2 Israeli Holidays: ‘Cup of Sorrow,’ Then Jubilation

Israelis flocked solemnly by the tens of thousands to the nation’s 39 military cemeteries to begin their day Wednesday, then ended the day by dancing in the streets and tapping each other playfully on the head with squeaking plastic hammers.

Behind the paradoxical display is the juxtaposition, believed unique to Israel, of two holidays of quite different character--Memorial Day, honoring more than 9,000 soldiers and 2,000 civilians who have died in the nation’s wars, and Independence Day, commemorating the birth of Israel. The two days occur back-to-back here.

By Jewish tradition, all holidays begin and end at sundown. Thus, the end of Israel’s day of remembrance for its fallen soldiers literally merges with the beginning of its Independence Day celebrations.

The unusual pairing of the two holidays is meant to remind Israelis of the unbreakable link between their political freedom and the sacrifice of those who have been killed during 37 years of almost continual warfare.

‘Sacrifice Not in Vain’

“It tells you to whom you are indebted,” said Yitzhak Navon, minister of education and former Israeli president. “It shows their sacrifice was not in vain.”

“The jump is a difficult one, particularly for people in my position,” the father of a young man killed in Lebanon said. But polls show that an overwhelming majority of Israeli citizens prefer to leave things as they are.

In another sense, the sudden switch from an occasion of mourning to one of gaiety seems consistent with the emotional nature of a society bred in a political pressure cooker.

The exact moment of the change in national mood Wednesday was marked at 7:58 p.m. in an official ceremony at Jerusalem’s Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery. That’s when an honor guard played taps one last time, and the blue-and-white Israeli banner was raised to the top of its flagpole from the half-mast position it occupied during the previous 24 hours.

‘A Cup of Sorrow’

“This is an hour of dusk between the feeling of bereavement and the joy of our independence,” said Shlomo Hillel, Speaker of the Knesset (Parliament) who presided over the unusual dual holiday ceremony. It is, he said, “symbolic of our national situation since the creation of the state--the same feeling of joy mixed with a cup of sorrow.”

A few minutes later, fireworks and powerful beacons lit up the night sky over the cemetery as Independence Day festivities began.

A few miles away in downtown Jerusalem, police closed off central streets, which were taken over by thousands of jubilant pedestrians. Almost all carried soft plastic hammers that sidewalk vendors sold for the equivalent of $1. The devices emitted loud chirping noises when celebrants used them to strike each other, preferably on the head.

If the hammer ever had a symbolic significance, it has apparently been long-since lost. What’s the hammer for? “Self-defense!” said a laughing American tourist.

Israelis will continue their Independence Day celebrations today with family picnics, tours of army bases and special events such as the finals of a national Bible quiz.

President Chaim Herzog opened Israel’s official Memorial Day commemoration with a ceremony Tuesday night at the Western Wall in the Old City. The wall, Judaism’s most sacred site, is all that is left of Herod’s Temple, destroyed 2,000 years ago by the Romans.

Everything Stops at Siren

Wednesday morning, sirens wailed for two minutes throughout the nation to remind Israelis of the fallen. At Zion Square in central Jerusalem, pedestrians froze in the middle of a crosswalk and drivers got out of their cars to stand at attention. Few among this country’s 3.5 million Jewish citizens do not have a friend or relative among Israel’s fallen soldiers.

By 10 a.m., there was a two-mile-long traffic jam headed toward Mt. Herzl, where 1,800 Israeli war dead are buried, even though it was ostensibly a normal work day.

Among the visitors at Mt. Herzl was Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who said that the dead “served as a bridge upon whom the Jewish people crossed over from exile to independence. Our mourning for them is greater than anything that divides the Israeli nation.”

Inside the cemetery, relatives of the dead sat on the small stone walls marking the perimeter of each of the almost identical plots, weeping, praying or meditating.

‘All of a Sudden, Unity’

A bookseller who lost her brother in the 1948 War of Independence said that Israel is at its best in its cemeteries on Memorial Day. “All of a sudden there is unity,” she explained. “People don’t argue, they don’t quarrel.”

But if unity was true in the past, it was less so this year because of the war in Lebanon.

A group of parents who lost sons in Lebanon delivered a letter Tuesday to members of the Knesset arguing that any politician who won’t support a commission of inquiry into the conflict should not participate in memorial services.

“It’s always been hard to comfort the mourners, but the knowledge that the sacrifice was not in vain eased the pain,” the independent newspaper Haaretz said in an editorial. However, it added, “this time many hearts are gnawed by the feeling that the war in which they sacrificed their sons might and should have been avoided.”