The Jerusalem Municipality, the Ministry of Defense and the organization "Yad LeBanim" held this afternoon (Monday) the central ceremony opening the Yom Hazikoaron (Memorial) Day events for the fallen of Israel's wars and victims of hostile actions in the capital.
The mayor, Moshe Lion, said at the ceremony: "Mount Herzl is not only a national cemetery. This mountain, as Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, of blessed memory, said, is a resting place of righteous graves. Mount Herzl is a house of study. The stones speak there. Every row teaches us a lesson deeper than any other. For in these plots are buried religious and secular, yeshiva and university graduates, sabras and new immigrants. All were called, all answered, and all knew, each in his own way, that we have no other country."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared his personal feelings as a member of a bereaved family: "The wound is deeper than time itself. Time passes, but it does not dull the memory of that moment of tidings, the most bitter of all, the news that our beloved souls are no longer among the living. That is how you felt, in every home and family. That is how we felt, my parents, myself, and my younger brother Iddo, when my brother Yoni, of blessed memory, fell 50 years ago during the mission to liberate our hostages in Entebbe. The longing is present every single day; the arms ache to embrace again. The eyes long to see the smile. The ears long to hear the voice, the voice of our loved one."
"Remebrance Day is soaked in heavy sorrow, yet at the same time, it is an anchor of unifying togetherness. The nation remembers, the nation salutes, and the nation expresses deep gratitude to the sons and daughters thanks to whom our existence is secured, as the prophet Isaiah said: 'For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem; you shall weep no more,'" he said.
The Prime Minister told the story of Cheli Wolfstal, who lost her son Ariel. "A bereaved mother, Cheli Wolfstal, joined a 'Witnesses in Uniform' mission to Poland earlier this year with IDF company commanders. Before the journey began, Cheli visited the grave of her son, Armored Corps Reserve officer Ariel Wolfstal, of blessed memory, who fell in the War of Redemption. She gathered a handful of stones from the cemetery in Kfar Etzion, placed them in a bag, and carried that bag full of stones from Gush Etzion, from her son's grave, to Treblinka, to Birkenau, and also to the cemetery in Krakow where soldiers of the Jewish Brigade, who fought the Nazis on European soil, are buried. There, in Krakow, Cheli and the IDF officers placed the stones of the Land of Israel on the graves of those who fought during the Holocaust. By doing so, the officers sought to express their deep sense that they are the successors of their predecessors: Bound by the same mission, the same task, to ensure the eternity of Israel."
He continued: "Cheli Wolfstal sharpened the message. She said: 'I and my family paid the price of redemption, and our hearts are torn.' But she added: 'This journey illustrated to me what would have happened had we not had the Israel Defense Forces. Instead of total helplessness, today we have the strength and the spirit to strike back at our enemies.' She says this, and I say this: Iran, as in every generation, rose against us to destroy us. It planned to destroy us with atomic bombs. Had we not acted, the names Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan-those sites of death-would have joined the names of the death camps: Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Treblinka. But we acted, and we crushed the murderous plot."
Netanyahu stated that "this is exactly the difference between the reality of our lives in the terrible exile and a life of redemption on the soil of Israel. Contrary to the recent past, today we have a home, and we must guard it with all our might. The 25,648 fallen of Israel's wars, who are joined by those who fell in recent days on the Lebanese front, Barak Kalfon and Lidor Porat, are the foundation of our independence: Jews, Druze, Christians, Muslims, Bedouins, Circassians, and members of other groups. Alongside them, we remember the thousands of victims of terrorism, the fallen of the civilian home front."
"In the last two and a half years, we have been engaged in a multi-front war unlike any since the War of Independence. The 'Generation of the War of Redemption', this current generation of victory, inspires immense awe in its commitment, its devotion, and its monumental achievements. Since the October 7th attack, since the terrible massacre on Simchat Torah, the IDF and security forces have been dealing blow after blow to those who seek our lives. 'Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift himself up as a young lion.' Our flag is planted from the depths of the Gaza Strip to the crown of Mount Hermon, and our pilots control the skies of the region as definitive proof of our superiority over the Iranian axis. We have not yet finished the work, but the world already recognizes our determination to defend ourselves, and not only ourselves, but to defend humanity from barbaric fanaticism," he said.
He declared that "small Israel and our great friend, the United States, carry the weight of the entire Western civilization on their backs. We memorialize the names of Israel's heroes, our fallen loved ones, in every corner of the land and abroad. Just as in Cheli Wolfstal’s journey to Poland, so it was in the journey of Oren Smadja, father of Omer, of blessed memory, and his fellow bereaved fathers to frozen Lapland. The cold outside and the terrible pain in the heart cast a heavy weight on their shoulders, but then came a moment of stature, of standing shoulder to shoulder, of raising the flags with pride; then came that moment that says it all."
"My brothers and sisters, dear families, we are one large family. The partnership of fate between us crosses camps and sectors. We have been privileged to return home all of our hostages, the living and the fallen, all of them from the Gaza Strip. There is no greater mutual responsibility than this. On the day the last fallen soldier was brought to rest-the Israel Police Anti-Terrorism Unit fighter, Israel’s hero Ran Gvili, of blessed memory. On the day we brought him to eternal rest, on that day, Rabbi Doron Perez spoke, the father of another hero, Armored Corps officer Daniel Perez, of blessed memory, who fell in the Nahal Oz sector. This is what he said: 'Like a parent who enters stormy waters to save their drowning child, and like a brother who enters fire for his sister, exactly so did my beloved son, Daniel, and the last fallen hostage, Ran Gvili, act during the October 7th attack. They entered the fire without thinking, without questioning, only to save lives, because family is family.'
"There are also the wounded in the family. We embrace them too today in our hearts; we embrace them today and every other day. I wish a full recovery to all those wounded in body and spirit. I have visited them, I was moved to the depths of my soul, and you have seen the pictures, the images coming from their rehabilitation process teach us about immense strength of spirit. We are providing, and will continue to provide, all the necessary state resources for their recovery. Major Rabbi Liraz Zeira, a reservist and military rabbi, lost both his legs from a grenade explosion in the buffer zone with Syria. But Liraz refuses to surrender to physical limitations. He insists on returning to life. He is driven by a sense of mission for the sake of the nation. He says: 'They took my legs, and gave me wings instead.' These are wings of heroism, wings of spirit, wings of victory!
"My distinguished dear ones, my brothers and sisters, we bow our heads in memory of all the fallen of Israel's wars and the victims of terrorism. May their memory be blessed for generations to come," Netanyahu concluded.