Visitors and immigrants to Israel shed tears, show respect for Israel’s fallen soldiers and victims of terror

By the end of the third video, sniffles were audible around the amphitheater.

Thousands of Jews from around the world gathered in Israel Wednesday, April 25, at the Latrun memorial for fallen soldiers of the Israeli Armored Corps to mark Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day. The holiday honors soldiers killed while defending the Jewish State and honors Jewish victims of terror. Sponsored by Masa – a network of Israel study, internship and volunteer programs affiliated with The Jewish Agency and Government of Israel – the ceremony attracted an estimated 3,000 Jewish young adults hailing from as far as California, Russia and South America, and many experiencing Israel’s Memorial Day for the first time.

The powerful impact of the ceremony, which included Masa video clips of soldiers who had immigrated from abroad, was evident even before it began, with its historically meaningful setting. Participants of more than 200 Masa Israel-experience programs flowed onto the grounds of Latrun, a strategic hilltop for Jewish military campaigns from Joshua’s defeat of the Amorites to the Six Day War in 1967.

“You never realize how big the Jewish community is until you come to something like this and hear all the accents,” said Meryl Fontek, 18, of Englewood, N.J. “Being in Israel has expanded my view of what it means to be part of the Jewish community.”

For Elie Flatow, 19, of Great Neck, N.Y., the Masa ceremony held an extra layer of significance because a relative, Alissa Flatow, was killed in a Hamas suicide bombing in 1995. 

“Knowing somebody in your family was killed in Israel makes Yom Hazikaron more meaningful,” he said. “Today, we’re all here sharing it together.”

Both Fontek and Flatow are participating in a Masa-sponsored Torah study program for post-high school students. Other ceremony attendees are in Israel to volunteer or pursue internships, such as working for Israel’s Security Authority or the Ministry of Tourism.

Sarah Hollander, 25, of San Francisco, is participating in the Masa-sponsored World Union of Jewish Students “Intern Jerusalem” program. For most of the evening ceremony, she was “fixated,” she said, on the stage, but, “At the end, as we sung Hatikva,” she said, “I looked around and realized there are so many of us here. Someone in one of the videos had said, ‘We are all brothers, we are all family.’ And when I looked around, that feeling was really prominent.”

Searching for a Measure of Healing

Earlier on Wednesday, The Jewish Agency sponsored a more intimate ceremony at its headquarters in Jerusalem for its hundreds of employees, along with those of the World Zionist Organization, Keren Hayesod, and the Jewish National Fund, and representatives from the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Federations of Canada. The speakers included Samuel Sandler, whose son and grandchildren were killed just one month ago in front of a Jewish school in Toulouse, France. Sandler’s daughter-in-law, Eva Sandler, who lost two children and her husband in the shooting, lit a memorial torch to begin the ceremony.

Mr. Sandler told the story of his parents’ escape from the Nazis. “I did not think that nowadays, today, there are still people trying to kill children in France,” he said. “My children were killed only because they were Jews.

“The day before the murder,” he continued, “I spoke on the phone with my son. We talked about Passover and our plan to celebrate together. That was our last conversation. By Passover Eve, Jonathan was no longer with us. The whole evening, I imagined him singing happily. I’ll never again hear him ask the Four Questions. The despicable murder silenced his voice forever.”

A focus on French Jewry was a theme at both events. The video clips at the Masa ceremony showed soldiers who had immigrated from abroad – just as many Masa participants are considering doing – including the late First Sergeant Yoan Zarbiv, of France, whose passionate love for Israel led him to move there and join the IDF’s elite Nahal Brigade. He was killed in South Lebanon in 2006 while searching for terrorists who had been firing missiles into northern Israel. His last words were: “Tell my parents that I love them and that I don’t regret anything that I did.”

Zarbiv’s father, Gerard Zarbiv, said the Kaddish prayer at Wednesday’s ceremony and took a moment to remember the victims of the Toulouse shooting.

With the presence of so many people from different countries, both events evoked a sense of international reach, manifesting the feeling of interconnectedness inherent in Israel’s Memorial Day. As Natan Sharansky, The Jewish Agency's Chairman of the Executive, told Masa participants, “When our enemies attack Jewish communities around the world, they are attacking us all.”