Cleared for publication….When the news report or news feed begins with this phrase every Israeli know the following news will be one of loss. When a soldier dies, the name is only made public once family has been notified.
This morning the radio news report had the tone of tragedy. I don’t know what it was that made me feel viscerally like something tragic had occurred. It was just the ethereal yet suffocating atmosphere of sound that seemed to be seeping into my room. I left my room to ask Dina what was going on. I woke up to hear that 21 IDF soldiers had died in the southern part of Gaza.
The soldiers were not combatants. It is reported that they were reservists trying, to clear a border to create a buffer zone for the future safety of communities in Otef ‘Aza, the area where dozens of communities were attacked on October 7. You might have missed this when I posted it before.
The reservists were less than a km inside Gaza trying to clear buildings that were either booby trapped or just contained lots of explosives. The mission went awry when an RPG missile was fired and two explosions occurred, the building structures likely exploded due to explosives in the buildings. There were a total of 21 victims who will be announced throughout the day.
Did you hear me? I said throughout the day. It’s a significant point. There was no way that they could broadcast the deaths of all 21 soldiers in just that newscast. Not only that. No one knows where their son or daughter or father or husband has been stationed at a given moment. This kind of news is brutally tragic when it comes.
This report sounds so simple, almost clinical. But each soldier’s death tears at the heart of all Israelis. Now there will be many funerals and shiva visits for the nation. Each person who hears this news knows the human loss and tragedy is not remote. It is immediate. Personal. Felt by all.
Israel has a Memorial Day, Yom HaZikaron, to honor fallen soldiers and victims of terror each spring. Throughout Israel, sirens blare and everything stops for 2 solemn minutes.
I visited the Hadera Memorial which is one of the Yad Labanim centers throughout Israel where each Memorial Day flames are lit atop monumental columns to illuminate the heartache of each soldiers death.
I met with Rona Tiram who is the Administrative Manager of the library/archive/educational center of the memorial. First we looked at the photos of Hadera’s fallen soldiers starting in the early 20th century up to current day. Yad Labanim Organization - is the Organization for Commemorating the Martyrs of the Israel Defense Forces and Care for Families (AR).
Rona pointed out the memorial books lining other walls. Each soldier has a memorial book which Rona assembles with photos letters funeral notices pictures and what every family wants to include. She is still working on last week’s death and now must start on the newest news.
Each book in the library is archived remembrance for a fallen soldier
And now with today’s news Rona faces another death to memorialize, Sergeant major (res.) Rafael Elias Mosheyoff, 33 years old, from Pardes Hanna-Karkur, our partner community, the community I just visited the past few days. Mosheyoff was a fighter in Battalion 6261, Brigade 261, who was killed in action in the southern Gaza Strip.
The ongoing losses are painful beyond comprehension
Every person I have met knows that incomprensible loss is just a phone call away. Many conversations start normally but if one considers the situation I start to question is it even okay to start with a “good morning”. That’s exactly the way I accidentally started a text to my friend Shimrit this morning. (Shimrit is the Partnership Director. P2G Hadera-Eiron) Perhaps it is best never assume during war there can be a good morning. Especially a morning like this. So many people have feelings of guilt. Guilty if they celebrate joyous experiences like birthdays or milestones. Guilty to enjoy a restaurant meal, to see a performance, read fiction.
Can you imagine for yourself the emotional cost for these people? Israel has been at war since its founding in 1948. Long before there was a “Palestinian” problem the combined forces of Arab nations throughout the Middle East targeted Israel, trying to achieve its destruction. After the War of Independence Egypt, Syria, and Jordan continued hostilities with Israel, at great human cost. Do you know that much of Israel has no official border? Instead much of the current “border” is the so-called “Green Line,” an armistice line that the Arab powers refused to make permanent, just as they refuse to see Israel as a permanent, legitimate entity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Line_(Israel)
Meanwhile, Rona explained that her job is to provide for grieving families and to teach visitors. To give the families an opportunity to share as much as they chose to share, to use the archive personally as they mourn and heal.
The humanity of this process that is repeated for each tragedy demonstrates how Israel values each life. There are many false depictions of Israelis being monsters. How that filthy myth took root is unknown but one thing is for sure. It is an intellectual descendent of the Jewish blood libel that was born in Europe in the Middle Ages, adopted in 19th century Russia, and transmogrified into the evil of “global intifada” promulgated by radical islamists and their unwitting allies throughout Europe and America.
Let me be clear. It is Hamas that continues to sacrifice its population instead of releasing hostages and brokering peace. It is Hamas that is responsible for the loss of human life. Jews consider each life to be precious and Israeli culture turns belief into action. The only “action” taken by Israel’s enemies in the Middle East are the riotous funerals you see each time they release more propaganda for the benefit of the West. And more bloodshed.
Many of you know I love volunteering as a docent for sixth graders at The S Petersburg museum of Fine Arts. Rona told me with similar enthusiasm and commitment how she brings difficult concepts of death and the importance of remembrance. She shows student visitors a small puzzle with an empty piece and explains even when we can recognize the image of the puzzle there is an emptiness. That is how each fallen soldier feels for the country.
Today, President Isaac Herzog summed things up, “ Behind every name is a family whose world has fallen on one, a family that we take to our hearts with sorrow and pain, and at the same time with pride - for the heroism of our generation, for the mission and the evils, for sticking to the goal and for the love of the people and the homeland.”
This barely touches on the grief, the depth of despair, felt by so many in Israel today. As I write these words with so much difficulty I find it challenging whether they can even be cleared for publication.
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