‘Immortal Regiment’ in Haifa on … Shabbat: Moscow’s Hand Is Showing

The “Immortal Regiment” in Haifa — on Shabbat!!! Foreign Forces Alien to Israeli Society Have Exposed Themselves.

What should Israel understand from this?

Sometimes a political gesture exposes itself not through a slogan, but through a date.

A poster recently surfaced on Facebook announcing an “Immortal Regiment” march in Haifa. The date: May 9, 2026. The time: 8:30 in the morning. Formally, it is presented as an event “in honor of Victory Day over Nazism.” Visually, however, it carries the familiar post-Soviet package: the St. George ribbon, Soviet symbols, red flags, and the rhetoric of “we remember, we are proud, we thank.”

But May 9, 2026, falls on Saturday. Shabbat. Public calendars also list May 9, 2026 as a Saturday.

And in Israel, that is not a “small detail.” Shabbat is part of Jewish time, part of the public rhythm of the country, and part of the basic respect owed to a large part of Israeli society. A public secular march on Saturday morning effectively excludes many religious and traditional Jews from participation.

At the top of the poster, two names appear: “Immortal Regiment” and “Israeli Anti-Fascist Movement.” In other words, this is not presented as a private meeting of several people in a courtyard. It is announced as an organized public procession, with recognizable symbols, a route, a gathering time, and a politically loaded visual language.

And this is where the main question begins: why exactly on Shabbat?

It is important to be clear: the issue is not that May 9 cannot be marked in Israel.

On the contrary. Victory Day over Nazi Germany is an official national holiday in Israel. The Knesset announced in 2017 that May 9 would be marked as a national holiday, and the Knesset’s own page on Victory in Europe Day describes official commemorative elements, including a memorial service at the Western Wall Plaza for Jews who fought the Nazis in the Allied armies.

This is not a marginal date. It is not the private initiative of one community. Israel is home to veterans, former prisoners, children of soldiers, and families who came from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Moldova, the Baltic states, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. For many of them, May 9 is not politics. It is family memory, pain, and gratitude.

That is precisely why, when May 9 falls on Shabbat, the Israeli way is obvious: remember, yes; honor veterans, yes; hold ceremonies, yes — but do so with respect for the Israeli calendar and for local public sensitivity. Many municipalities and public bodies organize meetings, concerts, memorial ceremonies, and events for veterans around this date, and this year many of those events are naturally moved to May 8 or May 10.

The official memory is not canceled. It is respected.

Against this background, the Haifa poster looks especially revealing.

Here, the choice is specifically Shabbat morning.

Not May 8.

Not May 10.

Not Saturday night after Shabbat ends.

But May 9, 8:30 in the morning.

And here, forces alien to Israeli society have exposed themselves. Because the Israeli logic is clear: to remember — yes; to honor veterans — yes; to hold public events — yes; but not to pretend that the Jewish calendar does not exist.

In this poster, everything is the opposite. The date must be “like there.” The ritual must be “like there.” The symbols must be “like there,” even if the Israeli context clearly contradicts it.

Where is “there”?

Everyone knows where “there” is. And everyone understands why a march in Haifa is being tied to the same date and symbolic time as the central Russian ritual on Red Square — assuming, of course, that it is not disrupted again by air alerts, Ukrainian drones, or fear of the reality of the war that Russia itself started.

Everyone understands everything.

For readers who are less familiar with the “Immortal Regiment,” it is important to explain what this format has become. It began as a commemorative march in which people carried portraits of relatives who fought in World War II. In that original human sense, it could have been a deeply personal act of remembrance.

But over the years, especially after Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, the format has been absorbed into the Kremlin’s political mythology. It is no longer just about family portraits. It has become part of a larger state ritual: victory cult, imperial nostalgia, Soviet symbolism, and the use of the word “anti-fascism” to justify a new war.

The memory of the victory over Nazism does not belong to Moscow, to Putin, or to Russian propaganda. It belongs to the dead, the survivors, the soldiers, the prisoners of ghettos, and the families who lived through the war and the Holocaust.

That is exactly why it is dangerous when this memory is pulled back into a foreign political ritual.

In 2026, the St. George ribbon is no longer neutral. The “Immortal Regiment” is no longer just a procession of family photographs. After Russia’s war against Ukraine, these symbols cannot be separated from the Kremlin mythology used to justify aggression, the destruction of cities, and attacks on civilians.

In Israel, the word “Nazism” cannot be decoration on a poster. Here it is connected to the Holocaust, Babyn Yar, ghettos, camps, deportations, and destroyed Jewish communities.

So the question is not whether one may remember May 9. Each person should decide for themselves how to relate to this date, how to preserve family memory, and in what form to express it.

The question is different: why is someone again trying to bring a foreign post-Soviet ritual into Haifa as if Israel were not Israel, Shabbat were not Shabbat, and the local context did not matter?

This poster became a political marker. It showed who is not speaking to Israeli society, but to a closed audience of their own. It showed who hides behind the words “memory,” “victory,” and “anti-fascism,” while bringing with them symbols and logic of foreign imperial memory.

This is exactly the kind of issue NAnews – Nikk.Agency Israel News follows closely: the point where Israeli public space, Jewish memory, Ukraine, Russia, and propaganda collide.

Forces alien to Israeli society reveal themselves in such details.

And everyone knows whose hand it is.