Yom HaAtzmaut 2008

According to the Jewish Calendar, a new day starts at sunset of the old day. Memorial Day and Independence Day are one day apart and the remembering transitions directly into celebration in a way that is befitting to a place like this where sadness and fear are almost always mixed with happiness and love of life. Efrat has a really lovely local tekes (ceremony) to mark the end of Memorial Day and the start of Independence Day. The entire town (or small city really) shows up to the largest park and plops down on blankets on a slope to watch the festivities. They have sad songs and speeches for the end of Yom HaZikaron and once Yom HaAtzmaut starts the flag is raised from half-mast and the celebrating begins. They start with a torch lighting ceremony and they have everything from a live band to the youngest jazz class in the area performing. In the end to top it all off they have one of the nicest and largest fireworks displays in the area. I bumped into some other new-immigrant friends and had a blast singing and dancing and jumping up and down with them celebrating our first Independence Day as citizens. It was really fun and really special.

Later that night I went into Jerusalem with a bunch of friends. Center of Town was packed with things to do and people doing them. We went straight to the square in front of the municipal building for Israeli Folk Dancing! The square was PACKED with thousands of people dancing in hundreds of circles dances that have been around since before the state was established. It was so much fun. It was really unbelievable. It was the perfect thing to do. Because folk dancing is “not cool” all of the gross “cool kids” (read arsim = those kids who wear really tight jeans and have spiked hair and who have listen to music on their cell phones on buses and who have no respect for themselves or anyone else) were at other parties and the dance floor was open for chill people who just wanted to come and dance and be happy. It was an awesome mixing of peoples (again the Charedim were completely absent) from religious to non, old and young. The dancing went until almost 4am!!!! It was also the most ‘kosher’ mixed dancing I have ever seen. The religious girls and religious guys danced in separate circles and the people who wanted to dance together did so and there was no issue from anyone. People were just happy and dancing and singing and it was fantastic. I didn’t know more than half of the dances but just being carried along in huge circles of dancing singing happy people made me so happy. I want to go there every year to celebrate because I feel like it epitomizes everything I love about Israeli society and what it is that we are doing here- making a home for all Jews and truly appreciating what we have as well as being connected to our past. It was awesome!

David pulled the unfortunate duty of being on call during the holiday weekend. In order to fulfill the local commandment of “Thou Shall Barbeque on Independence Day” and get to be with David as well we piled into cars and drove to his base. We figured that either the nature reserve next door or the beach down the road would be perfect places for our “Al Ha Aish” (On the fire) but when we arrived we noticed that everyone else (literally) was following the same commandment!! There was absolutely no room anywhere. At first I freaked out because I really wanted this BBQ, but then we remembered that right next to the gate of David’s base is an area of picnic tables for when families come to visit their soldiers. We drove in there and had a lovely picnic and even got to take David home with us!!

Another fun aspect of the day was sitting and talking with David’s grandfather. His grandfather made Aliyah just over a month ago. He is 85 and it is not his first time living here. Before the state was founded he was here as a journalist and served in the Hagana. Listening to him retell his stories on Independence Day, which he personally helped come about, was really amazing. All in all it was an amazing holiday week and I hope that it will continue to be as meaningful and exciting in the coming years.

Yom HaZikaron 2008

This year was my first year for the Memorial Day/Independence Day circuit as a citizen. I have been here before on these, two of the most awesome (in both meanings of the word) days of the year to be an Israeli. In Israel, Memorial Day and Independence Day are the complete opposite of what they are in America. There is no such thing as celebrating with shopping or football games. This two day period is for family time, reflecting, remembering, mourning, and then celebrating like there will be no tomorrow! Everything shuts down and everyone celebrates (Memorial Day is a half workday unless you request to get off).

This year I wanted to take advantage of everything and really experience it all. Memorial Day is marked here with a siren that sounds throughout the ENTIRE country. When the siren sounds everything stops and everyone stands at attention. Traffic stops and people get out of their cars to stand together with the rest of the nation for a minute of true silence and reflection. This year I had been at an engagement party in the early evening but wanted to be in a public place to be able to properly observe the moment of silence and to be outside with the rest of everyone while it happened. I went down to Emek Refaim (the main street by my house) and sat on a bench for 10 minutes watching the people go by until the siren went off. The sound is piercing and in the complete silence all around you it’s as if you can feel the sound of the siren reverberating through your body. It is haunting. It feels like something is entering your soul—standing there with everyone else doing nothing but thinking about the fact that it is Memorial Day is an incredible thing. That feeling is one of the reasons I want to live here. That feeling means that I am part of something greater than I am, that is worth dying for. And those who have made the ultimate sacrifice so that I may live safely and free in my homeland are worth remembering.

Later that evening I went with my friend Noam, who is currently serving in a combat unit, to the neighborhood ceremony. Every area has their own little ceremony to commemorate those who fell from their communities. It was small and personal and really nice. I haven’t lived here long enough to recognize most of the names of those who had fallen in battle or who had been killed in terror attacks, but Noam who has lived here his whole life knew of many of them. It was a somber evening and very much befitting the occasion.

The next morning I went with my friend Arielle and David’s brother Ari to the National War Cemetery at Har Hertzl. On Memorial Day morning there is a major ceremony presided over by the Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, but more importantly it is a time to go visit graves of soldier who you knew or didn’t know or maybe those who’s stories you heard once or those who have no one left to visit them at all. This was the first time that I had a specific grave that I wanted to visit. Over a year ago, a soldier was killed in some sort of parachuting accident during advanced training. The details have never been released… He used to come spend almost every summer in Houston visiting his grandmother and uncle so we were very friendly. He also grew up with David in Efrat. I was in Austin for the funeral and when they had a memorial service for him I was in the country but sick and couldn’t go. It was important for me to be able to at least visit his grave once. The other thing about going to Har Hertzl on Yom HaZikaron is that it’s packed. More packed than the most popular concert. It is packed with people from all walks of society. Another aspect of Israel that I love so much is that everyone fights together and unfortunately everyone dies together, but at the end of the day all differences are put aside and religious and non-religious people hug each other and cry and share memories because we are all one people. (I purposely didn’t say anything about the Charedim…don’t get me started)

We found the grave but it was already surrounded by his former unit and other friends and family members who came to pay their respects. Because we were relatively late, we couldn’t get too close and instead ended up next to a grave farther along the row. The grave happened to be of a soldier, named Roi Klein, who had been a student (a few years older and already married with children) at David’s Yeshiva. His story is that during the Second Lebanon War he was up in Lebanon as an officer with his troops when a grenade was thrown to where they were all clustered. Rather than run and take the chance that only most of his unit would be either killed or seriously injured, he jumped on the grenade. His last words were the Shema as he absorbed the blast and saved the lives of every single one of his soldiers. His sacrifice is of the highest level and I felt honored to be able to pay my respects to such a wonderful man on such an important day.

Another siren sounds on the morning of Memorial Day to mark the beginning of the official ceremony. The siren had the same affect of me in the morning except I was a bit too squished to feel too much emotion. The ceremony was broadcast over speakers throughout the cemetery and was pretty routine. At the end though, with the singing of the national anthem, the Hatikvah (the hope), I began to lose it. Standing there in the packed cemetery amidst all of the families of fallen soldier, current soldiers, and regular citizens coming to pay respects with everyone singing at the top of their lungs about the hope to “be a free nation in our land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem” and knowing that it is coming true. Because of the graves we were standing next to we have a country to sing about and to be proud of and to live in. It was truly an amazing thing. I could hardly get the words out I was crying so hard because I was sad because I was happy to be here because I am scared that with the way things are going things might not continue to be so great. I was crying because I had the opportunity to stand among my brethren and say to the world that we are here and we are alive and we are strong and we aren’t going anywhere. It’s days like that that tell me that I made the right decision and that this is where I belong.

The next punch came when the crowd around me started to spontaneously sing “Ani Maamin” which basically states our believe that one day the messiah will come and that no matter how bad things get we will not lose hope and faith. This is when I REALLY started to lose it. Seeing the parents of so many soldiers sing this song with strong voices made me feel week. I wish I could posses the strength that these people have in their pinkie finger. They have lost children and siblings and parents and friends and still nothing can shake their hope and their faith and their strength. I feel a sense of unbelievable empowerment just being in the same space as these wonderful people.

I don’t know what was happening in the other areas of the cemetery (which is HUGE) but I was in the most recently filled area with victims of the last war and other tragedies since. There has been a movement within the National Religious sector to emphasize the importance of army service and not just as the bare minimum but as a serious “donation” to the country and to society. The yeshiva where David studied encourages its students to sign on optional time in the army and to join combat units as well as “less prestigious” units to try to raise the overall level in the entire army by being good people and a good example. This 20-something year old movement has really born fruit. There are religious officers and soldiers all over the army and not-so-slowly climbing the ranks (in officers school about 1/3 of the cadets are religious even though they represent less than 10% of the population). This was clearly evident by the overwhelming number of religious Jews standing by the graves of their loved ones. The area of the cemetery was filled with a majority of national religious fallen soldiers and it was truly heartwarming to see what an influence and a difference this movement is having on the army and the rest of the country.

Little Observations, Pesach, and My Birthday 5/5/08

So I always promise myself that whenever I think of something to update I will actually do it—turns out I’m a much better procrastinator than I had imagined. (Obviously I am writing right now so that I will have a legitimate excuse not to do my homework)

It has been a big last month! I turned 21 and had one of the most amazing birthdays ever. David took 2 days vacation off of the army and we went up north to the Golan. I had never really spent any time up there and it was wonderful for me to get to familiarize myself with a new part of my country. I was also just so happy to get to spend so much consecutive uninterrupted time with David (when it wasn’t Shabbat). Tons of things didn’t go as planned (the visibility was terrible so all of the views of the kinneret were blurry, we didn’t end up camping on the beach, we didn’t cook out rather we “cooked out” in his cousins backyard, we didn’t sleep well so we didn’t hike well and didn’t make it to the pools we wanted to get to) but it was all great to me because all I wanted was the time away together. It was absolutely perfect.

From then I was on vacation for Pesach for just over 2 weeks! It was wonderful. I did a lot of relaxing and a lot of cleaning and I spent the Chag with David’s family which was really nice. It was my first Pesach away from my parents but fortunately the people who led Seder did it similarly enough to the way we have always done it that I felt at home. Plus I was with David which always makes me happy. It was also wonderful to know that I was doing the Seder and that I wouldn’t have to do it again the next night. Being Israeli is awesome!

During Chol Hamoed I was VERY busy! David and I went to visit the Herodion (sight of one of Herod’s fortresses/palaces) which I’ve been wanting to get to for a long time!

The next day I went to visit my cousins in Neve Ilan and that evening David’s family was having a reunion so I went to that which was really pleasant and a lot of fun! The next day was when the real fun started! My friend Shevy had gotten tickets to one of the concerts at the Ahava festival at the dead sea (Ehud Banai and Maschina) hoping that she could find someone to go with her! It was awesome. We decided to save money and hitchhike the whole way. The concert didn’t start until 10pm but we left Jerusalem around 6ish. We got great rides from really nice people all along the way. The concert was FANTASTIC and I had so much fun but it was during a heat wave and even at 2am when the concert was ending it was at least 90 degrees!!! We made it back to my place by 3:30 but for some reason I didn’t sleep so well ☹

The next day I went up to David’s base (which is much more of a schlep than I could have ever imagined) to visit him and play at the beach right next door. It took me so long to get there that we only had about an hour there before we had to run to go to some engagement parties. We went to tel aviv for one of his best friends’ from yeshiva’s engagement and then we rushed down to beer sheva to my cousin eliana’s engagement party (well the tail end at least). It was a very family oriented week and a great opportunity for both David and I to meet each other’s extended families!

The next day David went up to Yeshiva for a visit and Elana came over to play with me! She is here for the semester studying in Haifa and it was the first time we got to see each other!! She looks fabulous and is having a great time.

Chag was nice and then Sunday was back to school (bummer).

Ok jumping forward. Remember those orange trees that were on the street that I talked about so proudly a few months ago? Well in order to accommodate the new light rail system it looks like they are all going to be taken down. It makes me really sad and sort of goes along with how my optimism for the future of this country under its current leadership is significantly dropping. I still wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but it is incredibly frustrating.

Last week my friend Yoni turned 20. He is a Lone Soldier (aka he is serving in the army but has no immediate family here) I’ve kind of adopted him. He does his laundry by us and we are very strong emotional supports for each other (and David is a great army resource!) To celebrate his birthday he wanted to have a Seudah Shlishit (afternoon Shabbat meal) at his apartment. Because his place is too small we had to eat outside (his street is closed to motor traffic and is really pleasant) we were a nice sized group of 20ish people sitting outside and singing and enjoying Shabbat and it was really a beautiful experience. Here we were in the heart of downtown Jerusalem sitting in the street singing as Shabbat was ending. Even if yoni and his friends weren’t all musical it would have been a special experience. David was even convinced that some tourists were going to stop and take pictures. Once Shabbat ended the guys decided to daven Maariv together. Since there was clearly no room inside they just started the service right where they were in the middle of the street. It was a beautiful thing to see 15 guys praying together in the middle of the street in the middle of the city. These kinds of things give me the chills and make me so happy that I live here. It was just so natural (but there was a tourist who took pictures) and felt so right that it’s the kind of thing that can only happen in Israel and especially in Jerusalem.

Now I’m just attempting to stay motivated in school… I’m so close to the end and my grades don’t count for next year!! This week is Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day) and Yom Haatzmaut (Independence day) and I am really excited. I’m hoping to make it to Har Hertzel to the National War Cemetery on Memorial Day and then I think im going to visit David on the beach by his base and have a bbq!!