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Last month, we observed The Yoms: Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day), Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day), and Yom Ha’atzmaut (Independence Day). Before moving to VT, I celebrated these holidays in Israel. My tactic for avoiding working on Yom Ha’atzmaut (imagine juggling 550 sugared-up elementary children for 6 hours in a makeshift, indoor Israeli-themed amusement park) was by chaperoning fifty 8th graders on a 2.5 week trip to Israel. My colleagues always thought that I pulled the “short end of the stick.” They couldn’t have been more wrong!
This afforded me the opportunity to truly experience The Yoms. In Israel, it feels very different from American Memorial & Independence Days. For starters, the holidays fall back to back - juxtaposing the heaviness of loss with the joys of freedom. On Yom HaZikaron, Israeli Jews visit Mount Herzl to honor fallen soldiers by sitting at the graves of their loved ones – crying, laughing, sharing stories. The cemeteries overflow with visitors; they are also packed with graves… graves of extremely young adults who lost their lives in battle. Because of Israel’s mandatory military service and the country’s relatively young age, this loss is personal. It runs deep. Nobody is left unscathed. There is also a moment of silence on Yom HaZikaron where the country literally halts: EVERYONE pulls over on the side of the road, exits their cars, and looks to the heavens as a siren blares for two minutes. The weight of those two minutes = palpable.
At midnight, this somber mood shifts to revelry. Folks flood the streets - adorned in Israeli flags - squirting silly string, flailing giant inflatable hammers. BBQ and bonfire aromas lace the air, music blares, fireworks dance across the sky, and for the next 24 hours - Israelis party in a way that makes Mardi Gras feel boring. July 4th pales in comparison. I believe that the Israelis’ joy is amplified because it is contextualized within the Yoms - of which two are dedicated to the extreme loss of The Shoah and war.
While I can’t begin to imagine what it feels like to live in existential threat…. to offer up my children to the military… I most certainly know what it feels like to try to balance the tension that exists between the “good” and the “not so good.” Israel is complicated. At times - similar to my feelings for the U.S - I feel uncomfortable when I read about my beloved homeland(s).
This uneasiness is shared by many Jewish professionals with whom I spent a lot of time discussing how we would celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut this year. Would we do things differently than in years past? Some folks skipped it. Others went on as always. Me: I reflected back to my time in Israel. I remembered: the pairing of pain, loss, and anxiety with joy, revelry and love. They co-exist.
At Shir Shalom, our older students observed Yom HaShoah by listening to two Survivors/Witnesses speak of their experiences. They entered the VT Holocaust Memorial writing contest, creatively addressing the question “should VT have mandatory Holocaust education in its schools?” They listened to the stories, considered their own world, and dedicated themselves to tolerance and change.
We celebrated Yom Ha’atzmaut by taste testing Israeli delicacies - from their abundance of allergen-infused junk foods, to the chocolatey deliciousness of Aroma iced-coffee, to the zesty bounty of a perfectly proportioned Palestinian salad, culminating in a vibrantly fruity ‘shuk shake.’ We dug for artifacts at Masada, pampered our hands at a Dead Sea spa, tucked our prayers into the Kotel, herded ibex in the desert, and painted hamsas in Tzfat. Alongside this joy, we wrote letters of support to transgendered Israeli children, signed petitions promoting “a baseline of social civility, opposition to extremism, protection of gender equality, promotion of anti-racism, and equal treatment of all LGBTQ people as fellow human beings created in the divine image,” and listened to Ethan Felson, from A Wider Bridge, educate us on Israeli politics.
It was a week filled with conflicting feelings: joy coupled with sadness. It was also threaded together with hope and a commitment to action. Because as a People, we can - and we must - be a light that catalyzes love, tolerance, diversity, and civility. Through our school and synagogue community, we will continue to look to our past and remember, look to the present and act, and look to our future and dream. May we continue to go and grow from strength to strength.
L’Shalom,
Leah Gawel
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