It was possible to pour out mountains of exhortations and eulogies with a moral about the joint service of male and female soldiers, about sacrificing the lives of people from the periphery on the borders, about the difficult service and lacking the aura of prestige of elite units. But the pictures of parents, brothers and sisters from the funerals and the cries of devastation above the fresh grave refuse to allow this time to be sucked into a ticking messaging machine. Lia Ben Nun, Uri Yitzhak Illouz and Ohad Dahan were killed in an "incident" on the Egyptian border, which is a euphemism for what cannot be said when strategic relations are at stake.
They were someone's children, brothers of, loved ones. The sounds of crying that rose simultaneously from three corners of the country, north, center and south, distilled for a moment the price of living in this country. Distilled the price of bereavement to three new families, who were required to bear the burden of the Jewish state without asking for and sacrificing what was dearest to them. The eulogies evoked not whiffs of pretension, but of simplicity. Words that are so easy to identify with, that could have been said about anyone's brother, about the children of all of us.
Heartbreaking - Ohad's spouse eulogized him: "You were the love of my life" // Photo: Yaniv Zohar
Ohad Dahan's brother eulogized him: "You would have known how to lift me. I miss your smile. Love you, my dear brother. You have always been my hero and you have walked as a hero for all of us. Love you." Uri Yitzhak's sister broke her heart when she admitted: "I was afraid for you. You were our angel, our balance, my balance. I can't believe he's not here. You had a hard time in the army, but you ate dust for your soldiers. How will mom and dad handle this? Send them strength, Uri." What powers can be sent to a mother and father who bury their child? There are no forces in the world that can fill the hole in them. But a little consolation there may be.
There is comfort in unity of fate, in one national mission, which is to protect the home of the Jewish people. There is hope in the lowest place, and that is that without this house here, we would not find rest anywhere else in the world. We live at a high pace of events, crisis haunts demonstration after crisis. Every event is first publicity, every demonstration is unusual in size. 75 years of independence have turned Israeliness into high-tech, economy, growth engines, innovation and cyclical struggles for the image of the state.
Leia's sister at the funeral, photo: Coco
There is almost no talk about the state of the Jewish people, about believing in the righteousness of the path or about national stature. If they are mentioned, there are those who turn them with the stroke of a pen into a condemnation in the name of pseudo-racism, or in the borrowed phrase "white supremacy." The truth is, it seems that without a constant reminder of the price of living here (or the price of alternatives in our past), if we were not in a constant war for our right to exist, we would have long ago allowed disagreements to divide us again. You don't have to find out from here for the price of the Milky and then wish to return to the blood-soaked land, which, despite the price on its side, is also the only home we have had since we became a people.
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