Without Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day), there could be no Yom HaAtzmaut (Independence Day)
All these grave stones are from the military cemetery on Mt. Herzl. I took them back in February, but waited to post them until today, Yom HaZikaron, Remembrance Day. While one part of Mt. Herzl is dedicated to famous Israelis, the other half is for the everyday heroes, the soldiers of the Israel Defense Force.
Not all soldiers are buried here, but all have the option. There are soldiers from all of Israel's wars, alongside those killed in training accidents or even car accidents while part of the army. No matter what your rank, your country of origin or your religious orientation, you can be buried there.
I chose to photograph the stones of those soldiers younger than 23. One of the oddest things about this place is how many people my age are buried there. It never occurred to me to join the army. If you are born Israeli, that is just something that you grow up with, an almost certain future. The sad thing is how many of those people are dead.
The last gravestone above is that of Nissim Gini. He was killed in 1948, carrying messages for the fighters holding out the Old City of Jerusalem. He was ten years old. If he were alive today, he would be an old man, an old man that I would have to thank for defending the streets I walk today.
The cemetery is actually a fairly cheerful place
(The grave of Michael Levin, an American who voluntarily became a soldier and came back from leave visiting his family near Philadelphia to serve with his unit in Lebanon in 2006.)
There are few people in Israel who do not know , or know of, someone buried in this place. Schools, youth movements, soldiers, civilains...everyone makes their way to the cemetery on this day. My school took us an hour and a half before the siren that would begin the ceremony because of the number of people and the size of the cemetery. At the entrance were people handing out stickers, cards with psalms, ever flowers, which have become a custom only on this day, as opposed to the rocks that Jews usually place on headstones. Each of us had a name and a grave location printed from the database, a short biographical sketch and a picture of a fallen soldier.
moraglee and I had Rut Lefidot, a native Tel Avivian killed in action in 1954. She was 19 years old. We put our flowers down, said some psalms and waited for the siren. As we waited, an older woman came up and put some flowers beside ours. I thought that perhaps this was a sister, an old friend. As she placed her flowers, she turned to us and said "Po, ein mishpacha" "Here, there is no family."
Israel takes care of their dead. Perhaps if I knew more than one person in the military, Memorial Day or Veterans Day at home would be more meaningful. I remember as a girl scout, placing American flags on the graves at home on Memorial Day. It was a job, split in to grids and sections and finished when the troop leader called us to go home. Here volunteers come in the middle of the night and place an Israeli flag with a black ribbon at the top on each grave, and a candle in each lantern box. Even though Rut has no family left, there is someone taking care of her grave, at least for this one day.
What was worse was the grave beside Rut's, the grave where no one, not even a school student assigned to it, stood. It belonged to a man named Chaim Alphas who came to Israel from Morocco in 1951. There was a small bunch of purple flowers scattered across the grave, nearly blending in with the grass, and a few withered roses, still in their plastic at the top. We moved one of the brightly colored flowers we had brought for Rut to that grave, but it still did not seem like enough for a man whose mother's name is, for some reason, not written on his headstone.
The atmosphere there is odd. There were families standing together, having a nice reunion. There were soldiers standing at attention for nearly half an hour. There were old men sitting on plastic stools beside the graves of their brothers or comrades. There were women kneeling by stones half a century old, praying with scarves over their heads.
Everyone is silent for the moment of the siren, a pulsing wave of sound that begins at exactly 11 in the morning. There are prayers, trumpet calls, and then speeches. But by the time the speeches came, people were already moving away. I thought it odd that you would stay for ten minutes and then move away as the prime minister began to speak. But they have already done their remembrance. They have seen their grave friends, those who they are linked to through the placement of their dead loved ones. They do not need a speech. They know that others remember. They know that the 23,000 soldiers buried on the hill- their lives, their sacrifices- will not be forgotten, as long as Israel exists.
(There is a lot more that I could say, about the program with the Israeli girls last night that had all of us in tears, about the masses of people who took off from work to visit graves of people they have never met. But it's dark now. Jewish days start at night, so it is now the sixth day of the month of Eyar. Happy Independence Day.)