I haven’t written a blog post in over 15 months.
Since the death of my friend, Dave, nothing seemed adequately meaningful that it deserved recording - my wedding of course being an exception but I was slightly too busy at the time to write about it!
A few weeks ago that changed.
I was in Israel and was lucky enough (?!?) to receive an invitation to Kiryat Ata’s official memorial ceremony for Yom Hazikaron - Israel’s Day of Remembrance for those killed and injured in wars and terrorist attacks.
There I sat, with families of soldiers who had died, as a solemn, yet powerful and empowering ceremony took place - an honour guard, civilian officials and military officers making speeches and reading poems, wreaths laid and a 21 gun salute.
How saddened one feels by the deaths and the pain, knowing that so much of it could have been easily avoided if only Israel’s neighbours hadn’t been so belligerent.
Yet, how empowered one feels when one realises the responsibility we have to those who are no longer with us, to continue what they were part of, such that their deaths weren’t for nought.
The following night (yes, it’s peculiarly Israeli) was the celebration of Yom HaAtzma’ut - Israel’s Independence Day - and my first time celebrating it in Israel.
There we were, 15,000 people in a park celebrating Israel’s existence as a Jewish, democratic state (FYI, that’s a quarter of Kiryat Ata’s population, gathered in a single park!).
There we sat, as the broadcast of the counting of votes from UN Resolution 181 was replayed, and listening again to David Ben Gurion’s Declaration of the State a few months later, 1948.
There we stood (because that’s all there was room for!) as musicians - Subliminal, Sarit Hadad and Chaverim Shel Natasha - joined us in celebration.
Israel - both the People and the State - is both history and present. Both solemn and celebratory. It is our past, yet also our present and our future. Am Yisrael Chai, the Nation of Israel lives!
Dave would have loved it.
