“As long as in the heart, within,
A Jewish soul still yearns,
And onward, towards the ends of the east,
An eye still gazes toward Zion.
Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free people in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.”
On the eve of Yom Hazikaron,
On Israel’s Remembrance Day for Soldiers and Victims of Terror
flames are placed high above on many buildings.
It is a Day to Remember every year.
the young lives lost in too many wars.
There will be 23,320 Israeli flags placed,
one for each of those graves in cemeteries
located throughout Israel.
This past year 116 people were added to the list.
Year after year much is the same,
as the sadness of Yom Hazikaron,
is then transformed at nightfall into the celebrations of
Israeli Independence Day.
I love the flyovers.
Even the dress rehearsal of the planes
attracts attention.
But you have to be quick to get a great photo
and this year a bird got in my way.
Flags and planes are not the only symbols,
as you can see from this large Star of David hanging on the Chord Bridge.
In Israel, and especially in Jerusalem,
where there are so many ceremonies,
it can be hard to decide which one to attend.
Some are prayer services.
This new Koren Yom Haazma’ut Mahzor,
with over 900 pages
is a far cry from the xeroxed pages that we
used to use for Yom Ha’azmaut services.
This quality volume not only has all the prayer services
with full English translation and explanations,
but also includes services for
Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day.
Included in the 248 pages of essays,
are both original writings and some English translations
of works first published in Hebrew.
The essay “Six Knocks” by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik,
was written for Yom HaAtzmaut 1956,
but all you need to do is change some of the names
and it could have been written today.
This post began with the Koren translation of Hatikva.
It is difficult, even with photos,
to explain,
year after year,
what happens in Israel on these holidays.
Perhaps this volume will help those in the Anglo world
to better understand the words of Hatikva.
Full disclosure,
I was pleased to see that so many people
I know were involved in preparation this book.
חג שמח
