Most countries separate mourning from celebration. Israel stacks them back to back and calls it reality.

In Israel, our national calendar holds two secular days of reflection. One reminds us of the cost of having a state. The other ensures we never forget the price of not having one, not even for a moment.

Last week, the country came to a complete standstill for Holocaust Remembrance Day. We gathered in homes and public spaces to listen to survivors, acutely aware that their numbers dwindle with each passing year. Those targeted for the singular “crime” of being Jewish will soon no longer be with us. The living voice of firsthand testimony will fall silent. We remembered the millions murdered simply for existing as Jews. No army, no sovereignty, no refuge. Only vulnerability in a world that turned away.

Now we enter one of the most emotionally complex ritual passages in Israeli life. On Monday evening, the siren will sound for Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terror. The country will pause. Conversations will become silent. Eyes will lower. Every family here carries a name, a face, a story. 

And then, almost impossibly, the nation in mourning pivots. As Tuesday fades into evening, grief gives way to celebration. Independence Day begins. Flags rise. Music returns. Life insists on itself.

This transition is not accidental. It is the story. 

Israel is both ancient and refreshingly new. A people scattered for millennia returned to their homeland, revived their language, and reclaimed agency over their fate. We did not just survive history. We rebuilt our culture, weaving into our ancient traditions the tastes, sounds, and colors of the lands where we lived for centuries, while preserving the same prayers and customs we carried with us through exile. We re-entered history as actors, not victims.

Yet the hatred adapts. It shifts shape, vocabulary, and costume, but its core remains unchanged. More than 920 days after our neighbors demonstrated, again, that their threats are not theoretical, much of the world still looks away.  Or worse. Israel Derangement Syndrome distorts reality in real time. Statements by a legitimate liberal democracy are immediately treated as suspect by default, while the words of those who as a philosophy, openly seek our destruction, are instantly accepted with little scrutiny.

It would be almost impressive if it were not so dangerous.

And still, here we are.

We mourn our fallen with a grief that has names and dates: too many of which have piled up since October 7. We celebrate our independence with a joy rooted in defiance and gratitude. Even as we do both, our soldiers stand watch on the northern and southern borders, and our police protect from within, ensuring that “never again” is not a slogan but a policy.

This is the rhythm of Israeli life. Loss and renewal, memory and motion, pain and pride braided so tightly they cannot be separated, like the knots of a tallit, binding us to our identity, our history, and our covenant with our tribe.

This year’s Memorial Day and Independence Day mark a quiet but profound return. For the first time since evacuating through an active warzone on Oct 8th, we are back in our kibbutz. In 2024, it was too dangerous to gather fully, so a few representatives carried on our traditions. Last year, some families began to feel safe enough to bring their children to the ceremonies here. This year, 90 percent of the community is home, and we are even welcoming guests to stand with us, and to join us in our traditional torch run from the original point of the kibbutz, to where we live today. 

We are not going anywhere.

Am Yisrael Chai. Whether the world is comfortable with that or not.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)