Remembrance Day

When we inadvertently got stuck overnight in Jerusalem on Remembrance Day, I said to myself that Jews throughout time and space would have done anything to be in my predicament.

Although there had been predictions that the war would go on for two years, I couldn’t internalize that we wouldn’t have finished the fighting or brought home the hostages in the first year.

The worst fires in modern Israeli history erupted just as our people sought to celebrate our hard-won independence.

Jewish ethics insist that a society is judged not by its military might or economic prosperity but by how it treats its most marginalized members. This is the heart of our national mission.

On Remembrance Day Eve, a group of far-right activists descended on a Reform synagogue where a private screening of the ceremony was taking place.

The horrifying scenes from Ukraine to Sudan are on our screens and headlines, and the current damage from bullets and bombs.

Movers and shakers in Israeli society.

I struggled to find something to say to Donna that would give her some comfort and re-route the river of anguish and angst that was flowing through her veins.

As we move this week from Remembrance Day – when we risk drowning in sorrow – to Independence Day – when we soar in celebration – we carry both the tears and the triumphs with us.

"I truly don’t think I fully understood what it meant to be Israeli until I experienced Remembrance Day in Israel for the first time."