Hello All; We arrived Friday morning at 5am from Florence by way of Paris, since Florence airport is so small with few flights. After a nap, we went grocery shopping , and stan went to his favorite synagogue,Shira Hadasha where the singing is great with Carlebach tunes and a women chazzan for Kabalat Shabbat. The nnext morning we went to our next favorite synagogue Beit Knesset Moreshet Yisrael, the conservative synagogue in the middle of town only 3 minutes from our aprt. The rabbi there |Adam Frank is a most unusual guy giving very short but pointed talks. He acknowledged us as supporters since we honorary membership.
Now the key part. Sunday night April 14 started Yom Hazickaren, the Memorial day for all died fighting for Israel since 1948. The siren sounded at 8pm and we went out side to stand still for 2 minutes and all cars did stop except for car marked UN. They couldn't be respectful I guess as this would be showing sides??
Next day at 11am,the siren went off again while we were in class.The rabbi informed us that exactly 23085 persons died since 1948 in Israel's various wars. He lit a memorial candle and sang El Molie Rachamin. It was quite emotional. The people here have had to pay a heavy price for some sort of peace. On TV on Sunday they had interviews with family member who lost someone. At night there were special ceremonies with songs, speeches and videos. You did not want to receive an invitation to these events.
Then at dark Monday, everything changed. People came out and the party started. Yom Ha'atzma'ut the Independence day like our 4th of July on steroids. Street vendors were selling very large blow up hammers for bobbing your friends on the head, every spinning colored lights device imaginable. The crowds were very large with an orthodox rock band in suits and tzittes on one stage singing. We walked to the municipal square where a very large crowd was dancing to a pop singer who was very good and got things really rocking. Roberta had a great time dancing with 20 year old girls until the very end. The was a very brief fireworks display that we could even count as fireworks.
The transition from a day of remembering all those lost in Israel's fight for existence and then the actual Independence day when Ben Gurion announced the state of Israel and read the Declaration of Independence is quite an experience .
The custom on Yom Ha'atzma'ut is the old fashion Bar BQ actually taken from the Arabs who BarBQ after Ramadan. We went to 2 BarBQ, one Monday night early at 6pm with services first at the Consevative synagogue and then the next day we went to my cousin Sam ( now Shimshon) at Tirat Yehuda after a 30 minute bus ride to the airport where he picked us up at the bus stop before entering the airport. Shimshon and Miriam are so nice. He still works one day a week at Ariel University suprivising graduate student research thesis projects. Their Moshav, a community where each owns their own property was once way out in the country but now is built up and has expanded to 7x in population in 35 years. Small scale farming is completely ceased.
All in all it was a very moving several days in Israel.
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