We are the generation that connects Holocaust Remembrance Day to Memorial Day. We are the children of parents born before the founding of the State of Israel; some of whom arrived as remnants of destruction, straight from the concentration camps; parents for whom a Jewish State and a Jewish soldier were concepts beyond their wildest dreams.
We are the generation of October 1973, the State of Israel's first generation of children, recipients of the miracle that has no equal as a testimony of strength, as the silent prayer of proud parents who, filled with awe, experienced the fulfillment of the prophecy of the third building of our home; parents who infused us with the feeling that the State of Israel, the most valuable treasure, was entrusted into our hands.
We are children to parents who deep inside their souls understood that their children may never return. They embraced us with courage and trembling as we enlisted in the Israel Defense Force, passing the sword on to us in their hearts, as if it melted into our DNA and enabled us to become one with the spirit of sacrifice and the values we absorbed from them.
For me, the sound of the shofar on Yom Kippur will always fuse with the pleas of my brother Eran, as he lay bleeding to death next to his burning tank at Tel Saki. The tallit of his life draped like the tanker's coveralls that forever enfold him. His combat spirit, and that of our comrades, the generation of the Yom Kippur War, became the final wall of defense to save our State, the only insurance that was and remains for the existence of the world's only Jewish state.
We are also the generation of October 2023. Seven months after the horrendous massacre inflicted by the Hamas terrorists on Shabbat, Simchat Torah, October 7, 2023, and the war that was forced upon us by surprise, the end is still not in sight. This is the biggest crisis that has fallen upon the Jewish people and the State of Israel since the inception of the State. Residents of the south and residents of the north have still not returned to their homes. Hostages are still held captive by Hamas. The atrocities are still incomprehensible.
Two of my relatives were murdered at Kfar Aza, Nadav Goldstein-Almog, age 49 and his 19-year-old daughter Yam. Forty-nine-year-old Chen was taken captive by Hamas together with her children, 18-year-old Agam, 11-year-old Gal, and 9-year-old Tal. They returned with scarred souls after 51 days in captivity, bound by their oath to return to their home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza despite the threats of their Hamas captors in the tunnels that if they return, they will be murdered.
As in the days of the overwhelming tragedy of the Yom Kippur War, so, too, today, during the Simchat Torah War – Iron Swords, the courage of the soldiers who shouldered the humiliation and gross failure of the first days stands as our only guarantee for the existence of the State of Israel.
We, the generation of Yom Kippur and the generation of Simchat Torah, we are the glass about which we no longer say, "may it be an atonement," when it shatters at a festivity. And the shards of my brother, and his brothers, heroes of glory, have morphed into the blood-red carpet of the heroic generation. Their fighting spirit and their courage live on, our last wall of defense.
This year, Memorial Day is more painful than any other year. The hostages are still held captive by Hamas. Holocaust survivors, residents of the Gaza-border communities, once again experienced moments of fear and saw their families slaughtered as in the days before the rise of the State. Our beloved country, the miracle which has no equal, the hope for security and an exemplary society, seemingly collapsed onto our humiliated pride on Shabbat, Simchat Torah, October 7.
This year, on Memorial Day, the heart is more broken. Suddenly, the "I will live through your blood," of the Seder night, the words, "in each generation they rise up against us to destroy us," and "you shall recount to your children," and the sentence that accompanies the end of every conversation, "Am Yisrael Chai – the People of Israel live," take on new meaning. The fragility and transience of our lives seems to draw strength from something greater than ourselves, like the living dead in the poetry of Alterman; like the greater power cast onto the People of Israel that enables them to emerge from every crisis stronger.
Doron AlmogPhoto: Yehoshua AshenheimNow, more than ever, we are commanded to continue the bravery of those who fell. From the heartache and pain, we will give each other the strength to fight heroically, to embrace, to accept and to love; to continue building the miracle, founded on the righteousness of our path. We will continue to break down the walls of antisemitism and hatred, to bring healing to the world, and to build an ethical, moral, humble, upright, progressive and brave State of Israel, forever blessed with the fighting spirit and heroism of those who gave their life for it.
Doron Almog is Chairman of the Jewish Agency and a was a Major General in the IDF