A Memorial in a Shared Space?
On Saturday, we visited Reim. The park memorial site of the Nova party. Crowded parking area. Constant turnover. Reactions. Emotions Only indifference can’t be found there.
I wandered among posters on wooden posts with names of young people who lost their lives there. Each poster, a photo, text in Hebrew on one side, English on the other. Two or three paragraphs about the individual. Ceramic red poppies on the ground below, next to items placed personally on an individual basis. Arrangements of stones with words printed on them on the ground below the poster by one name. Some have lanterns. Some have burned out candles. Some have flags – of Israel, of soccer teams, of other countries for other nationalities. Some have crocheted items wrapped around the wooden post. Signs that friends and relatives have visited, placed an item relevant to memorializing their loved one.
Some texts have quotes by the deceased. Some have famous quotes that loved ones associate with the deceased included in the text about them. One caught my attention: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” An African proverb. Written above the text in memory of Tomer Segev from Ra’anana. It grabbed me because I associate the proverb with my Arab-Bedouin friend from Rahat. It’s written as his status on one of his social media profiles. “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
Another picture drew me to it. The deceased is a relative of a personal acquaintance and colleague. The deceased is Awad Darawshe. He was a paramedic, on duty at the time. Appropriate vehicle. He saved lives. He lost his own. His story resonated in the early days following October 7. A story of people caring about people, saving people. A Palestinian citizen of the State of Israel doing his job as a paramedic, under attack by Hamas Nukhba operatives, together with other citizens of Israel. Did his job. Lost his life. There is always a choice. He might have lost his life even without saving others first. He was not in the middle of a workshop on shared society or a seminar on identities and narratives. He did his job.
Awad Darawshe. I saw the sign. I saw his name. I said to Haim, “This is the paramedic, Mohammad’s relative, who was killed.” Haim nodded, knowing who I was talking about.
Awad Darawshe. His picture. His name. No additional text. Not Hebrew. Not English. His name in Hebrew. His name in English. No Arabic. Red ceramic poppies on the ground below his picture. An Israeli flag around the bottom of the post.
His picture and his story belong at the site. Just like pictures of Jews killed here. His story is undermined. No memorial text. I understand his friends and family likely have reservations in identifying with the site. It’s not the place for them to visit to remember him. For me, the void where text could be projects a message – shared society absence in this public space. I can only project.
Projecting. I did not know Awad. But his identity involved another nationality. As an Arab citizen of Israel, he likely defined himself as a Palestinian citizen of the State of Israel. Maybe he was too young to have fully developed and processed his identity – a lifelong process anyway. The flag at the bottom of the wooden post, the flag of Israel, with its Jewish symbols. No Palestinian flag for the Palestinian state not yet established.
As a Jewish citizen of Israel, committed to a two-state solution with a Palestinian state living peacefully alongside Israel, I am not threatened by a Palestinian flag. However, for me people promoting a Palestinian state unwilling to accept a State of Israel abuse that flag – what it should symbolize. Jewish Israelis who deny equality to Arabs, to any minority in Israel abuse the flag of Israel too. I understand that the flag of Israel, with its Jewish symbols, sends a message of exclusion to citizens who are not Jewish. It effectively discourages one who is not Jewish from identifying with it as their national symbol. Sometimes, I want that symbol facing a hostile world, but I don’t want my flag to be hostile to other citizens of my state. There are alternatives.
At the Nova site of the Hamas attack from October 7, a Palestinian flag next to an Israeli flag seems unsettling. Not the place? Salt on a wound? Disrespectful? Despite the fact we know: if we want to go far, we have to do it together.
Harriet Gimpel
October 27, 2025
