I feel the need to open with a word about Boston, but I actually don't really know what to say. Sitting here in Israel, where terrorist bombings and rocket fire have been the "norm" during the years I have lived here, it seems surreal watching the news from Boston. While what is currently happening in Boston is massively disrupting daily life, what I have learned living here is that you need to push on with normal life as much as is allowed by the circumstances. To all our family and friends in Boston, hang in there.
Over the course of this past week I have been consumed by song: listening to songs, singing songs, new songs, old songs, sad songs, happy songs (ok, I'll stop, this is starting to sound like Dr. Seuss book). The barrage of song actually began with a moment of silence.
As Matt and I readied ourselves for Yom HaZikaron (full name: Yom Hazikaron l'Chalalei Ma'arachot Yisrael v'l'Nifgaei Peulot Ha'eivah, Day of Remembrance for the Fallen Soldiers of Israel and Victims of Terrorism), Israel's memorial day, we headed out to walk over to our community tekes/ceremony (for more on the Israeli tekes, see last weeks post). Our timing was a little off and we were still 50 or so meters from the park where the tekes was being held when the siren went off. We, along with everyone else who was walking in our direction, stopped in the street to stand at attention while the minute long siren reminded us to pay respect to Israel's fallen soldiers and victims of terror. Like a "freeze scene" from a movie, as soon as the siren finished, the statuesque bodies around us began to awaken, continuing their previous movement as if nothing had happened.
Our community tekes, lead by high school students from the local public school, focused broadly on Israel as a nation, but more specifically on the 161 men and women who fell in Israel's wars or terrorist attacks from our neighborhood. The names of these 161 scrolled continuously across a screen, beginning with those who fell in the 1948 War of Independence all the way up to the most recent just 7 years ago. The 10-15 students, who made up a small choir and band, alternated between song and reading throughout the course of the next hour. Slow, sad songs, from all eras of Israeli music, followed by poems or letters to fallen soldiers from grieving parents, back to sad song, repeat. Not all the songs were deliberately about fallen soldiers or victims of terrorism, but the lyrics of each song played on our emotions and tugged on our hearts. One song in particular got into my head and didn't leave all week (maybe because I kept playing it over and over again on youtube). The song, called "הקיץ האחרון" ("The Last Summer"), was first popular in the early 90's, but was recently performed by a contestant on the latest season of Israel's "The Voice" who I think did an even better job than the original. The chorus of the song reads: Remember that you promised not to cry / Because the sky is big and tears are small / Close your eyes every first rain / And think of me. In the moment, hearing these words sung by this teenage girl in a park that surrounds the community monument for local fallen soldiers on Yom HaZikaron, made me want to do nothing but cry, but I held it in. (listen to the song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1IjRa2uNr4 )
While we didn't personaly attend, many of our friends congregated in community centers around Haifa to partake in another Israeli institution, the שירה בציבור, shira b'tzibur, public sing-along. At first thought, getting together for a public sing-along on a day when many people are mourning lost friends and relatives seems disrespectful, but then you stop and think about the role of song in Jewish and Israeli culture is makes perfect sense. We sing to express how we feel when we're happy and we do the same when we're grieving. Our holidays revolve around song, even the most solemn prayers on Yom Kippur are sung with vigor. Even during the Omer, an extended mourning period on the Jewish calendar between Passover and Shavuot, vocal singing is permissible even though playing and listening to instruments is forbidden.
The songs did not stop after that night. The next day we sat at home and listened to the radio - all stations were playing slow, sad songs as is the custom here. As the day turned into night, we geared ourselves up for the drastic shift from Yom HaZikaron to Yom HaAtzmaut, Israeli Independence day. The juxtaposition of these two days, one of immense grieving and one of ecstatic joy, makes for a challenging transition, but makes clear the sacrifice of Independence.
This time we congregated in the courtyard of the local synagogue for festive, song-full evening prayers. What we were unprepared for was that everyone would show up in full-on holiday clothes. Needless to say that Matt and I felt slightly under-dressed, which is a pretty tough thing to do in Israel. The religious community in Israel views Independence day as a religious, not just national holiday. The night continued with more song as we headed down to a local outdoor venue to hear Ivri Lider and Mosh Ben-Ari, Israeli musicians, play in concert. A fun night was topped off with some spectacular fire-works.
The next morning we joined some friends for a visit to an air-force base located not too far outside Haifa. When they invited us to join we thought it was a great idea, apparently, so did thousands of other people (which meant lots of sitting in traffic and listening to old Israeli music on the radio). In addition to getting to see really cool airplanes, helicopters and rockets which were specially put on display for Yom HaAtzmaut, we also got to do some pretty amazing people watching. The visitors to the army base represented an incredible cross-section of Israeli society: religious, secular, hareidi, Jewish, Arab, Muslim, Christian, Druze, Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Ethiopian, Russian, you name it, they were there. Seems like all types of people like a good military fly-by.
Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom and a great weekend,
Stef and Matt
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