Bumper stickers for our fallen

It’s late in the afternoon and I’m just back from having an early dinner and a beer with a friend in Tel Aviv. The air is still hot, humid from the ocean, and just a notch below stifling as I wait for my train at Tachanat haShalom rail station. I rest my backpack against the side of a vending machine by the tracks and watch as a khaki-clad soldier holds up his phone to take pictures of the Coke machine opposite me. But that’s not the object of his lens’s attention just now. The Coke machine is plastered, covered, shrouded with bumper stickers. Most of the stickers bear a picture and a short quote. Plus a pair of dates. Each sticker is for a dead soldier or a victim of the October 7 massacre.

The general “nusah,” or formulation, goes something like this: A few words of affection or a quotation. Date of birth. Date of death. The soldier’s name. An epitaph. Sometimes it’s z”l (zichrono/a livrcha – may his/her memory be for a blessing). For others it’s Hy”d (HaShem yikom damo/a – may God avenge the blood of his/her death).

I’ve seen some of these stickers before on light poles and street signs in Jerusalem. But this is the first time I’ve seen so many in a single place. It’s hard to describe the impact…it’s like being kicked in the gut and having all the air sucked out of you. I’m still breathing but suffocating at the same time. How does that make any sense? That’s how I feel breathing the syrupy, hot air of Tel Aviv.

Two stickers catch my eye.

The first bears the verse “They were swifter than eagles, stronger than lions.” These are the words of King David as he mourned the deaths of Saul and Jonathan. They were later incorporated into the Av haRachamim prayer for the martyrs of medieval pogroms in Europe that I now say each Shabbat day with unaccustomed intensity. Below the verse, at the bottom of the sticker, appear the names of 10 soldiers from one division who fell in battle.

The second sticker bears the insignia of the Golani Brigade alongside the smiling profile of Tomer Nager z”l, the year of his birth and also of his death during our current war at the age of 21. This sticker features a slightly different quote. “Life is a wheel of fortune. Here is my chance to give it a spin. Tupac Shakur.” I guess we all find inspiration from different places. For the Tomer’s friends who printed the sticker, Tupac was probably just the right voice to give vent to their feelings.

Rappers. Royalty. They all blend together on this wall of memory and mourning.

I’m about to step on to the train when I catch one last glance of the soldier opposite me. He’s done snapping pictures, but pauses before he turns away from the Coke machine. He reaches up and touches one of the stickers, then pulls his hand back to kiss his fingers. The way we kiss a mezuzah upon leaving home. Or the way many kiss a Torah scroll when it passes near us in synagogue. Or the way we caress a gravestone before leaving the cemetery, embracing the memory of the one we’ve lost by sharing one last kiss.

Train doors open. Separately we climb on board. Both of us holding on to something that we can’t quite leave behind.