Rabbi Daniel Siegel – Head of Jewish Life

עם ישראל חי
Am Yisra’el Chai – Our People Live

On our first day of Term 2, our Emanuel school community commemorated Yom HaZikaron and celebrated Yom HaAtsmau’t, both on the same day (as their calendar dates were during the school holiday).

In the first two years of the State of Israel, memorial services for fallen soldiers were also held on Independence Day. This week’s double-parashah, Acharei Mot (After the Death) and Kedoshim (Sanctifying Life) reminds us, as does the bond between Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaAtsma’ut, that even as we mourn our dead we must affirm life.

Survivors of the Holocaust, which we commemorated on Yom HaShoah, two weeks ago, affirmed life in the shadow of death. Rabbi Arnold Wieder shares that he learned to be a Mohel from his father, in Bergen Belsen. Remarkably, the DP camps saw the highest birth rate in Europe. Experiencing destruction and death, Jews create and sanctify life, Acharei Mot-Kedoshim.

In celebrating Yom HaAtsma’ut upon the heels of Yom HaZikaron, we remind ourselves of the preciousness of life and the commitment of our Jewish State to realise freedom, security and peace for all its inhabitants, as proclaimed in its Declaration of Independence.

You might find the following Podcast which discusses/debates the connection between Yom Hashoah, Yom HaZikaron, and Yom HaAtsma’ut of interest. “In this very personal episode, Donniel Hartman, Yossi Klein Halevi, and Elana Stein Hain discuss their own experiences of Israel’s “high holidays” and the annual national experience of moving, in the space of a few hours, from a day of mourning to a night of celebration”.