com­par­a­tively few peo­ple in the coun­try of 300 mil­lion per­son­ally know some­one who died fight­ing for America.

In Israel, it is a dif­fer­ent story. As I wrote in two prior posts (here and here), every­one in the Jew­ish state is essen­tially one mem­ber of a gigan­tic, extended fam­ily that shares in every individual’s pains and tri­umphs. Every­one here knows at least one per­son who has died in a war or ter­ror­ist attack. Friends of mine spent today vis­it­ing the graves of loves ones. Most Israeli tele­vi­sion chan­nels sus­pended their enter­tain­ment chan­nels and broad­cast biogra­phies of the fallen instead. The coun­try will be in a somber mood until sun­down this evening, when Inde­pen­dence Day begins directly after Memo­r­ial Day. And then, Israelis will erupt with food, fire­works, and fun. But a piece of sobri­ety will always be in their hearts.