Yom haZikaron - Israel's Remembrance Day

Israel Remembrance Day, called Yom Hazikaron in Hebrew, is Israel’s official day of remembrance for fallen soldiers of Israel and victims of terrorism. It falls exactly one week after Holocaust Remembrance Day and considering the fact that casualties are very close to home in this small and young country, this day is extremely solemn. You will find places of entertainment closed, flags at half-mast and there are many ceremonies that take place in community centers and by memorials around Jerusalem and Israel.

In a way very unique to Israel, Remembrance Day flows straight into Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day. As is often customary in Judaism, we remember the heartbreak with the joy. We acknowledge the direct connection between our loss and the independence and sovereignty that we appreciate so much today.

This year it is commemorated from the evening of Wednesday, May 8, 2019 until the evening of Thursday, May 9 (when Independence Day begins).

Some 1.5 million people are expected to visit the 52 military cemeteries, hundreds of military plots and thousands of graves across the country on Memorial Day.

The Defense Ministry has organized hundreds of buses and shuttles to transport bereaved families to the military cemeteries, while its commemoration wing personnel will lay 135,000 wreaths on graves.  Hundreds of thousands of water bottles will be handed out to families and members of the general public visiting the cemeteries. Magen David Adom will deploy 132 mobile units to cemeteries.

There are two sirens on Yom Hazikaron. A one minute siren sounds at 8:00 pm on Wednesday evening and a two minute siren sounds at 11:00 am on Thursday.

Similar to the siren on Holocaust Memorial Day, people generally stop whatever they are doing – even those driving on the highway – and stand at attention throughout the duration of the siren. It is highly recommended to stand outside for the sirens in order to experience the impact of almost an entire nation coming to a standstill in honor of those who died in order to gain and preserve our freedom.

https://www.itraveljerusalem.com/article/day-of-remembrance-in-jerusalem/

The first thing you will notice about Yom Haatzmaut is the emotional transition from the sadness of Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Day of Remembrance, to Israel Independence Day, an official national holiday which has become an important day in the Jewish calendar, being celebrated by Jewish communities around the world. 

Yom Haatzmaut begins at sundown immediately following Yom Hazikaron and ends after sundown the following day. It celebrates the declaration of independence of the State of Israel in 1948, making this the 71st birthday!

This year it falls on the evening of May 8, 2019 and celebrations last until the evening of May 9, 2019.

The state ceremony that brings in Yom Haatzmaut takes place at Mount Herzl, Israel’s military cemetery, by Theodor Herzl’s grave. And from there the city erupts with events, parties, outdoor get togethers, concerts and more!

https://www.itraveljerusalem.com/article/independence-day-in-jerusalem/

Rivka's Leap of Faith

Esther Rivka Wagner (born Esther Willig) was the daughter of Rabbi Shraga Feivel Willig (b. 1870) and Sarah Chaya Blei (b. ca. 1890). 

Esther was born on March 2, 1924 in Buczacz, Poland (now Ukraine) where her father served as the rabbi and mohel of the city. Rabbi Willing died a natural death in 1941 exacerbated by the events of the time. 

Sarah Chaya Blei was the second wife of Shraga who had six children from his first marriage. Esther was their only daughter; she grew up with two much older stepbrothers. They lived in an apartment adjoining the religious court where Rabbi Willig worked. 

The city had 10,000 Jews and 2,000 gentiles most of whom lived on the outskirts of the city. Esther attended a Zionist nursery school and then was privately tutored at home since her father did not want to expose her to the Catholic traditions and symbols in public school. In the afternoons, she first attended the Tarbut School and later Beis Yaakov which her father helped establish. Esther spoke Yiddish with her parents and Polish with her friends.

When Esther turned 14 her father received a letter from Rabbi Shmuel Wagner of Lvov regarding a "sidduch" (match) for his son Yisrael. For several years Esther did not want to hear about this but when she was 17, (in 1941) she agreed after Rabbi Wagner traveled to Buczacz. By this time the Soviets had expelled Esther and her parents from their apartment, and they were living in a carpentry workshop. The Russians wanted to draft Yisrael so he decided to flee to Buczacz and live with the Willigs as well.

In June 1941 Germany occupied Buczacz. Her father was called to City Hall, ordered to form a Judenrat and given a list of other demands. All Jews were required to wear armbands, abide by a curfew and relinquish their fur coats and trimmings in spite of the harsh winters and lack of heat. Esther worked in the local soup kitchen. 

The Germans also began deporting Jews. Esther and her family found a trapdoor leading to a cellar of the carpentry shop where they lived and hid there together with Yosef, neighbors, and cousins. However before long, a neighbor informed the Germans that the family had not reported to the marketplace as ordered. Esther and the others were soon found, marched to the railway station, and separated by age and genders into cattle

cars. 

Esther felt she was suffocating and together with another person managed to pry open two tiny windows which were closed with wooden planks and barbed wire. She stepped on a barrel and jumped out while the train was still moving. Another girl jumped as well, but the Germans began shooting as soon as they noticed what was going on. 

Esther landed in a corn field and overheard two men speaking Yiddish. They were merchants who knew the roads well. Esther accompanied them to Buczacz and returned to the carpentry shop as did her brother Moshe and his family.

Paulina Wilanska, 1943, Warsaw.

Esther learned that most of the people on the train, including Yisrael, were sent to the Janowska labor camp. His brother, who had Aryan papers, helped Yisrael escape. Yisrael then wrote to Esther's brother saying hat he no longer wanted to live since he believed that Esther was no longer alive. Esther wrote back immediately. Chaim purchased false papers for Esther under the name Paulina Wilanska which he paid for with her engagement ring. Yisrael and Chaim, and their sister Luba, joined Esther in the workshop. Luba obtained a job as a maid taking care of children in the family of a Christian woman married to a Jewish convert to Catholicism. The others remained in the workshop until it became too dangerous.

Luba found work for Esther in Warsaw with the sister of the woman she worked for. Esther began her work there in December 1942. This didn't last long as a visitor recognized her. However, the family was compassionate and allowed her to use their summer home in the Praga district until she found another job. She soon found other employment since she had the proper registration papers. It was difficult, but she lived there for another 8 months until she felt she had to move again as there was suspicion that she was Jewish. The next position that she found was with an older couple where the man of the house was a Volkdeutscher and who were fairly kind to her although he had a drinking problem.

In 1944 Esther was sent as a messenger for her boss. At this time, Luba was staying with her since she was suspected of being a Jew in the town where she was living. Both girls therefore were traveling together when the Polish uprising against the Germans broke out. They got off the trolley and walked for several hours until they reached their house. Two days later the Germans came by and began burning the houses of the Poles, including theirs. They were brought to an assembly are in Warsaw. Esther and Luba managed to escape and by luck met a sympathetic German who offered to help and drove them to Blotnica. Since Luba knew German and how to type, she worked in an office while Esther found work in the kitchen. 

However, after a few weeks, the girls became nervous and wanted to leave. The same German who brought them there was kind enough to take them out. He took them to a camp not far from the village with an anti-aircraft unit that was shooting down Russian planes. They were taken into their unit and spent the next eight months going back and forth from the Russian occupied territory to Poland. They reached as far as Danzig when they learned that Hitler was dead.

They were sent up by boat to Schleswig-Holstein and arrived on May 8, 1945. There they remained for another eight months still using their false names. Esther worked as a waitress in the English Officer's mess, and her sister-in-law found another job. Luba also met her future husband Bill who was with the British air force and came from Israel.

DP camp Bergen-Belsen (Celle) 

Esther left the area as soon as she could reestablish her identity with the help of the UNRAA. She took up her old name of Ester Rebecca Willig and moved to Celle, a DP camp near Bergen-Belsen. Esther worked in the camp's Beis Yaakov and also as an interpreter as she knew some English from Schleswig. Her fiancée Yisrael Wagner found her in Celle after searching for her for a year after the war in Warsaw and other displaced persons' camps.

They married in Salzburg, Austria on Lag B'Omer on May 19, 1946.

Rabbi Yisrael Wagner in La Paz

Esther was employed by UNRAA helping survivors fill out questionnaires searching for family members.From there Esther and her husband left on false papers for Belgium where they remained for 6 months and then immigrated to Bolivia where her husband was employed as a Rabbi in La Paz. 

They stayed there for several years, gave birth to their first son, but later moved to the United States. 

The father of President Donald Trump helped them to build a synagogue and became a friend of the family and regular guest at the Jewish Cultural Center.

Years later, after making Aliyah with her whole family, at the age of 80, Rivka began a new career: once a year she traveled to Poland with college aged students to tell her story in the place where most of it happened.

Her youngest daughter Malka accompanied her on seven of these trips. They celebrated Rivka’s 90th birthday in Warsaw. Together with about 200 young women, they went to the train station and she would tell the story of how it felt to get on the train as Rivka Willig and be Paulina Wilanska when she stepped off the train.

At the end of the trip to Poland, there would always be one student who would say, “Rebbezin Wagner, how did you keep your faith? They took everything from you, your home and family and life and your name. How did you keep your faith?”

Each time, Rivka would give the same answer. “My faith was the only thing that the Nazis couldn’t take away from me. My faith is what I had inside of me, instilled by my parents and their parents before them and all the way back. My faith was what helped me get through. Not everyone was like me, but I was free to do what I wanted, only with that.”

“But what about God?” another student dared to ask. “weren’t you angry at God?”

And then Rivka would answer, “God was not my problem. Man was my problem.”

Rivka, of blessed memory, passed away in 2016 at the age of 92.

Malka  talking to John Somerville in Yad Vashem's synagogue where she spoke to the group. 

Each time Malka tells a group visiting Yad Vashem about her mother’s ‘leap of faith’, people have tears in their eyes.

*********
Malka gave a more detailed description of the events, which the USHMM didn't mention. In the near future, I hope to share Malka's version in another blogpost!
The personal pictures of the Wagner family are from the USHMM website. 

Sources:

https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1168163

Malka Weisberg, Yad Vashem

Back in their own land

The ancient site of Ramat Rachel (Rachel’s Heights) is located high on a hilltop above the Rephaim Valley, midway between the Old City of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. 

It is strategically situated, overlooking the roads that in antiquity were the major arteries leading from Jerusalem to the south and the coastal plain in the west.

 

view of the Judean Desert

Overlooking the panorama of modern day Jerusalem’s Old City, the Dead Sea and the Judean Hills, kibbutz RAMAT RACHEL is a place with a rich history. Today, the kibbutz is within Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries. The kibbutz was established in 1926 by 10 pioneers of the Gdud haAvoda* labor brigade.  

The Battalion that built Ramat Rachel 

Joseph Trumpeldor

Gdud haAvoda, a socialist Zionist work group in Mandate Palestine, was founded in 1920 by pioneers from the Third Aliyah.The group had three work focuses: work, settlement and defense. In order to avoid antagonizing the British authorities, the "defense" part was dropped. The Brigade, initially consisting of 80 members, was named after Joseph Trumpeldor, who had been killed at Tel Hai by Arabs. The group drained swamps, paved roads, (like the Tzemach-Tiberias road), worked in agriculture and construction. In Jerusalem, they built the garden suburbs of Rehavia, Beit Hakerem and Talpiot and constructed the YMCA building and the King David Hotel. The Battalion established several kibbutzim, including Ein Harod, Kfar Giladi, Ramat Rachel and Tel Yosef. Later, many former members joined the Solel Boneh construction company after learning their trade in the battalion. Despite an ideological split, in 1925 the group had over 650 members. Gdud haAvodah was dissolved after several kibbutzim (Ramat Rachel amongst them) formed the HaKibbutz HaMeuhad movement. 

The stony plot of land, situated on a 803-meter high hill south of Jerusalem, had been purchased from the Greek Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

During the 1929 Arab Riots, Ramat Rachel was burned to the ground. The settlers returned a year later and rebuild the kibbutz, which began to flourish. They had a chicken coop, a dairy, bakery and laundry and even established a trucking company.

Ramat Rachel, 1944

When the 1948 War of Independence broke out, 200 members and 150 children made Ramat Rachel their home. 

During the heavy fighting, the kibbutz changed hands several times but eventually was conquered by a Palmach unit. 

The Arab Legion, comprising of Egyptian and Jordanian soldiers, had been based at the nearby Mar Elias Monastery.

After the war, only 42 kibbutzniks returned, among them a few war widows, who believed in the kibbutz’s future. The enclave was now located on the new border with Jordan and surrounded by Arab villages. Everything had been destroyed during the war, and the Israeli government offered no help – they were on their own.  

Ramat Rachel was now located directly on the new border with Jordan, surrounded by Arab villages, and completely cut off from any other Jewish settlement. 

Added to that, the dairy, bakery, laundry and chicken coops had all been destroyed by the enemy.

In 1967, during the Six Day War, Ramat Rachel was the target of intensive artillery shelling from Jordanian positions. On one side of the Kibbutz, the well-entrenched Jordanian Bell Outpost was strongly fortified. A small IDF force surprised the Jordanian Legionnaires. Presuming the post had been secured, they were killed by enemy soldiers who had been hiding out in one of the trenches. There is a monument to the fallen soldiers near the trenches of this outpost. 

Memorial to the fallen IDF soldiers at the Bell Outpost

After the Six Day war, the future of the kibbutz began to look brighter because they were now within the boundaries of the Jerusalem municipality. 

When the youth hostel proved successful, a big hotel and sports center was built. 

On the outskirts of the kibbutz, one still can visit the bunkers and trenches and a memorial to those who fell during the heavy fighting between 1948 and 1967.

Most tourists staying at the hotel, or those attending a convention, don’t realize the many other attractions Ramat Rachel has to offer. There are many.

• The Yair Overlook was named after a Yair Engel, who was killed in a military accident in 1966.
• Eyal’s Farm was created in memory of another kibbutznik, Eyal Yoel, who was killed during the 2002 Defensive Shield Operation. 
• Between 1931 and 2004, six archeological digs took place at Ramat Rachel. The archeological garden has finds dating from the Frist Temple period to the Byzantine era, spanning a period of 1,600 years.

And then there is art. Lots of it.

David Polus

David Polus immigrated to Eretz Israel at the end of the third wave of immigration and joined Yitzhak Sadeh's group of quarry workers in Migdal Zedek, near Petah Tikvah. Eventually, he became a sculptor. Each work depicted some heroic event in the history of the Jewish people from biblical times to the birth of Zionism. 

"Eretz Israel is a temple,

 I don't wish to bring just ordinary statues into it." 

David Polus 

The sculpture of mother Rachel was inaugurated in 1954 at Ramat Rachel. The matriarch Rachel holds a torch in one hand while sheltering two children.

“Thus says the Lord: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.” Thus says the Lord: “Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your work, declares the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your future, declares the Lord, and your children shall come back to their own country.” 

Jeremiah 31:115-17 (ESV)

Israeli artist Ran Morin is known for his art involving full-sized living trees and two of his creations can be found at Ramat Rachel.

Oak Tree at the Yair Overlook 

Ran Morin 

At the Yair Overlook, Ran Morin’s oak tree growing out of a large pile of stones is a ‘small’ piece of art compared to the majestic “Olive Columns” in the center of the Olive Park. The original plans were to place the statue in the Ramot neighborhood, but Morin wanted it to be in an open area. 

Ramat Rachel was a fitting place, as Morin’s grandfather, one of the kibbutz founders, is buried in the nearby kibbutz cemetery. 

Seventeen rows of olive trees lead to the central monument – three olive trees planted atop 15 meters high columns. The 80-year old trees are connected to a computerized built-in system that monitors the irrigation. Three paths lead away from the triangular base of the trees. 

This unique piece of art is full of symbolism:

The hidden roots of the olive trees, symbolizing the past, bring forth the tree standing in the present. This tree will continue to grow into the future. The artificial columns raising up the trees represent Nature which is controlled by man, who restricts its growth by the stone base. Three pillars; three olive trees; three steps from three directions; three times past, present and future.

Three, often used in ancient cultures, are the minimal elements needed to build either a physical or spiritual structure. This number is prevalent in the Jewish culture (three Patriarchs and Matriarchs) but also in Christianity: the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

The Olive tree, one of the seven species growing in Eretz Israel, represents beauty, freshness and fertility. This work of art symbolizes the return of the Jewish people to the land, whose roots again will be joined to the earth. 

Exactly like the Lord God promised:

“There is hope for your future, declares the Lord, 

and your children shall come back to their own country.”