Yom Hazikaron 5785

YOM HAZIKARON 5785

I have gathered together a series of random thoughts on Yom Hazikaron events in my lifetime. This is from a talk I  gave at the local memorial in Nachal Habesor in Ramat Bet Shemesh Aleph this morning before the siren.

My apologies if they do not run smoothly.

Today we remember over 34,000 lost heroes and heroines. Sadly, that figure fills more than the Teddy Stadium.

I remember going to Har Herzl in 2002 with my family. After several hours we were still visiting graves from the earliest days of the state. The vastness of the cemetery was so saddening. The image of the memorial to the Dakar submarine has not left me.

We remember Eli Cohen and Ron Arad whose bodies have not been returned as well as Daniel Perez and the others from the current war.

We hold the Red Cross responsible for their lack of help.

We all remember the picture of Rabbi Hillel Unterman (who I met on a recuperation trip in England)) being taken into captivity in 1973 with his sefer Torah. He wrote that as soon as the red cross stopped coming the torture restarted, even tearing his “tzitzit” off his body.

Many of you will have seen the film “Cast a Giant shadow”, the story of American Colonel Micky Marcus, zl. His training of the fledgling army was important as was the building of the Burma Road. It is not far from us, and it helped in the siege of Yerushalayim.

We must also pay tribute to people like Boris Bressloff, a former patient of mine. When he heard ex-nazis were volunteering to help the Arabs, he packed up his bags and came to join the new IAF. Baruch Hashem, he survived the war of independence.

When I go to Shaarei Zedek, there are pictures of the soldiers we have recently lost in the current war and at Hadassah Har Hatzofim a mural. It is so stark, and you tend to  forget about  your  medical  issues and think  about the bereaved parents, widows, children and extended families.

My Dad zl, always talked about the Taggert fort at Latrun. To be honest, I never really understood the significance of it until we visited the tank museum and how it commanded the area around Latrun.

Today we honour the 160 people who fought three unsuccessful battles trying to gain control of Latrun. So many of them had little training and stood no chance.

Talking of the museum, there is a story behind the two small tanks you see at the entrance to the museum. That’s for  another day.

I first saw the burnt out so called armoured trucks on the road to Yerushalayim in 1967. They had not been touched and so the image was stronger, and the time elapsed was less. Again, I have only found out that not only that they not fully bullet proof, but once inside the bullets would fly around the vehicle.

We think of ammunition hill and the battle to take it, with the ensuing loss of life.

I remember seeing the bullet holes in buildings in Tzfat in 1967.

I know it will not be Yom Yerushalayim for a few weeks, but I would recommend watching Uzi Narkiss testimony on YouTube about the battle for Yerushalayim in 1967. It was recorded shortly before he died of cancer.

We remember today the victims of terror, such as Sabarro. Again, for another time, I have a story about the terrorist atrocity.

I grew up with the story of the Etzion bloc, never realising that there is a whole area called the Gush. If you have not read Rav Goren’s biography I would recommend it. It speaks of the retrieval of the bodies of those, murdered in cold blood victims, as well as Latrun.

It was part of the speech that Rav Goren used to let the soldiers what type of Jew haters they were facing in 1967.

We say in Haggadah every year, our enemies have tried to  defeat us and Baruch Hashem, we are still here.

Today we must remember all or lost heroes, honour  their holy neshamot, and pray that there will not be any more korbanot in the future.

Am Yisrael Chai