MONTREAL — Yom Hazikaron marks a day of “collective and personal anguish,” as the lives of the 22,684 fallen soldiers and victims of terror are remembered, Israeli Consul General Yoram Elron said at this year’s community Yom Hazikaron service.
Mardoche Dahan, left, whose brother was killed in a terror attack in Israel in 1956, lays a wreath with Federation CJA executive director Andrés Spokoiny at the Yom Hazikaron commemoration held at the Gelber Conference Centre.
“There are 130 more names since last year,” Elron told an audience of some 750 who filled the Gelber Conference Centre to capacity.
“Their contribution to the State of Israel will never be forgotten.”
The annual commemoration on April 18 – the actual date was April 19 the day before Yom Ha’atzmaut – was moved indoors because of wind and wet rain that gave way to sunshine just as the proceedings were about to begin.
But that did little to alter the solemnity of the occasion despite the absence of such visual reminders as the lowering of the Israeli flag by Machal Canadian volunteers war veteran Sidney Cadloff, which took place outside.
Karin Gazith, who was MC with Efrat Bickler, noted that Yom Hazikaron “is the most sombre day in Israel.”
The day, she said, is “inextricably linked” to the Diaspora in terms of acknowledging the sacrifice made by soldiers and victims of terror.
After Yaakov Steiner lit the ner hazikaron (memorial candle), Cantor Benny Moshai chanted K’El Maleh Rachamim, and Yizkor was recited by Safir Shnayderman, whose father, Alexander, was killed 25 years ago by a suicide bomber in Lebanon. Later, Maurice Shoshan said Kaddish for his sister Monique Soussan, who was killed on her way to Jerusalem from her army base in Be’er Sheva in 1977.
In addition, Israeli air force captain Amnon Shefler conveyed a message of solidarity in Hebrew from Israeli Defence Forces chief of staff, Gabi Ashkenazi.
The event also saw performances by a visiting group of singers from Be’er Sheva and student readings, and included the laying of two wreaths: one by Elron, with Bernice Joseph, grandmother of Noam Lévi, killed in 2009 during a mission in Bir Zeit; and the other by Federation CJA executive vice-president Andrés Spokoiny and Mardoche Dahan, whose brother Gabriel was killed by terrorists in 1956.
Spokoiny said that Yom Hazikaron serves as a reminder of the “enormous price” thousands of families have paid in order that Israel flourish.
“It’s up to us,” he said, “to keep [their memories] alive.”
