Wreathes to Laurels
By Paul Mirbach
Tonight there will be fireworks and fanfare, celebration and music. However, today the entire country is shrouded in an atmosphere of solemnity, respect and remembrance, pain and empathy. I know a few families who have lost a son in Israel’s wars. Every Yom Hazikaron, I recall that fateful day in the summer of 1990, when during a training exercise, a mortar was mistakenly fired on a position which had just been taken, killing five of my comrades – young men with whom I used to spend an entire month during reserve duty. It fell about 100m from where I stood, it could have been me. The following day, I attended five funerals, traversing half the length of Israel – from Rishon LeTzion, to Tel Aviv, to Haifa and finally, Kibbutz Gesher Haziv. It was one of the most harrowing days of my life.
Two years ago, a close colleague of mine lost her son, Tzvika, in the opening salvo of Operation Protective Edge, and since then, I find that on the morning of Erev Yom Hazikaron, my thoughts go out to her and her family, and I think about how hard the forthcoming two days will be for them.
I think one has to live in Israel to really experience how uncanny the transition from Yom Hazikaron to Yom Ha’atzmaut is; from deep mourning and sorrow, to wild celebrations, loud patriotic music and food in abundance. After all, how can Jews celebrate anything without food? For this holiday, it is fellafel and shwarma. I especially marvel at how bereaved families manage to make the emotional transition. Certainly for them it cannot be like opening and closing a tap on their feelings? Yet, every year, they manage to do it. Perhaps it is a part of our Israeli ethos.
Indeed, there have been suggestions over the years, to change the date of Yom Hazikaron, in order to provide space for the bereaved families to fully participate in the celebrations of Yom Ha’atzmaut. It hasn’t happened, and personally I think it is inappropriate. But, how did it come about that it was decided that Yom Hazikaron would be held on the day before Yom Ha’atzmaut? We must remember that in May 1949, Israel was essentially still in the dying throes of the War of Independence. Although armistice agreements had been signed with Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan, fighting was still going on against the Syrians and Kaukji’s irregulars (mainly Iraqis). Thus, the commemoration of the date of Israel’s Declaration of Independence came as somewhat of a surprise to Ben Gurion, who was still intensely involved in managing Israel’s military struggle, while trying to prepare the country for the day after.
Therefore, as it so often happens in this wonderful country, where shooting from the hip has become an art form, the declaration of the celebration of the first Yom Ha’atzmaut came at short notice. For the first years memorial services were held on Yom Ha’atzmaut itself, but in 1950, one of Ben Gurion’s aides suggested that it would be more appropriate to set aside a special day to commemorate those that fell. As always, this suggestion was raised at short notice, barely a week before Israel’s second Yom Ha’atzmaut – and in the rush of having to pass the decision in the Knesset and all, time only allowed for it to be the day before Yom Ha’atzmaut. And that, as they say, was all she wrote.
Looking back, after so many years of Yomei Hazikaron and Yomei Ha’atzmaut, having these two days placed side by side by force of circumstance, rather than forethought, could not have been more fitting. It reminds us that Israel’s existence and independence was not a gift, but that it was earned, through blood and sacrifice, anguish and suffering. It illustrates that our right to a country was not bestowed, but taken by us with gritted teeth and determination, from the hands of those upon whom we were once dependent for their sympathy, and forged it ourselves, at a terrible price.
It is also the ultimate expression of humility and appreciation, that we as a people, pay tribute to those who made the celebration of our independence possible, before we indulge ourselves in self-congratulation. Whether by design, or by default, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
There is one aspect, however, that I would like to take a minute to ponder upon. On Yom Hazikaron, we unite to remember those that died in our continuous struggle for survival, and for the right to be the masters of our own destiny. We hold the hands of those who have lost loved ones, those whom our martyrs left behind them, who have to live with only their memories to sustain them. What of the wounded and disabled? What of those, who are still alive, and live with the memories of how they were, up until that fateful day? Those that wake up every morning and are reminded how their lives have changed, whether it be physical or emotional, the result of their sacrifice so that we could live a normal life? I feel that somehow, in the turmoil of emotions that we get caught up in, in remembering the fallen, we seem to have forgotten to pay tribute to those that got up and limped off the battlefield, or were carried off, but whose lives were changed forever, from that day on.
So this year, I ask all of you to remind yourselves on this day, of those still with us, who now need our help and recognition, and whose price they paid for our independence is no less dear. Let us embrace them and commit ourselves to making their lives more livable, filled with hope and a future. Let us show appreciation to them, too.
From wreathes to laurels, our country was born
And so it lives, in sorrow and joy,
We give thanks and commit to never forget.
That our home is built,
On a foundation,
Of wreathes to laurels.
