Yom HaZikaron - Remembering (The 2 Spies)

Remembering the fallen Israeli soldiers... The 2 Spies

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Yom HaZikaron Posted: 04 May 2014 11:05 AM PDT An hour ago the siren sounded, calling us to soberly remember the cost of our country.... the blood of our children~ our sons and daughters. A poem that is often recited at the ceremonies is The Silver Platter ("Magash Hakesef"), written by Natan Alterman in 1947, following a statement by Israel's would-be first president, that the state would not be handed to the Jews on a silver platter. The following is a translated version of the poem. The Silver Platter The Earth grows still. The lurid sky slowly pales Over smoking borders. Heartsick, but still living, a people stand by To greet the uniqueness Of the miracle. Readied, they wait beneath the moon. Wrapped in awesome joy, before the light. Then, soon, a girl and boy step forward, And slowly walk before the waiting nation. In work garb and heavy-shod They climb in stillness. Wearing yet the dress of battle, the grime Of aching day and fire-filled night Unwashed, weary unto death, not knowing rest, But wearing youth like dewdrops in their hair. Silently the two approach and stand. Are they of the quick or of the dead? Through wondering tears, the people stare. "Who are you, the silent two?" And they reply: "We are the silver platter Upon which the Jewish State was served to you." And speaking, fall in shadow at the nation's feet. Let the rest in Israel's chronicles be told. Receive email updates from The 2 Spies  From http://www.algemeiner.com/ Yom HaZikaron:  What it Means to Lose a Soldier MAY 4, 2014 11:49 AM 5 COMMENTS Author: Maayan Jaffe /JNS.org Share this Article TWITTER FACEBOOK DIGG STUMBLE PRINT Tags: IDFIDF IsraelIsrael OneFamilyIsrael soldiers diedMaayan JaffeOneFamilyYom HazikaronYom Hazikaron IsraelYom Hazikaron siren A group of 125 future IDF soldiers at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York in August 2013, before they depart for their Nefesh B'Nefesh aliyah flight. Photo: Shahar Azran. JNS.org – Some 22,000 Israeli soldiers have died since the establishment of the Jewish state, including 40 soldiers between March 2013 and March 2014, according to the Israel Defense Forces. “We in Israel are fighting—and dying—on behalf of every Jew in the world. … We are maintaining a safe haven for every Jew to escape to. Jews in the Diaspora live safer lives and hold their heads higher because Israel and its army exists,” said Chantal Belzberg, executive vice chairman of OneFamily, an organization dedicated to the rehabilitation of Israeli victims of terror attacks and their families. On Yom HaZikaron, the fourth day of the Hebrew month of Iyar (sundown on May 4, 2014), Israelis will pay tribute to the country’s fallen soldiers in a solemn day of mourning. On its official Memorial Day, Israel also mourns the loss of civilians who were killed as a result of terrorism. Among the soldiers killed during these past 12 months was 20-year-old Gavriel Kobi, a combat soldier in the Givati Brigade, who was shot and killed on Sept. 22, 2013 by a Palestinian sniper while on guard duty outside Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs. Also killed were 18-year-old Eden Atias, stabbed in the neck on Nov. 11, 2013 while on a bus in the northern Israeli city of Afula, and 31-year-old Shlomo Cohen, a Petty Officer 1st Class in the Israeli Navy, who was fatally shot by a Lebanese sniper while driving near the Israel-Lebanon border fence in an unarmored military vehicle. Cohen was on operational duty on Dec. 15, 2013 at the time of his death. OneFamily’s Belzberg said that when a young soldier is killed, it has a “radically shocking, traumatic and debilitating” effect on the soldier’s parents and family. “Siblings suffer tremendously, but not as deeply as a mother losing her son, the son she bore, nursed, dressed, walked to school, took to his school’s football practice and whose game she watched proudly,” Belzberg told JNS.org. “Siblings suffer because they don’t just lose a brother; they also lose their mom and dad. … They wallow in their grief and have no energy to care for the living. The dead child occupies a lot more time than a living one.” Yehudit Rotenberg, whose son Sgt. Nadav Rotenberg, 20, was killed January 7, 2011 by a stray Israel Defense Forces mortar shell in an incident near the Gaza border, still remembers the day she learned of her son’s death. The family had seen a report on a border incident in which four soldiers were injured. “It was a Friday night,” Rotenberg recalled. “We learned of the incident at around 6:10 p.m. I was worried, but I didn’t believe he could have died. They said there were injuries on the news. Eating Shabbat dinner was very stressful; it was hard to eat the food. … We kept thinking he would call, that he would tell us he was OK. … Then there was a knock at the door, and we saw an army uniform collar through the window.” She said the hardship, the emotion, came quickly. Avital Yahalomi has a similar story. Her brother, 20-year-old Cpl. Netanel Yahalomi, was killed on Sept. 21, 2012 while on patrol along the Israeli border with Egypt. Three heavily armed terrorists attempting to infiltrate Israel attacked the soldiers. One terrorist was wearing a suicide belt, which went off during the battle. Cpl. Yahalomi was a deeply religious solider and a Zionist; three Jewish books were found on his body after his death. His sister, Avital, toldJNS.org that her brother dreamed of being the strongest and best combat soldier. He was upset when he learned that because he wore glasses, which reduced his profile, he could not join the unit of his choice, but instead would be part of the Artillery Corps. This knowledge, however, put his family more at ease. They knew he was on the Egyptian border, but they assumed that he was safe there. “In general, we have peace with Egypt,” Avital said, noting that her brother was careful about what he told the family, never wanting to worry them. On the afternoon of Cpl. Yahalomi’s death, his family was preparing for Shabbat at their home in Nof Ayalon, near Modi’in. When an IDF representative came to deliver the news, then 9-year-old Yitzchak opened the door. “He didn’t know what was happening,” Avital said. “He thought they were coming to kick us out of our home and he called to mother. My father was in the shower. … One by one we learned what happened. Then we all just sat on the couch and we cried and cried. This is something that never goes away. It will never go away.” “When you say goodbye to your son as he gets on the bus with all of the new soldiers, you’ve offered up your son as a potential sacrifice to the country,” explained Belzberg. “Your heart sinks. The worst may happen. But most parents say to themselves, ‘It won’t happen to me.’” She added, “Then, in the middle of the night, there’s a knock at the door. … Three soldiers stare sadly into your eyes. Your worst nightmare has happened. Your son is dead. You scream and your whole body shakes. You collapse.” But you have no choice except to go on. Today, Nadav Rotenberg’s younger brother is in his second year in the army. The first year, said Yehudit Rotenberg, “I worried a lot.” Yet she is also very proud. “These are brave children,” said Rotenberg. “Even though I lost a child, I still believe the army is very important and we have to support it.” Avital Yahalomi has similar ideas. “I am happy to be Israeli, even though it cost me so much. … I plan to stay here, to raise my children here, to send them to the army to defend my country,” she said. “Yom HaZikaron is about remembering a larger family, about saying to each bereaved family that their child, the apple of their eye, is remembered,” said Rebecca Fuhrman, manager of marketing and communications for OneFamily. “Their loss is our loss.” For a full listing of soldiers (in Hebrew) who died between last Yom HaZikaron and this one, visit here. For a list of soldiers and victims of terror killed in 2013, visit here. Maayan Jaffe is a freelance writer in Overland Park, Kan. She can be reached at maayanjaffe@icloud.com.

Ukraine Unveils $60 Million Jewish Center, Holocaust Memorial

Ukraine Unveils $60 Million Jewish Center, Holocaust Memorial

Some 300 guests and dignitaries marked the grand opening of Jewish Community Center and Holocaust Museum in the Ukraine.

 

By Rachel Hirshfeld, Israel National News

First Publish: 10/17/2012

A visitor looks at an exhibition at the holocaust museum in newly opened Jewish Menorah Center

Reuters

 

 

Some 300 guests and dignitaries attended a ceremony on Tuesday in advance of the grand opening of the Menorah Jewish Community Center and Holocaust Museum in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine.

The complex hosts an Institute for Jewish Culture and a gallery that features photographs of 40 major synagogues in Dnipropetrovsk before the Nazi occupation, as well as video footage about the Holocaust.

The ceremony was attended by, Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs Yuli Edelstein; Chief Rabbi of Dnepropetrovsk Shmuel Kaminezki, Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel Shlomo Amar, President of the Federation of Jewish Communities in the CIS Lev Leviev, and, Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky of Lubavitch World Headquarters.

Edelstein praised efforts to revive Jewish heritage and culture in Dnipropetrovsk.

"The real achievement will be when we get here in a year from now, in two years from now, and we will see this place full of kids, full of different Jewish activities, full of different organizations working here," Edelstein said. "I think that this will be the real answer to what Nazis and communists tried to do to Jewish communities in the Ukraine and in the former Soviet Union."

The seven-tower, twenty-story museum and center multiplex, which was built at an estimated $60 million, will officially open Oct. 21
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The opening exhibition, “Wanderings of the Children of Israel,” will elucidate the story of the Jewish Diaspora in Ukraine by artists from Ukraine, Germany and Israel.

According to museum organizer and curator Marina Shelest, the exhibition’s theme of Jewish wandering is essential to the story of its featured artists.

"Wanderings, voluntary or forced, are the biography of every Jew, and the artists that are represented in this show are no exception,” she said, according to Lubavitch.com.

While the center will help fill the spiritual and physical needs of Dnepropetrovsk’s 50,000 Jews and the broader Jewish community, the Holocaust memorial will serve as an important educational medium, teaching visitors about the region’s Jewish history.

In a 2008 interview with Lubavitch.com, Zelig Brez, executive director of the Jewish Community of Dnepropetrovsk, expressed his excitement for the role the museum will play for the entire population of Dnepropetrovsk. “The [museum] ... plays an important role in the development of the entire city. Today’s generation [of Ukrainians] has a very limited understanding of the Holocaust, and we must change that,” she said.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/161023