FIRST PERSON • 21
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2012
Remembering those that Israel has lost This Year in Jerusalem
by Phyllis Singer The 2012 High Holiday season is coming to a close. One of the traditions that takes place during this season is visiting the cemetery to remember our loved ones. Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Hanan and I visited the cemetery in Jerusalem where Allen is buried so we could say special prayers in his memory. The next day, I attended another memorial ceremony – the one sponsored by AACI (the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel). The AACI Memorial Ceremony is held each year during the High Holiday season to honor the memory of AACI members,
members of their immediate families and other North Americans who have fallen while serving the state of Israel or as victims of terror. The annual ceremony takes place in the AACI Memorial Forest. On the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, near Shaar Hagai, where fierce battles raged in 1948, AACI established a forest in conjunction with the Jewish National Fund. The first trees were planted there following the Six-Day War in 1967 to honor the memory of olim from North America and members of their families who fell in Israel’s wars. The forest is a living memorial, an eternal link between the fallen fighters and the land they loved. The scope was expanded to include those who fell in the pre-state days, as well as in terrorist attacks, including tourists and temporary residents. It serves as a site of remembrance and reflection for Israelis and visitors alike. The forest contains a memorial wall with plaques commemorating those who have fallen. Since before the establishment of the State, more than 300 American and Canadians have fallen in Israel’s wars, defensive actions and terrorist attacks. This year, plaques were dedi-
cated in memory of Asher Palmer and Yonatan Palmer and Netta Blatt-Sorek. On Friday, Sept. 23, 2011, Asher and his year-old son, Yonatan, were killed when their car overturned on the road near Kiryat Arba. Originally reported as a traffic accident, it was later reclassified as a terrorist attack. Police and IDF officials concluded that Asher and Yonatan were victims, with rocks having been thrown at the car, smashing the windshield, injuring Asher and causing him to lose control of the car. Netta Blatt-Sorek was born in Israel, moved to the United States, became a U.S. citizen and later returned to Israel, where she dedicated her life to building a bridge between Israel and her neighbors. In February 2010, Netta left home for a five-day vacation at the monastery of Beit Jamal near Beit Shemesh. The monks reported her missing after she failed to return from an afternoon walk. After her body was found, the initial police report called her death a suicide, but that was later changed to murder; the perpetrators were not found. The investigation a year later into the attack on Kristine Luken and Kay Wilson led police to charge members of a terror
cell with the murder of Luken and also with Netta’s murder. The main speaker at the memorial ceremony was Sherri Mandell, the mother of 13-year-old Koby, who was killed in a terror attack in 2001. She and her husband, Rabbi Seth Mandell, founded the Koby Mandell Foundation, which runs healing programs for families that have been directly affected by terror in Israel. Mandell noted that this was the first year that she and her husband have attended the memorial ceremony. In previous years, she said, they were just not able to attend; it was too painful. But this year they came. “Maybe it’s because we need to remember,” she said. “Remembering is not simple,” she added. “It can be so painful … for some too painful.” Noting that the AACI Memorial Forest is part of Jewish history, she remarked that “Koby’s death is part of Jewish history.” She went on to say that a bereaved family “can still be a healthy family.” She explained that Camp Koby, which is part of the programs run by the Koby Mandell Foundation, works with bereaved children and helps them to remember in a healthy way.
“Remembering is a religious imperative” for the Jewish people, she emphasized. “So we can act ethically … [and] give meaning to our losses.” “When we commemorate together,” such as at the AACI Memorial Ceremony, she continued, “it brings us to another level … We see history as purposeful. That’s why we want to remember. It commits us to the bigger story. We want to bring peace to the world, so that our children will go on to create a just and ethical society to honor God.” “We can remember and create healthy and resilient families and a healthy and resilient country,” she concluded. “We pray that God will bless us and through those blessings we will reach peace for the world.” Close to 200 people attended the ceremony. One of the guests, U.S. Ambassador Dan Shapiro noted that he comes away “from these [ceremonies] emboldened” and is always “proud to be part of the group” that gathers at the memorial forest. After reciting words from the mourner’s Kaddish, Shapiro concluded his comments with “Yhi Zicron Baruch, may their memories be a blessing.”
BIBI from page 5 Obama concluded the Iran portion of his speech with a clear commitment to prevent a nuclear Iran: “And that’s why the United States will do, what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” Netanyahu’s speech, like Obama’s, was a no-holds-barred warning about the prospect of a nuclear Iran. Photos of Netanyahu holding up a simple drawing of a bomb with the fuse burning down made front pages. Of greater significance than the Israeli prime minister’s stern demeanor and dramatic delivery was the red line he drew on the cartoon – more precisely, where he drew it. The bomb represented the three stages Netanyahu says are required for Iran to achieve a nuclear weapon: Low-enriched uranium, medium-enriched uranium and high-enriched uranium. Iran is already enriching uranium to the medium levels of 20 percent. The spot between mediumenriched and high-enriched uranium is where Netanyahu drew the red line, suggesting that Iran’s arrival at the cusp between medium- and high-enriched uranium is what should trigger a military intervention by the United States or Israel. Making the cusp between medium- and high-enriched uranium is a major concession for Israel; Israeli officials over the summer pushed back against proposed U.S.-initiated compromises
Courtesy of the White House / Pete Souza
President Barack Obama talks on the phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, in the Oval Office, Sept. 28, 2012.
that would allow Iran to enrich at 3.5 percent to 5 percent, insisting that Iran end all uranium enrichment. Netanyahu’s red line conceivably would accommodate compromises third parties have suggested that would allow Iran to enrich at 20 percent, or medium level. Furthermore, Netanyahu’s prediction of when the cusp between medium and high enrichment would arrive, based on International Atomic Energy Agency reports, ended speculation that Israel could go it alone with a military strike before the U.S. presidential election, which has been a key request of an array of Obama administration officials who have been arriving in Israel each week over the past several months.
“And by next spring, at most by next summer at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage,” Netanyahu said. “From there, it’s only a few months, possibly a few weeks before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb.” Another overlap between the two speeches had to do with each leader’s call on the Muslim world to reject radicalism. “It is time to marginalize those who – even when not directly resorting to violence – use hatred of America, or the West, or Israel, as the central organizing principle of politics,” Obama said. “For that only gives cover, and sometimes makes an excuse, for those who do resort to violence.” Netanyahu echoed the concern
Courtesy of Avi Ohayon / GPO / Flash90/JTA
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during an offsite bilateral meeting as part of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Sept. 27, 2012.
about extremism: “That intolerance is directed first to their fellow Muslims and then to Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, secular people, anyone who doesn’t submit to their unforgiving creed. They want to drag humanity back to an age of unquestioning dogma, unrelenting conflict.” Significantly, Obama also focused on the extremist ideology of the Iranian regime, and its ties with terrorist groups in the region – also themes that Netanyahu has emphasized. “In Iran, we see where the path of a violent and unaccountable ideology leads,” Obama said. Netanyahu met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary on Thursday and spoke with Obama
on Friday in a phone call. A White House readout of the phone call said, “The two leaders underscored that they are in full agreement on the shared goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” The comity between the two leaders might not last, Makovsky said, but the effort is critical. “I’m not saying the U.S. and Israel have found common ground, I’m saying there’s an effort to find common ground,” he said. “Netanyahu’s calculation is that it’s better to make that effort.” In case Israel goes it alone against Iran, he said, Netanyahu “will be able to look into the eyes of the mothers of Israel and say, ‘I left no stone unturned.’”