Memorial Day

Eli Solomon H"YD

Tonight we went to Rehovot's memorial service held in the "Defender's Park" where there is a memorial wall on which the names of Rehovotites who gave their lives for our country are inscribed. It was an impressive and moving tribute lasting over an hour and attended by hundreds of our fellow citizens. A man who lost his father, a Holocaust survivor, at the age of 4 in 1953 (which makes him exactly my age) shared his feelings about growing up without a father and slowly piecing together his father's legacy. He visited the cemetery yearly with his mother and younger brother, but no one talked about his father. Over the years he began asking about him and learning more about him. Nowadays, he comes to the cemetery with his brother and their families, wives, children and grandchildren, over twenty member of the generations. They tell of the heroic efforts of the Holocaust survivor to get an education and become a teacher in the new State of Israel. They pass on that legacy now to the fourth generation.

Chaim (Chuck) Hornstein  HY"D

The Chief Rabbi of Rehovot, Rav Simcha Hacohen Kook spoke passionately of his participation in the War of Independence as a member of the Moriah brigade in Jerusalem where they tried to get through to the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and save the starving soldiers and residents. In the end they did not succeed and it took 20 years until Rav Kook was able to walk through the Mandlebaum gate, the house near the Eastern gates of th old city which he fled with his mother's family just before the Arabs blew it up killing Haganah defenders inside.Today he is, in addition to being chief Rabbi of Rehovot, the Rabbi of the newly rebuilt Hurva Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. He ended with an emphatic statement that Jerusalem must remain in our hands.
Most of the speakers expressed the wish for a speedy return home in good health for Gilad Shalit . The ceremony ended with Kaddish, El Maleh Rahamim and the singing of Hatikva.
Of course the ceremony started with the siren and the minute of silence when each of us reflects on our memories Among those I think about are, of course, my two friends 'from the old country' Eli and Chuck. May God avenge their blood.

Take a few moments to watch this clip. It graphically represents the bereavement we remember today.