Sending the wrong message to the world

Every year, except when the fourth of Iyar falls out on a Friday, synagogues throughout the Diaspora mark Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day, in some meaningful way. Most often, they do it “Israeli style,” which in this case is to hold a memorial service a half-hour or so before the start of Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, which they then celebrate with great joy.

In Israel, Yom HaZikaron begins and ends with formal services. The opening one is held at the Western Wall as night begins to fall and a new Jewish day begins in Jerusalem. Nearly 24 hours later, a second memorial service is held around 15 minutes before nightfall. This one is held on Mount Herzl, where Israel’s main military cemetery is located. As night arrives, the memorial service ends and the celebration begins. Twelve torches are lit to represent the 12 tribes of Israel, marking the transition from a day of mourning into 24 hours of joy and celebration.

This actually is the traditional Jewish way, not a unique Israeli invention. When we have important events in which people died or were in grave danger of dying, and these events ended in some type of miraculous rescue, we fast one day and celebrate the next. Thus, the Fast of the First Born always occurs before Pesach begins. The Fast of Esther ushers in Purim — surely the silliest fun day on our calendar.

Yom HaZikaron honors the people who died since 1860 to create and maintain the State of Israel — active service personnel and civilians murdered in acts of terror in Israel and around the world. The number of men and women who were mourned this year on April 21 was 25,650.

The year 1860 was chosen as the start date for counting Israel’s fallen because it was in that year that Jews living in the Old City started the ball rolling, somewhat unwittingly. They created a Jewish community outside the Old City’s walls that was not wholly dependent on charity from abroad, as had been the case until then. That paved the way for the First Aliyah in 1882 and the beginning of what would become known as the Yishuv, the Jewish settlement in Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel. The Yishuv, in turn, set the stage for the creation of Medinat Yisrael, the State of Israel, on the Fifth of Iyar 5708 (May 15, 1948).

(An aside is in order for a pet peeve of mine. Calling the Yishuv “the Jewish settlement in Palestine” is wrong. There never was a place called “Palestine” until 135 C.E., when the Roman Emperor Hadrian erased the name Judea from the maps of the world and replaced it with Syria-Palestine. Adding “Palestine” was a deliberate insult because it referred to a people called the Philistines. They established five city-states on a strip of land on the Mediterranean coast, which became known as Philistia [Palestine]. The Philistines were one of Israel’s most bitter and persistent foes. They disappeared at least 800 years before Hadrian assumed Rome’s throne.)

To me, the most important part of the 48 hours from the start of Yom HaZikaron to the end of Yom Ha’Atzmaut are the first 24, because Yom HaZikaron honors the memories of the people without whom there never would have been a reborn State of Israel — and that would have been an immense tragedy on many levels, as I will discuss below.

I doubt that there is a single Israeli family that has not suffered a personal loss of some kind on behalf of Israel — and on our behalf, as well. That makes Yom HaZikaron a very difficult day for Israelis because it is a very personal one, but there is one sentence that helps them — and should help us — get  through it: “B’motam tzivu lanu ha-chayim.” “By their deaths, they commanded us to live.”

That brings me back to the commemorations outside Israel. This year, in too many cases, there were fewer attendees than usual. In some cases, there were people who left the commemoration just as the memorial service transitioned into the celebratory one. Among those who stayed away or left early were people who had been among the most ardent Zionists in times past. To them, the Israel they had supported for so long no longer existed. Israel had turned evil, and they no longer want any part of it.

As to why they feel that way, the news on the first three days of last week alone provided sufficient reasons for them: On Sunday, April 19, two Israeli soldiers in Lebanon smashed a statue of Jesus while six others looked on and did nothing to stop them. To make it worse, one of the soldiers posted photos of it on social media for all the world to see.

Two days later on Yom HaZikaron itself, an Israeli army reservist who is also a settler shot and killed a 14-year-old Palestinian boy and a 29-year-old man.

Settler violence on the West Bank has been rising at a frightening rate.  In 2025, the number of incidents rose by 52.4 percent over 2024. Settlers have been emboldened to commit such crimes because they are being openly and unashamedly encouraged to do so by several avowedly racist ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet.

There are Jews all around this country and throughout the world at large who feel this way. I understand why and I share their disappointment in the Israel of today, but I am not sure that they understand the full implications of what they are saying and doing. What they are actually saying, even though they may not admit it and may not even realize it, is that had they known 80 years ago that this evil crew of politicians would be in charge of the State of Israel, they would not have supported, much less campaigned for, creating that state.

I doubt any of them would admit that is true, but it is true.

And this also is true. The only reason why six million Jews were murdered in the Shoah was because the world, including the United States and Canada, closed off the only escape routes the Jews had once the Nazis made their intentions very clear. They died because there was no State of Israel around to take Jews in and that would do everything it could to rescue as many others as could be rescued.

The Shoah ended in 1945. Just four years later, the Jews of Yemen were in grave danger, with no safe way out. But there was an Israel by then, and together with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, that Israel launched Operation Magic Carpet / “On Eagles’ Wings.” Nearly all the Jews of Yemen — around 50,000 people — were airlifted out and brought to safety in Israel between late 1949 and early 1950.

The same goes for the between 120,000 and 130,000 Iraqi Jews who were airlifted in 1950 and 1951 in Operation Ezra and Nechemiah, the roughly 80,000 Moroccan Jews who were brought to Israel in Operation Yachin in the early 1960s, the couple of thousand Syrian Jews who were allowed to leave in 1981, and the 25,000 or so Jews rescued from Ethiopia in Operations Moses, Joshua, and Solomon in the late 1980s and 1991.

And let us not forget those 980,000 or so Soviet Jews we spent so much time and effort to get out of Mother Russia. We got them out only because there was an Israel ready and willing to take them in.

And to be honest, without Israel, there never would have been an elite commando force capable of flying thousands of miles in secret to rescue groups of Jews taken hostage by terrorists who planned to kill them. That is what Israel did at Entebbe on July 4, 1976, and is prepared to repeat whenever needed.

We lost six million in the Shoah because there was no Israel. We would have lost another 1.5 million or so after the Shoah if there still had been no Israel.

Benjamin Netanyahu and Company have turned the world against Israel, even to denying that Israel has the right to defend itself from the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah. Now more than ever in the last 78 years, we need to stand up and tell the world that we are not turning back the clock. We will work from the sidelines of the Diaspora to restore Jewish values to Israel, but we will not turn our backs on Israel, and we will not ignore celebrating the fact that it does exist.

To not show up for Israel Independence Day celebrations, and to plan to stay away from the sidewalks of Fifth Avenue on Parade Day (this year on Sunday, May 31) is to send the wrong message to the world. The world needs to hear the right message, that Bibi or no Bibi, for us it is and must always be “Ahm Yisrael Chai! Long Live the People Israel!”

Shammai Engelmayer is a rabbi-emeritus of Congregation Beth Israel of the Palisades and an adult education teacher in Bergen County. He is the author of eight books and the winner of 10 awards for his commentaries. His website is www.shammai.org.