A Yom Hazikaron and Yom Haatzmaut Reflection
We attended a very moving and tearful IDF Widows and Orphans Yom Hazikaron memorial event last night at the Museum of Tolerance, to honor the memory of Israel’s fallen soldiers and victims of terror. The IDF Widows and Orphans organization, which provides on-going support to widows and orphans – and with which I am peripherally involved, are engaged in truly sacred work. Pictured here are the 5 children of Yossi Hershkowitz, the much admired 44 – year – old Principal of the Ort Pelech High School for boys in Jerusalem who volunteered for battle and was killed in action in Gaza on November 10, 2023. May his memory be for a blessing.
Attendance at the event released a torrent of tears and runaway thoughts about living in Israel and what it means to me. My father who was a lifelong Zionist and who spoke Hebrew fluently, so wanted, all his life, to live in Israel. He and my mom were booked, in fact, to sail on the Exodus to Israel, but decided instead to reunite with family in Cape Town, after the trauma of the Shoah. How different their lives would have been…
Being a 1948 baby, enjoying the same birthday of our beloved country Israel, and looking back on my first visit to Israel in 1963 on a six-week school program, it was love at first sight. My heart was well and truly captured, and as with any meaningful, long – term relationship, one may experience ups and downs; sometimes the road is rocky; there may be obstacles enroute but always, the foundation is solid, firm and stable. Unshakeable.
I became a lifelong, proud Zionist after the 1967 6 – Day War, when Israel faced, literally, an existential crisis – mass graves were being prepared. And never for a moment in my long, on-going love affair with my country, through thick and thin, have I doubted the very core and essence of what Israel is and represents for me: my Jewish home, a place of refuge, rebirth and renaissance, central to my identity – and a deep sense ownership, where, as Tali, our eldest daughter once told me, I belong to it – and it belongs to me. Yes, there have been times of disappointment, of anger, of fear, of frustration, of upset, of tears, of so many questions, of tragedy. But there have also been, for the most part, times of sheer, unbridled joy, of radical amazement, of inspiration, of fulfillment that I have not felt anywhere else outside of Israel – especially that sense of reciprocal ownership. Here, everything matters. I couldn’t and wouldn’t live anywhere else. We are simply, like Siamese twins, joined at the hip.
Idan Raichel, my favorite composer and singer has a lyric in one of his truly captivating songs, געגוע – Longing, which especially resonates for me and captures an ‘only in Israel’ highs – and – lows moment:
הלב הפצוע
מחכה ליד החמה
The wounded heart waits for the warm hand
Yes, there are times when you feel a rupture, and that you are living on the edge, and you just want to curl up, be in denial, and engage in a confessional, in the words of Leonard,
“I’m sentimental if you know what I mean
I love the country, but I can’t stand the scene
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen.”
Inwardly however, you intuitively know that despite the pain and the longing, that someone is always there for you. You are not alone, you will be held, you will be comforted, and you will be embraced.
So yes, I came to Israel for the first time as a starry – eyed, unformed, young boy, swooned, and fell head over heals, hopelessly in love. And while the heart may sometimes be wounded, it’s never broken but sustained by the warmth, and safe hands of those around me.
And my love story, my affair of the heart, continues to unfold, with gratitude, awe and wonderment, and deeply rooted in hope.
Finally, as we transition shortly, on this very sad, profound day of grief, Yom Hazikaron, the Day of Remembrance for honoring our fallen soldiers with the deepest of respect, we hold them close and embedded in our hearts – and take our sadness with us to celebrate our independence.
Wishing you a joyful and meaningful “חג עצמאות שמח”
Solly Kaplinski, former Headmaster of Herzlia High School in Cape Town, also headed up Jewish Day Schools in Toronto and Vancouver before making Aliyah more than 25 years ago. His professional life in Israel was bookended by working at Yad Vashem in the International Relations Department, and at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), where he served for 17 years as the Executive Director of Overseas Joint Ventures. The author of a novella, A world of Pains: A Redemptive Parable?, he also compiled 2 books on Donors and Fundraisers, available as a giveaway – see www.journeysintothegentleheart.com. Solly lives in Jerusalem with his wife, Arleen. Their 3 daughters – and spouses, and an egalitarian minyan of grandchildren, all live in Israel.