Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day)

(Today is Israel's Memorial Day. I originally wrote and posted this to my previous blog on 04/23/2007.)

Today is Memorial Day in Israel, when the fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism are remembered. As I read about this day on Wikipedia, a couple of things stood out. One is that there is a nationwide moment of silence:

"The day opens the preceding evening at 20:00 (8:00 pm), given that in the Hebrew calendar system days begin at sunset, with a one-minute siren during which most Israelis stand in silence, commemorating the fallen and showing respect."

It made a lot of sense that the Israelis decided to schedule their Memorial Day consecutively with their Independence Day:

"Scheduling the memorial day right before the independence day is intended to remind people of the price paid for independence and of what was achieved with the soldiers' sacrifice. This transition shows the importance of this day among Israelis, most of whom have served in the armed forces or have a connection with people who were killed during their military service."

Without the ultimate sacrifice paid by those fighting for independence, there would be no Independence Day for the living to celebrate.

A friend shared with me an email from someone who recently made aliyah (immigrated to Israel). The writer spoke of how moving the Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) remembrances were and also spoke about how the events at Virginia Tech last week had affected him. I hadn't realized until reading that email that the horror at Virginia Tech had taken place the day after Yom HaShoah.

It was touching to read the perspective of this man who is both an American and now an Israeli. He shared his observation that the way the United States commemorates its Memorial Day "doesn't come anywhere near" the way Israel commemorates its memorial days--Yom HaShoah and Yom HaZikaron.

This caused me to spend some time thinking about it, and it is somewhat difficult to imagine a siren sounding for a whole minute here in America on Memorial Day, much less most Americans stopping what they're doing to stand for that one minute in silence in memory of the fallen.

Perhaps the United States should move its Memorial Day to July 3.