You know it’s coming at 8pm.
But your body doesn’t care what you know.
It braces at 7:55. At 7:57. At 7:59.
Bracing for something you can never actually brace for.
And when it comes, it’s jarring every time. It pierces your heart. Sits in your throat.
The first siren sounds at 8pm on the eve of Memorial Day, Yom Hazikaron.
We walk to the main street where the ceremonies take place, hundreds of people heading the same way. Sombre, quiet, everyone in blue and white.
In every town across Israel, the same scene. Stores are closed; songs of pain and loss play on the radio. Memorial candles are lit. A whole country grieving together.
Families of fallen soldiers from our town step up to the stage and tell their stories.
They paint a picture of who their loved ones were.
Someone who always put others’ needs before their own.
Someone who loved their country so deeply they’d do anything for it.
Someone who would jump on a live grenade to save even just one life.
Surrounded by the souls of heroes and families who will never be the same. 20 years gone by. 30 years. A lifetime without them.
Names of the fallen and their photos flash up on the screen in two rounds, 140 or so faces each round.
ואלה שמות. “And these are the names…”
Some of these names don’t have a photo. Half the combat soldiers in Israel’s War of Independence were Holocaust survivors. Many fell in battle not long after arriving. Some before they’d even learned Hebrew. Some were the last of their entire family. No photos. No one left to mourn them.
Who will remember them? We will.
Somewhere around 175 names in, we’re still in black and white.
Eventually we get to the nineties, and I can place some of the names. Recall their faces, their stories.
And then, like a jolt, we’re at October 2023. The first soldier from our town to fall in battle. The names go from ones I recognised from the news, from synagogues and schools named after them, to sons, sons-in-law, husbands, and partners of people we know and love.
No longer in black and white. In full, tragically painful colour.
As a kid I’d sing the national anthem, the Hatikvah at school with such passion. At the top of my voice. Believing it with all my heart and soul.
Our hope is not yet lost, The hope that is two-thousand years old, To be a free people in our land, The Land of Zion, Jerusalem.
To be a free people in our land. How hard could that be, right?
Turns out, it’s the hardest thing in the world.
And still we gather.
Still we remember.
Still we sing.
Because hope that’s two-thousand years old doesn’t die.
It gets carried. By us. By our children and grandchildren.
By the ones still to come.
Yehi zichram baruch. May their memory be a blessing.
I’m Sarah Raanan. By day I’m a content marketing strategist and business coach. The rest of the time I’m reading, gardening, baking challah, falling down podcast rabbit holes, and having strong opinions about cars I can’t afford. I’m quiet at first and then suddenly not quiet at all. I’ll talk about almost anything with almost anyone, as long as nobody mentions maths or running.