Celebrating Memorial Day in the USA and in Israel - In Israel it is not a happy time
Celebrating Memorial Day in the USA and in Israel In Israel it is not a happy time It’s eight o’clock on Tuesday night. The siren begins its wail. I put down the orange that I am peeling; it seems disrespectful not to do otherwise. This evening is the start of Memorial Day here in Israel. Although there are similarities, the celebration of Memorial Day in Israel is not what the people in the USA are used to. Both countries honor their war dead, and we both decorate their graves, and in the USA, Memorial Day used to be called Decoration Day. We Israelis call it The Day of Remembering, Yom HaZichoron, יום זיכרון . For us it began on Tuesday at 8 PM when sirens were heard throughout the country. The Israel Defense Forces’ latest data shows that 891 IDF soldiers died in 2023 and 2024. Of those deaths, 558 were killed in 2024. Many of the fallen were killed during and in the immediate days after Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023. It is not a happy time. ...