Yom Hazikaron (Israel's official Memorial day) always preceedes Yom Ha'atzmaut (National Independence day of Israel). Scheduling Yom Hazikaron right before Yom Ha'atzmaut is intended to remind people of the price paid for independence and of what was achieved with the soldiers' sacrifice.
Yom Hazikaron
On the memorial day, national television and radio only broadcast stories of lost soldiers and quiet beautiful Israeli music. Memorial day opens the preceding evening with a siren at 20.00. An official ceremony is held at the Western Wall, while most people watch the ceremony on TV. Memorial day then proceeds on the following day, with another siren at 11.00, until in the evening when the independence day officially starts by returning the Israeli flag to full staff on Mount Herzl.
As a Swede, who has lived in peace for several centuries (well, at least my ancestors have), this day filled me with ambivalent emotions. I know what sacrifices the Israeli people has made for its nation, and still do, but nevertheless it was a bit hard for me to grasp this day. Of course every personal story I watched was extremely sad, and some even brought tears to my eyes. On the other hand, one part of me stayed objective and a little bit disturbed by all the dwelling. I even ended up in a discussion with Yoram about benefits and risks with dwelling too much in sad memories. Maybe it is the Swede in me, or maybe the credits are all mine, but I rather exercise my imagination than my memory, rather looking forward than backwards, but mind me, this has nothing to do with suppressing memories, rather the ability to accept, forgive and move on. I also could not get rid of the thought of all the other human sacrifices suffered in this conflict, not only Israeli soldiers. Bottom line is that I definitely honour this day, but I also hope that most people will channel their emotions during the memorial day in a positive way, towards forgiveness and hope, instead of bitterness and despair.
Yom Ha'atzmaut
As the sun sets, the memorial day reaches its end for this time, the country wipes away the tears and prepares to celebrate its independence day, this time the 62:nd. All people meet in the streets and in Tivon the sports stadium was turned into a huge fairground with attractions for the children, food stands and a big stage on where diverse entertainment was delivered. Gizillion kids ran around beating each other with white-and-blue inflatable hammers and axes, with Magen David on. We came alone, but met the kids there, and after an hour or so, with tired kids and boyfriends and girlfriends and exes and everything, we quietly snuck home again, to enjoy what was left of the evening just the two of us.
The morning of independence day the kids came to us and we took off to the Ramat David Airbase, which is only 20 minutes from here, where they have open house on independence day. The queue of cars probably stretched a kilometre so it took a while before we were parked and set to enter. The security was rigid, we went through metal detectors and got our bags were checked through. The questions you get are as always amusing; "Do you have any explosives in the bag? Weapons..?" "Erhh no, I left it in the car."
F-16 (Falcon)
F-15 (Eagle)
Skyhawk
Black Hawk
Cobra
Hercules
We walked around and looked at jet fighters and combat helicopters, together with other Israeli Jews, Arabs, Druze and what else, all very proud of the national defence forces. Although I am light-years from a person that glorifies war machines, it was quite fascinating to see these technological masterpieces close up. However, independence day was warmer than usual and walking around an airbase in 30+ degrees under a frying sun was not all that comfortable and we were quite soon satisfied, bought some ice cream and headed back to the car.
Israeli queueing system (or rather lack thereof)
On the way out we got a first-class experience of the Israeli car-drivers psyche. The Hebrew word for patience, savlanut, is one of the most frequent words used, but at the same time a character trait that Israelis are not well-known to harbour. One of the exits from the large field where cars were parked, and which were only one-car wide, was completely attacked by cars from a full 180 degrees. Everybody was jammed in a fan-formation, if seen from above. Just outside of the exit cars came from another exit, so some every-other car strategy could have been applied, but nothing moved anywhere, whatsoever. People got more and more frustrated and if one car moved a tiny bit, the two cars behind it fought to squeeze in front of the other. There were police officers and staff from the airbase trying to direct things, but instead of being effective they kept on arguing with the agitated car drivers who by now left their cars to offer their "assistance". Yoram had some wild verbal arguments with other drivers about trying to squeeze in front of us, and as we finally reached the exit, the car before us was hit on the hood by another driver from the other line of cars. The guy in the car in front of us got furious and jumped out of the car, ready to beat up the guy who hit his car, but people succeeded to prevent them from getting more physical. I was quite amused, but it was wonderful to leave the place. The AC in Yoram's car is failing and needs some fixing, so we were completely over-heated and the kids in the back seat were almost fainted.
We came home around lunch, completely exhausted. I had not slept all night, since Goshen was tummy-sick and needed to go out four times during the night, and the kids were worn out after a late independence day eve. Nevertheless, we had to go to Karmiel and BBQ with Yoram's mother. We ate well, but headed home pretty soon after the meal was over and everybody fell asleep like logs last night.
We all slept like logs, but four o'clock in the morning, Yoram heard Ziv screaming on Gal. He blamed Gal for jumping over in his bed and peeing in it, so Yoram ran in to their room and grabbed Gal out of his sleep. However, Gal was completely dry and when Yoram then looked at Ziv he could see that Ziv had actually peed himself in his own bed. I guess it is the bad karma from continuously teasing his younger brother for occasionally wetting the bed.
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