Memorial Day

April 23, 2007 at 7:07 am | In Face to Face |

Today is Memorial Day in Israel when all of Israel’s fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism are honored in ceremonies throughout the country and world. In the Jewish tradition, today’s day of mourning is followed by a day of celebration. Tomorrow is Israel’s Independence Day and marks the Jewish State’s 59th Birthday. So today we mourn those who make tomorrow possible.

From HAARETZ:

Memorial Day ceremonies to honor 22,305 killed - 233 of them last year

By Yuval Azoulay

Memorial Day for Israel’s fallen soldiers will begin tonight at 8 P.M. with a siren signaling a minute of silence, and flags will be lowered to half-mast. Since the establishment of the first Jewish neighborhoods outside Jerusalem’s Old City wall in 1860, the date of the beginning of the count of fatalities, 22,305 have been killed in battle.

Over the past year, 233 names have been added to the list, which includes injured veterans of the Israel Defense Forces who died this year.

Of this year’s fallen, 119 were killed during the Second Lebanon War, which lasted 33 days and struck the home front as well: Since last Memorial Day, 66 civilians have been killed in hostile actions, 57 of them during the war, when thousands of rockets were fired from Lebanon on Israeli communities.

The number of civilians killed in hostile actions since the establishment of the state stands at 1,635, according to the National Insurance Institute.

The sounding of the siren will be followed by memorial ceremonies throughout the country. The official ceremony will take place at 8 P.M. at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, with the participation of Acting President and Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik, other public officials, senior officers and bereaved families.

Beginning Wednesday, small national flags have been placed on every military grave. The first was placed by IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi on the grave of the soldier most recently buried on Mount Herzl: Staff Sergeant Matan Baskind of Mevasseret Zion, who was killed in an accident in the south at the beginning of the month. Beginning this evening, the names of all those killed and the date they fell will be screened on Channel 33.

Places of entertainment will be closed.

On Memorial Day, tomorrow, a two-minute siren will sound at 11 A.M. Official ceremonies will be held in 43 military cemeteries throughout the country, attended by government ministers, MKs, officers and the bereaved families.

Flower growers have donated 600,000 blooms to create wreaths to lay on the graves.

Memorial Day will end tomorrow evening with the traditional torch-lighting ceremony on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, followed immediately by the opening of the festivities of Israel’s 59th Independence Day.

Yesh Gvul, the movement for soldiers refusing to serve in the occupied territories, will hold an alternative torch-lighting ceremony tomorrow night at Emil Grunzweig Square opposite the Prime Minister’s Office in the capital. The torches will be lit with a call “to immediately stop the violence and occupation of the territories, to correct the injustices caused by Israeli society and to correct the attitude toward the weak among us,” the organization said. Among the torch-lighters will be a soldier who refused to serve in the war, a human rights activist, a peace activist and others. One of the torch-lighters will be Tali Fahima, who served a prison sentence for maintaining contact with members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in Jenin.