by Chayala Friedman
“Excuse me, what’s going on? Why is everyone so quiet?” I don’t know where to begin, how to tell this foreigner about today, this moment. Maybe I should start by telling her about the soldiers who died here and all the mothers that gave up their sons to the IDF at 18 years old to fight. And that today is Yom HaZikaron, which means “the day of remembrance” in Hebrew. Any minute a siren will go off and everyone in Israel will stop what they’re doing and silently remember the soldiers that fell. An entire country frozen for two minutes. Everything. Just. Stops. Everywhere, people will stand, beside their cars on highways, at the shuk on Yaffo street. School lessons interrupted and busses pulled over. This is what it means to remember. How do you explain all that to a foreigner?
