Shimon Peres on Mt. Herzl, then and now

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City Daily Photo bloggers group is posting today on the theme ABANDONED.

Today on Mount Herzl we buried Shimon Peres and I, and I daresay most of the people of Israel are feeling sad, almost abandoned.
The former President was 93 and, well, he was always here, here with us and for us.
As Prime Minister Netanyahu said on Wednesday morning, when Peres died, "This is the country's first day ever without Shimon Peres."
It feels like our father has died.
He is, indeed, the last of our State's founding fathers, the larger-than-life "giants" who brought our State into being in 1948.

Above is a photo I took of  President Peres in 2009 at Mt. Herzl.
(Please enlarge it and enjoy the wonderful faces.)
He spoke moving words at a new annual ceremony called The National Ceremony for Ethiopian Jews who perished on their way to Israel.
To read about the kesim (Ethiopian religious leaders) in the picture and their liturgical or ceremonial umbrellas, please see my posts here and here.

Shalom dear Shimon Peres.  Thank you for your example and inspiration.
We here below will carry on and try to make you proud of us.
Rest in peace.
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Making a square from a triangle

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You see this little traffic island in between the trees?

According to the sign (click to read it), this little triangle will become Yad Vashem Square.
The red Calder sculpture to the left is across the street  in Holland Square. 
Interesting, the sign says "Remembering the past -- Shaping the future."
But the Hebrew means more like "Enabling the future," i.e. making sure we will have a future. 

Yad Vashem, our Holocaust memorial, is way back on the edge of Mount Herzl.
(Those white buildings on the left of the photo.)
It is a bit of a hike from the main road, Herzl Street.

Foreign tourists often get off the tram at the last stop which is called Mt. Herzl and look around and wonder where Yad Vashem is.
The signs are not well-placed, so they have to ask directions.
I hope the new square being built  will make it clear that yes, this is the right way toward Yad Vashem.
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(A post for ABC Wednesday  Y day, and also for Signs, signs.)
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Marking 17 years since Rabin's murder

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Yesterday the nation remembered Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the 17th anniversary of his assassination.
Youth movements organized the evening gathering in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, national leaders gave speeches at the grave site on Mount Herzl, the Knesset had a session to talk about Rabin, and Galei Zahal, the army radio, brought Rabin's family together with musically talented soldiers for a night of reminiscing and of singing the moving and appropriate songs. 

This picture of the grave was taken early one January morning when no one was there.
Someone had brought a painting and left it.
Others had put stones or memorial candles.

It was mentioned yesterday on the radio that Rabin's grave is under constant surveillance, lest vandals get any ideas.
Just two weeks ago someone defaced Moshe Dayan's tombstone in Nahalal.
The red paint said "Sar hamechdal, beshem hanoflim," meaning the minister of the failure, in the name of the fallen.

Both Yitzhak Rabin and his wife are buried here, in the cemetery of  Israel's leaders on Mt. Herzl, the Mount of Remembrance. 
Their  grave is covered by the unusual tombstones which Rabin's widow commissioned from architect Moshe Safdie.
Yitzhak Rabin is written in Hebrew on the black marble, Leah Rabin on the white.
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 A touching story was revealed by Prof. Leonard Fein of Boston and was picked up by Israel's Haaretz when Ted Kennedy died in 2009:

After Prime Minister Yitshak Rabin was assassinated (in 1995), Senator Edward Kennedy dug up some earth from the Arlington graves of his brothers John and Robert, who had also been gunned down. 

He carried the dirt onto the plane to Israel. 

After Rabin was buried on Mount Herzl, Ted waited for the crowd and the photographers to disperse. 

Then, on his hands and knees, he gently placed the American earth onto the freshly-dug Israel earth.

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May they all now rest in peace.

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A previous year's story about the Rabin remembrance day:

 http://jerusalemhillsdailyphoto.blogspot.co.il/2010/10/for-tree-of-field-is-mans-life.html

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(A post for Taphophile Tragics and Our World Tuesday.)

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Lurking like a lion

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For Daily Athens' Psalm Challenge, Psalm 10.
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1 Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
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2 In arrogance the wicked persecute the poor— let them be caught in the schemes they have devised.
3 For the wicked boast of the desires of their heart, those greedy for gain curse and renounce the Lord.
4 In the pride of their countenance the wicked say, "God will not seek it out"; all their thoughts are, "There is no God."
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5 Their ways prosper at all times; your judgments are on high, out of their sight; as for their foes, they scoff at them.
6 They think in their heart, "We shall not be moved; throughout all generations we shall not meet adversity."
7 Their mouths are filled with cursing and deceit and oppression; under their tongues are mischief and iniquity.
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8 They sit in ambush in the villages; in hiding places they murder the innocent. Their eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;

9 they lurk in secret like a lion in its covert; they lurk that they may seize the poor; they seize the poor and drag them off in their net.

10 They stoop, they crouch, and the helpless fall by their might.
11 They think in their heart, "God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it."
12 Rise up, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand; do not forget the oppressed.
13 Why do the wicked renounce God, and say in their hearts, "You will not call us to account"?
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14 But you do see! Indeed you note trouble and grief, that you may take it into your hands; the helpless commit themselves to you; you have been the helper of the orphan.
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15 Break the arm of the wicked and evildoers; seek out their wickedness until you find none.
16 The Lord is king forever and ever; the nations shall perish from his land.
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17 O Lord, you will hear the desire of the meek; you will strengthen their heart, you will incline your ear

18 to do justice for the orphan and the oppressed,

so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.

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Photos:
1. Lion at Beit HaChayal (the Soldier's House), Jerusalem.

2. Memorial naming victims of terrorism in Israel, grouped by years, from 1860 to present. On Mt. Herzl, the mount of remembrance.

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"For the tree of the field is a man's life"

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Mamilla Avenue (the mall) is currently showing an exhibition of sculptures based on fairy tales or legends.
There is also one artwork inspired by a biblical verse.
The artist is Osher Sutil.
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Today the radio is playing sad nostalgic songs in honor of the 15th anniversary of the death of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Appropriate and often heard is "For is the tree of the field a man whom comes in siege before you?"
It is a song by Israeli singer Yehudit Ravitz, based on Nathan Zach's poem and on the verse in Deuteronomy 20:19 [a very good link].
Here are the words, translated by Ariel Brosh:

Because the man is the tree of the field;
Like the tree the man grows up.
Like the man, the tree also gets uprooted,
And I surely do not know
where I have been and where I will be,
like the tree of the field.

Because the man is the tree of the field;
Like the tree he aspires upwards.
Like the man, he gets burnt in fire,
And I surely do not know
where I have been and where will I be,
like the tree of the field.

Because the man is the tree of the field;
Like the tree he is thirsty to water.
Like the man, thirsty he remains,
And I surely do not know
where I have been and where will I be,
like the tree of the field.

I've loved, and I've hated;
I've tasted both this and that;
I was buried in a plot of land;
And it's bitter, it's bitter in my mouth,

Like the tree of the field;
Like the tree of the field.*
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Yitzhak Rabin, z"l, was cut down by an assassin's bullet on this night in 1995 at a peace rally in Tel Aviv.
Our nation was shocked that such a thing could happen here--a political assassination by a Jewish Israeli.
Today there is a new generation, kids ready to start their army service, who are too young to remember Rabin or his murder.
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We try to teach them and to remind ourselves today with memorial services across the country and a special session of the Knesset and programs on the media.

The main gathering will be at the unique grave of Yitzhak and Leah Rabin on Mt. Herzl.
Please see my post about how Senator Ed Kennedy brought earth from Arlington to add to this grave and a post about a statue dedicated to Rabin.
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Shalom chaver.

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*From Israeli Poetry: A Contemporary Anthology selected and translated by Warren Bargad and Stanley F. Cheyt, copyright 1986 by Indiana University Press.

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Flowers above, flowers below

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This unusual "flowerpot" and its shadow greet you just outside the entrance to Jerusalem's military cemetery on Mount Herzl.

(More about this beautiful and moving place under my label "Mt. Herzl.")

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For Hey Harriet's Shadow Shot Sunday.

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More on Mount Herzl

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Come in.
Let's walk around and sit and absorb the peace and silence and sense of reverence that enfold the cemetery on a normal day.

(A strange choice for That's My World, you think?)
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The metal gates of Mt. Herzl military cemetery are like the gates at the Knesset and Yad Vashem.
The stones of the entrance were brought from all parts of Israel to express the idea that all remember and appreciate the soldiers buried here in Jerusalem.
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These are just some of the moving places on Mt. Herzl.
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Let's sit low on the stone bench and unite with those whose memory lives on here.

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The soldiers' graves are in small groupings to express the idea that in one way their sacrifice was individual.

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The cemetery has an east-west orientation to follow the practice of burying Jewish dead with their feet pointing in the direction of Jerusalem's ancient Temple.

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Jerusalem's military cemetery together with Yad Vashem and Mt. Herzl the national burial place for Israel's leaders make up Har HaZikaron, the Mount of Remembrance.

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The site encapsulates the last century of Jewish national history.
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The large number of casualties in the War of Independence, 6,000 (1% of the Jewish population at the time), made the need for a new cemetery obvious.

The first remains were transferred here in 1949 from temporary burial grounds.

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Just beyond, you can see the hills where battles were fought in the various wars.

So close . . .
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These clusters of shaded benches are near the exit.

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I imagine people who have just attended a funeral or a memorial service might like to linger and talk together before going out to the bustling world.

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Right next to the exit gate is this corner for the seudat avelim, the meal for the bereaved, that follows a funeral.

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If you'd like to see more, please click on the label "Mt. Herzl."

Bridging the Suez Canal

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The annual memorial ceremony for the soldiers we lost during the Yom Kippur War was held at Mt. Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem one week ago, the day after Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).

I did not have the heart to come and sit among the families of the fallen.

I came after they had gone home, as the flags, the podium, and the posters of old war photographs were being taken down.

Egypt attacked Israeli positions in the Sinai in full force on October 6, 1973 and took us by surprise.

The Egyptian Army put down several Soviet-made floating bridges and crossed the Suez Canal.

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It took several days for Israel to call up the reserves and get organized and to bring up material to enable a crossing.

Many army engineers were killed by enemy fire while constructing the pontoon bridges and roller bridges that would span the canal.

After more than 140 of our tanks had driven across into Egypt, Egyptian shells hit one of the floating bridges as more tanks were crossing on it, and dozens of our tanks and their crews fell into the water of the Suez.

It was a horrible war with too many mistakes and way too many casualties.

In the 19 days before the ceasefire, 2,521 Israeli soldiers were killed, 293 were captured, and over 7,000 were wounded.

The losses among Egyptian and Syrian troops were several times these numbers.

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The photo above shows not only the seats where the bereaved families had sat for the memorial service but also a group of IDF recruits who were not even born yet during the Yom Kippur War.

The 18-year-olds were being taken on a guided tour of the national military cemetery, being taught the history by their commander.

I always wonder how it makes them feel to see the still empty spaces.

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Mt. Herzl, the cemetery, is like an open book of Israel's history, very moving.

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The photo of a photo of the bridge is for Sunday Bridges over in peaceful San Francisco.

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Trouble at sea

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For James' Weekend Reflections -- a quiet corner of Israel's national military cemetery on Mount Herzl reflected in the water.

On May 1, 1943 the British troopship Erinpura, en route from Egypt to Malta, was sunk by a German air attack with the loss of 943 lives.

Aboard were 334 Palestinian Jewish soldiers who had volunteered and were serving in the 462nd transport company of the British army.

This memorial is for the 140 Jewish young men who went down with the ship to their death.

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Photo from http://www.merchantnavyofficers.com/Troopships.html

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Most of the men were below decks when the Erinpura was hit.

She sank in just four minutes.

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Up until the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 and the accompanying birth of Israel's own navy, Jews knew nothing about sailing or fighting at sea. The prophet Jonah was the only famous sea-faring man in our history.

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As I write, a new confrontation at sea is brewing. A so-called Freedom Flotilla of 8 or 9 ships from Europe is approaching Gaza and will try to land and unload 10,000 tons of supplies and thus break the Israeli closure which began when Hamas took over in the Gaza Strip several years ago.

Israel's navy will intercept them and "invite" them to dock in our port of Ashdod instead.

Let us hope and pray that no one is hurt.

It will be a big "media event" for the pro-Palestinian activists on the boats for sure.

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Please remember that tons of food and fuel and supplies cross from Israel overland through the checkpoints into Gaza every day, but not by sea.
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If you need more background, try http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-gaza-aid-convoy-can-unload-cargo-in-ashdod-for-inspection-1.292560.

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For Poland

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The White Eagle, the symbol of Poland, wears black today.
There will be seven days of mourning.
What a terrible tragedy. How can a country, in the brief seconds of a plane crash, lose its president and his wife and so many of its top leaders??
I can't even imagine such a disaster.

President Lech Kaczynski was a firm friend of Poland's Jewish community, which has enjoyed a revival in recent years after it was nearly wiped out in the Holocaust and later suffered from communist-era repression.
In 2008 he became the first head of state to attend a religious service at a synagogue in Poland. As mayor of Warsaw, he promoted a planned museum on Jewish history by donating city land to the project.

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May President Kaczynski and all the victims of this crash now rest in peace. God help the Poles as they try to come to terms with this and rebuild the government.

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(The monument pictured is on Jerusalem's Mount Herzl. It remembers the Jews who fought and died serving in the Polish army during World War II.)

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Bird of the soul, thoughts on Sept. 11

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A glass bird on a headstone in Mt. Herzl military cemetery

The idea of a soul bird comes from the Talmud. In Hebrew it is tsippor hanefesh, an idiom representing that thing residing deep within you.

The Soul Bird is a best-selling children's book (which even our President Peres keeps on his night table) written by Israeli author Michal Snunit in 1985.
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Here are words explaining the soul bird, from a book review in Hadassah Magazine:

"It is, says Snunit, that part of us that trembles with joy when we are treated lovingly and reels in shock and pain when we suffer cruelty or hurt. It has two legs, but it stands only on one, not because it is a flamingo but because it needs the other foot to do its work. That work is to open and shut a series of drawers embedded within its own body. These drawers contain our deepest and truest feelings, and it is the soul bird's job to decide which of these should be opened in response to various stimuli. In an ideal world, of course, the soul bird would perform its task infallibly, calling upon us, for instance, to feel empathy when that emotion is called for or happiness when that is most appropriate.

This being an imperfect world, however, the bird often opens the wrong drawer. Or, alternately, it may open the right drawer, but we may respond inappropriately. The trick to leading a successful life rests in developing an ability to recognize, listen to and engage our inner soul bird."
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As we remember the victims of the terror of September 11, let us try to keep our soul bird strong enough that it will never be crushed by such dastardly acts. A permanently-handicapped tsippor hanefesh would be a posthumous victory to those terrorists.
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Arlington meets Mount Herzl

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America buries another Kennedy today.
Our leaders say farewell to a faithful friend of Israel.

A touching story was revealed by Prof. Leonard Fein of Boston and was picked up by Israel's Haaretz.

After Prime Minister Yitshak Rabin was assassinated (in 1995), Senator Edward Kennedy dug up some earth from the Arlington graves of his brothers John and Robert, who had also been gunned down. He carried the dirt onto the plane to Israel. After Rabin was buried on Mount Herzl, Ted waited for the crowd and the photographers to disperse. Then, on his hands and knees, he gently placed the American earth onto the freshly-dug Israel earth.

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Now the grave is covered by the unusual tombstones which Rabin's widow commissioned from architect Moshe Safdie. Yitzhak Rabin is written in Hebrew on the black marble, Leah Rabin on the white.

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May the leaders rest in peace.

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Mt. Herzl as a jumping-off place

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This lookout on Mount Herzl has to be the most scenic bus stop in Israel!
You see Yad Vashem on the right, Hadassah on top left, and the village of Ein Kerem in the valley.

Two birds were sitting on what will become the terminus of the new light rail (IF the tram's tracks are ever completed, some year). The train station will be over underground parking, in hopes that Jerusalemites will learn to park and ride.

The bird flew up to sit on the rail. Only in the viewfinder did I realize he had just taken off!

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Shabbat shalom to all. And happy Camera-Critters Sunday, already underway, to all who participate or visit our animal meme.

With Ethiopian-Israelis on Jerusalem Day

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Jerusalem Day today, a national holiday, marking what is called the liberation and reunification of Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War.
There were many events in town, many different ways to celebrate and to remember.


My choice was to be at a moving ceremony with these kesim.
A kes is a religious leader of Ethiopian Jewry. Here they are singing the prayers in their holy language, Gez.

I sat among these Ethiopian-Israelis.

Their story is written on the wall of a new monument at Mount Herzl.

Please click to enlarge and read.
Part One is above,

and Part Two is here.

So many memorial candles were lit.

Today's relatively new yearly ceremony is called "The National Ceremony for Ethiopian Jews who perished on their way to Israel."

President Peres had praise for an isolated community that managed to survive 3,000 years of The Exile in the mountains of Ethiopia, unlike the Jews of Nineveh, China, and some parts of India who disappeared.
He lauded their unending dream to return to Israel, which they called "Eretz Jerusalem," the Land of Jerusalem.

There were several big operations to bring masses of Ethiopian Jews home.
One place you can learn about it, as told by the immigrants themselves, is here.

And if you have four minutes please watch a video about the 1991 Operation Solomon in which 14,000 were rescued in 36 hours of continuous airlifts. If your eyes stay dry, let me know.

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Peres talked mostly about Operation Moses, 1984-5.
One out of every three Ethiopian Jews who started the trek, on foot, over the mountains and then through the desert of Sudan to the temporary refugee camps, in other words 4,000 of those people, died before they could be air-lifted to Israel.

This kes came to the podium, opened his ceremonial umbrella, and spoke from the heart, without a written speech, in the spoken language Amharic. His whole family died on the long way to Israel.
The new Minister of Immigrant Absorption also spoke (Hebrew with a Russian accent).
 

I learned that Israel now has 120,000 Ethiopians and a third of them are Sabras (native-born).

These Scouts sang a happy song.

But earlier a man had sung a song in Amharic.
I could only understand the muffled sobs of the women next to me and a groan and a sigh from the men sitting behind me.

There was the religious part--a reading of Psalms, the recital of Kaddish, the cantor singing El Maleh Rachamim.

Then came the laying of wreaths by the VIPs, including the Ambassador of Ethiopia.
I wonder how he felt about all this.

At the end, we all stood to sing our national anthem, Hatikva, The Hope.

Israel has always been built on hope.

As we filed out through a narrow passage, I with the Ethiopian women, my imagination had a few seconds to pretend we were trudging through Sudan together.
Would I have been strong and brave and determined enough to do what they did?
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Herzl and Hebrew

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Today Israel marked the 105th anniversary of the death of Benjamin Ze'ev Herzl (1860-1904).
This menorah greets visitors to the highest spot in Jerusalem, Mount Herzl, where Herzl's body was reburied after being brought to Israel in 1949.
Following the Dreyfus Affair young Herzl concluded that the Jewish people required an independent state of our own. His book The Jewish State detailed the Zionist vision and he founded the Zionist Movement.
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But two things he got wrong.
 First, he believed that once Jews had a homeland, anti-Semitism would end.
Second, he thought that Hebrew could never be revived as a modern language for the new country.

This building proves that Hebrew is now alive and well. It is the Academy of the Hebrew Language on the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

To quote the [previous] website of the Academia:

    "Brought into being by legislation in 1953 as the supreme institute for the Hebrew Language, the Academy of the Hebrew Language prescribes standards for modern Hebrew grammar, orthography, transliteration, and punctuation based upon the study of Hebrew’s historical development.
The Academy’s plenum consists of 23 members and an additional 15 academic advisors, all outstanding scholars from the disciplines of languages, linguistics, Judaic studies, and Bible.
Its members also include poets, writers, and translators.
The Academy’s decisions are binding upon all governmental agencies, including the Israel Broadcasting Authority."

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"The scientific secretariat answers queries from the public on a broad variety of Hebrew linguistic matters ranging from pronunciation and spelling to suggestions for Hebrew children names.
It also oversees the work of specialized committees that develop technical terminology for a wide spectrum of professional spheres.
Over 100,000 terms have been coined by the committees on terminology established by the Academy and its predecessor, the Language Committee.
These terms are available to the public in dozens of published dictionaries and lists.

. . . The Academy invites you to participate in the realization of the dream of renewing the Hebrew language."

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The Day of Remembrance

The siren sounded at 8:00 p.m. In the moment of heavy silence we began another Yom Hazikaron, Remembrance Day for Israel's Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Enemy Actions.
Since 1860, when the first Jews began establishing neighborhoods outside the Jerusalem city walls, 22,570 men and women have been killed in defense of the Land of Israel.
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Death, loss, bereavement--this all too often is our world.
Today and every day we thank and remember those who died that our country may live.
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That's My World Tuesday bloggers can be visited here.

Knee-deep in . . .

Knee-deep . . . in wet concrete.

The never-ending saga of building rails for the tram (light rail) which with any luck will someday start running in Jerusalem.
This section is on Mount Herzl, along the busy and congested Herzl Boulevard.
Hat-tip to the men who do this hard work, sloshing through wet concrete.
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Calder red

Yay! The Calder stabile has been painted in Calder red! I saw the two guys up there painting and grabbed this shot from a moving bus.
(Provided I have a seat on the bus, I always have the little camera in my hand at the ready. )
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To learn more about the sculpture and to see how it looked as a red and white patchwork, please see the post of Oct. 12.
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A coat of many colors

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Huh? What's going on here?
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"Homage to Jerusalem - Stabile" was the last statue planned by the famous American artist Alexander Calder (1898-1976) and was installed in Jerusalem, on Mt. Herzl, in 1977.

Three years ago it had to be moved because an underground parking lot for Jerusalem's still under-construction tram line had to be built just there. Now it has been returned. To see slides on how the 65-ton metal statue was transported click here.

The by-now rusty looking metal was supposed to be restored to its original bright color with "Calder Red" paint, especially ordered from abroad. So what's with this white paint?? Is it some kind of Grundfarbe (base coat?)?
It looks funny. You can even see it from my house, across the valley, sticking out like a sore thumb on Mt. Herzl.

Calder was a mechanical engineer [as is my dear daughter, who also carries the artistic gene].
He pioneered the stabile, an abstract construction that is completely stationary. His examples were termed stabiles to distinguish them from mobiles, their moving counterparts, also invented by Calder.

In a catalogue essay Marc Glimcher writes that “Calder's invention of the stabile set the stage for a major revolution. The nature of his compositions along with the materials and construction allowed the idea of abstraction to expand beyond the gallery, the studio or the museum and spill out onto city streets… This unprecedented accomplishment simultaneously restored the place of monumental, public art and claimed it for abstraction. Scores of artists in the following generations have taken up the challenge of monumental abstraction, and in doing so have generated many of the ground-breaking developments seen in the last forty years of contemporary sculpture.”

Israel remembers

Today was Remembrance Day. Israelis come together in a collective remembering of all our "one big family" members whose lives were lost in terrorist actions and in Israel's wars. Not only Jews; also Bedouin, Druze, Circassian, Muslim, and Christian citizens and soldiers who were killed.

The newspaper says "22,437 soldiers have been killed since 1860, when the first settlers moved outside Jerusalem's walls. Of these, 65 were killed since last Memorial Day. Since the state's establishment, 1,634 civilians have been killed in terror attacks. Of these, 24 people were killed since last Memorial Day. " This monument is on Har HaZikaron, the Mount of Remembrance, which includes the military cemetery, Mt. Herzl, and Yad Vashem. Each plaque shows names of terror victims. And there are THIS many:
Today we pay tribute to those who sacrificed their life for our country. We hug the bereaved families in our heart. We hope for a time without such mourning.
As the Psalmist says, Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.