Memorial Day

When we first left Israel I had so many moments that felt... Wrong... Moments where I missed living in Israel, that made me feel "not at home". It took me a while for example to get used to the fact that outside of Israel, Friday will never be the same - you will never have the same feeling of sacredness that falls down around you around 2 in the afternoon, you don't have the big family dinner (in fact, most Fridays you have to finish things at work so you get home later than usual), or the morning with no kids and no work, when Hidai & I used to sit around at our regular cafe and have our own couple time, or the extended family time - we used to go to my parents every 2 weeks for Friday. At the beginning I didn't cope well with it, and I spent quite a few of my first Fridays feeling bad, until one day I discovered I no longer feel bad, I have found my own Friday rhythm and we managed to keep the special dinners, the candles, the early(ish) closing of the work day - the essence of Friday. I found that the same process returned again and again with many of those early moments, and over the years we slowly managed to build many traditions that replaced our old ones - Fridays, birthdays, holidays. But there are still some things that you just can't replace, some moments that even when you build a new tradition for them, you can't really truly capture their essence.
Today is one of those days. Today is the Israeli Memorial Day (well, it's the eve, but if you remember I told you that Jewish peoples' day is from sunset to sunset), and though I can, and do, light a memorial candle, listen to Israeli radio, and explain to Ron about all of it, I still can't shake the feeling that it's not right. If we were in Israel we would light our candle and go to watch the opening ceremony and the lowering of the flag, we would stand silently while the sirens are blasting, remembering those who died; in the morning the whole country would stop for a day to commemorate those who lost their lives in wars, the kids would wear white shirts and go to memorial services in school while we would listen to those sad sad songs on the radio, and after the 2 minutes siren we would all go (like we did every year while in Israel) to visit Hidai's friend who lost her brother. We would finish the day with the closing ceremony and Israel Independence Day.
There is so little of that we can do here, so little that would mean something. So little, and yet every year we try to commemorate this day in the best possible way, to remember those who died.
Why? I guess because it is still one of the most important days for us. Because we do remember. Because memorial day, for me, is about remembering that, well, war is bad. In war people die. I know it might sound simplistic, or maybe naive, but maybe if we all remembered it a little bit more, a little less people will have to die fighting in wars that they sometimes believe are right and sometimes believe are wrong.
Memorial day, for me, is just that - a day to remember those who died, a day to remember how it felt when Hidai went off to war, and I was left behind waiting for him to come back, praying that he would. It's a day to think about all those who did lose someone, who has someone that did not come back.
Memorial day, for me, is a day to think about my time in the army, about Hidai's, and about my kids and what I want for them.
Memorial day, for me, is a day to stop. Just stop and think. Stop and remember. Stop and respect those who died. Because it doesn't matter if the wars were wrong or right, those people gave up the most important thing anyone has to give up - their lives. And they are worthy of remembrance.

This weekend, in honor of Memorial day and Independence Day we decided to celebrate Israel and show the kids a little bit more of their heritage and the way these days are done in Israel, so on Friday morning we all went to Golders Green to experience the Friday morning shopping atmosphere while we buy some real Israeli food and incidentally hear some Hebrew spoken by people who are not us. We bought all our regular stuff (well, the things they had in stock anyway. We forgot the rule - after a big holiday it's best to give them a couple of weeks to restock), but unfortunately didn't find any of the Independence Day necessities - flags and plastic hammers. We did buy the traditional Independence Day food though - pittas, humus, fries, pickles, and all the making of a proper salad. We have everything but the meat, because - vegetarian here...
When we got home, we put on the Israeli weekend radio, that is full of songs in Hebrew (and news, but that's a different story) for the first time in a long long while, drank some coffee with rugaelach and kokosh cake, we even had a newspaper (local one but still) and felt... Well, we felt the weekend quiet descending upon us. It's the first "real Friday" we've had since we left Israel.
Then we talked to Ron about the meaning of Memorial day, Independence Day (he did not believe us about the plastic hammers though) and Israeli music, and went on to eat our Friday night dinner because let's face it, Jewish (and Israeli) important dates are all about food.
Just writing all of this makes me want to eat something.
The thing is, the kids are growing up and we have to deal more and more with the need to teach them about our history, about our traditions, about the place we come from. The kids don't look back, they don't see Israel as "home". For them it is the place their parents come from, and they don't feel a connection to it so it's up to us and only us to create this connection, and it raises questions about what we can teach them, what we want to, which part of our history and traditions we want them to be part of, and how can we do that while choosing to live outside of Israel. How do you explain about the people who died in wars so Israel could exist while choosing not to live in Israel? How can you portray the degree of national importance Memorial Day has while dealing with the fact that this year it's on Monday, the same Monday in which the kids go back to school and Hidai goes back to work after 2 weeks vacation?
I have no answers - easy or difficult ones. Every year these questions become more prominent, harder to answer. Each year the understanding that they will not know the things we took for granted when we were in Israel, that they will not have the same traditions or holidays or life experiences as us, that the gap between us is deepening, each year this understanding becomes more real, more final.
This year we commemorated both Memorial Day and Independence Day on the weekend -  Friday to Sunday and added the Israeli-Weekend to the explanations, lighting of the candle and listening to the music so we would feel like we did enough to portray the spirit of the day, but the truth is, you really can't shake the feeling of both not doing enough and not doing it on the right day.