Memorial Ceremony Exposes a ‘Chasm’
As in years past, Dave takes note of the Jewish community's turnout for the annual Yom HaZikaron event.
Dave Schechter is a veteran journalist whose career includes writing and producing reports from Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East.
I have heard the following from Jewish friends in recent months: There is so much happening in this country, I just don’t have the bandwidth to invest in Israel.
I get that. There is much of critical importance happening at home. I nonetheless was surprised when a friend told me that he was losing interest in Israel, so great was his frustration over the war in Gaza, the hostage ordeal, and other issues.
These conversations came to mind on April 29 as I stood in the back of the sanctuary at the Ahavath Achim Synagogue, my preferred vantage point at the annual Yom HaZikaron ceremony.
The day of remembrance recognizes Israel’s fallen military, who number 15,420 over the nation’s 77 years, and 4,229 victims of terrorism in Israel and abroad.
As the event began, an American friend active in organizations that support Israel told me that, when he arrived, an Israeli acquaintance thanked him for coming.
The American asked why he was being thanked. Because the community — meaning the larger Jewish community — doesn’t attend, the Israeli answered.
“Disgusting” was the adjective my American friend used to describe the situation. He suggested later that maybe he had been too harsh. “It just makes me sad,” he said.
I have written before about the indifference shown this event, despite Yom HaZikaron being “the most sacred day in the Israeli calendar, as Anat Sultan-Dadon, Israel’s Consul General to the Southeastern United States, called it in her remarks. Most of the 1,000-plus in the audience wore white shirts or blouses, as a sign of mourning and respect.
Rabbi Peter Berg, Senior Rabbi of The Temple, told the gathering, “Today all of us are one family, united in grief and love.” Gary Sobel, a national board member of Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, said, “Your pain is our pain. Your loss is our loss.”
Not to quibble with Berg or Sobel, but one side of the family seems less concerned.
To be fair, there were rabbis, leaders of communal organizations, and elected officials in attendance, some participating in readings and the laying of memorial wreaths. But there were relatively few from what might be called the rank-and-file Jewish community.
From conversations in past years, I know how this rankles the Israeli community, for whom Yom HaZirkaron is at least as (if not more) important than Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, which follows the day after.
Atlanta’s Jewish community is hardly shy about expressing itself on various issues and will turn out in large numbers to support Israel in a crisis, as it did after the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks on kibbutzim, towns, and an outdoor music festival, in which 1,200 men, women, and children were killed and another 250 kidnapped.
Yom HaZikaron this year fell on day No. 571 since Oct. 7.
As this column was filed on May 12 — day No. 584 — Hamas freed 21-year-old Edan Alexander, a New Jersey native and the last living hostage also holding U.S citizenship. Alexander, who made Aliyah at age 18, was kidnapped when his IDF unit’s base near Gaza was attacked on Oct. 7. Hamas still holds the bodies of four other murdered U.S. citizens, three men and a woman.
Alexander’s release brought the total number of remaining hostages to 58, with 35 believed to be dead, 20 believed to be alive, and the status of three others “in doubt,” according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The anxiety felt by the hostages’ families has been heightened by reports from Israeli journalists that return of the hostages was put at the bottom of the priority list in orders given to military commanders in advance of what Netanyahu has outlooked as an upcoming “forceful operation” in Gaza.
As I do every year, as the Yom HaZikaron ceremony at Ahavath Achim ended and the audience filed out, I positioned myself at the sanctuary’s center doors, listening to the language they spoke. What I heard was almost entirely Hebrew, with a smattering of English.
“It’s a sign of the chasm,” a young man familiar with the Israeli community told me.
The same chasm existed when I wrote after the May 2024 ceremony: “Looking to next year, those in the larger Jewish community who profess to support Israel can recognize the importance of the Yom HaZikaron ceremony for the local Israeli community by turning out in greater numbers.”
That didn’t happen.
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