Sometimes I resent the fact that I didn’t grow up in Israel. My parents are your textbook Israelis – staunch Zionists, devoted fans of Hadag Nahash and chronic consumers of hummus. For much of my life, I was angry at them for instilling Israeli values in me and then choosing to raise me in America, where a sense of belonging constantly eluded me, and my identity was a frequent source of uncertainty. But maturing for me was realizing that living in the Jewish state is – like everything else in this country – extremely complicated.
I’ve been on a gap year in Israel for nearly nine months now, trying to understand how an Israeli from the diaspora could belong in this place, and perhaps more importantly, what my role is in fighting this war.
I thought I’d find some answers by attending the Defense Ministry’s Remembrance Day ceremony on Monday. I had never been to anything of the sort – certainly I would never have been provided with the opportunity to shake hands with the nation’s highest defense personnel in the United States.
Upon reflection, I truly don’t think I fully understood what it meant to be Israeli until I experienced Remembrance Day in Israel for the first time. It bears little resemblance to Memorial Day in America, which is more about barbeques and clothing sales. In Israel, this day is deeply personal for every single citizen, regardless of gender, religion or political affiliation. If you belong to Israel, then its fallen belong to you.
The ceremony was intimate, held in the National Hall for Israel’s Fallen on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. The venue is composed of thousands of white bricks, each memorializing a soldier who died in battle. Hundreds of names have been added since October 7, 2023, but thousands of bricks remain blank, awaiting the day where they too will immortalize a name in stone.
The IDF’s role in Israel’s national identity
I think what outsiders struggle to understand about the IDF is that it is not merely a defense institution – it is firmly embedded in the national identity of Israel, serving as the beating heart of a peoplehood. The crowd of civilians in attendance was interspersed with soldiers wearing berets of varying colors, each signifying a corps in the defense forces. The presence of combatants among civilians would be atypical in most other places, but in Israel, it reflects the deep integration of the military within Israeli life.
Perhaps the clearest testament to how deeply the army is woven into the fabric of Israeli civil society was the row of students seated behind me during the commemoration.
Unlike my own experiences at the mandatory ceremonies I attended in high school, these young adults sat in full attention. The thought that, in the next few years, Remembrance Day might be honoring some of them never left my mind. And yet, when I looked at their faces, I didn’t see fear: I saw resolve.
While hearing story after story about soldiers my age who had fallen in combat over the years, I came to a pivotal realization: every day I had spent on my gap year until then had been about understanding what it means to live for this country. But Remembrance Day was the day I began to understand what it means to die for it. And by extension, that the way a nation honors its dead is one of the most profound reflections of how it values life.
In Israel – a country where nearly every single person knows a victim of terror or war, and where grief is a collective burden, where people attend the funerals of strangers, and the entire country stands still as a siren commemorates those who died on the battlefield – there is a love for a peoplehood unlike anything I have witnessed elsewhere. The threat of extinction only ignites their passion to protect; external hatred only deepens their dedication to each other. They possess an extraordinary willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice, not just because their home is all that they have, but because their home is all that they are.
My takeaway from Remembrance Day is that a sense of purpose and a willingness to sacrifice make Israelis who they are. However, I don’t believe that military service is necessarily everybody’s purpose. There is power in being an Israeli and a Jew from the diaspora. We have a unique role to play in this conflict.
The sacrifices made by soldiers on the battlefield should inspire us to dedicate ourselves to fighting Jew hatred within our own communities abroad; to make our own sacrifices, even if it’s difficult. Not only because we must do so to survive, but because the sense of belonging we feel as a Jewish people is one rooted deeply in selflessness. We must always remember that the burden of protecting our future does not rest on those in uniform alone – it belongs to us all.
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