The following words of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks about Yom HaZikaron, Israel's Memorial Day, are reprinted with courtesy of the Rabbi Sacks Legacy Trust. Jewish Federation in the Heart of NJ invites you to join us May 2 or 3, 2022, for a very special Yom HaZikaron commemoration: Taste of Memories. REGISTER

Carrying the Past, Turning Death into Life

At the end of the book of the book of Bereishit, Joseph makes one deeply poignant request: Though I die in exile, God will bring you back to the land, and when He does so, “veha’alitem et atzmotai mizeh”, “Carry my bones” with you.

Moses smashed the first set of tablets given to him by God at Mount Sinai, but the Israelites carried them in the Ark, together with the second set: the new tablets and the fragments of the old.

And so it has been throughout Jewish history; we carry with us all the fragments of our people’s past, the broken lives, the anguished deaths. For we refuse to let their deaths be in vain. Our past lives on in us as we continue the Jewish journey to the future, to hope, and to life.

On Yom HaZikaron we remember the members of the Israel Defence Forces who fell in action, and also all those killed by terrorist attacks in Israel. What our enemies killed, we keep alive in the only way we can: in our minds, our memories and in our land, the State of Israel.

There are cultures that forget the past and there are those that are held captive by the past. We do neither. We carry the past with us for as long as the Jewish people exist, as Moses carried the bones of Joseph, and as the Levites carried the fragments of the shattered tablets of stone.

Those fragments of memory, of those no longer with us, help make us who we are. We live for what they died for, by walking tall as Jews, showing we are not afraid, refusing to be intimidated by the antisemitism that has returned, or the sustained assault on Israel.

On Yom HaZikaron, as we remember those who have fallen or been killed in defence of the State of Israel, we say to the souls of those lost: We will never forget you. We will never cease to mourn you. We will never let you down.

On Yom HaZikaron we remember the members of the Israel Defence Forces who fell in action, and also all those killed by terrorist attacks in Israel. What our enemies killed, we keep alive in the only way we can: in our minds, our memories and in our land, the State of Israel.

Jewish Federation i the Heart of NJ invites you to join us either May 2 or 3, 2022, for Taste of Memories, a program commemorating fallen IDF soldiers and victims of terrorism in Israel. We will hear one fallen soldier’s story and participate in a virtual cooking class featuring the soldier’s favorite dish. REGISTER