Friday, March 29, 2024 -
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As a Bostonian

SUNDAY evening through Monday was Israel’s Yom Hazikaron, “Memorial Day.” I was already steeped in the intense spirit of this very Israeli experience. It’s hard to explain the emotional intensity of this day to non-Israelis who haven’t lived through it.

For 24 hours, Israel, as a country-family, grieves together. You see and feel the day in people’s eyes on the street.

It is not a day for sales or barbeques. Television entertainment is totally suspended for these 24 hours. Instead, the TV silently lists names of every single victim who has died for Israel.

Twice, a blaring siren, “the tzfirah,” is heard throughout the land. Once in the evening, in darkness, for one minute, and then the following morning, for two minutes. The entire country, wherever anyone may be, on a bus, driving on a highway, at the market or work, all stop, stand at attention, freezing in unison to remember those who have died, to show they have not been forgotten, to pay a collective  moment’s gratitude and respect to those who fought and died as protection for us to be here.

It is a powerful, formative Israeli experience that is branded on my heart.

So, being far away and trying to connect with the feeling of that most Israeli of days, I was listening to the Israeli army radio channel Galgalatz, waiting for the signature Yom Hazikaron songs of my Jerusalem childhood like “Bab El Wad,” “Mi Shechalam”and others to come on the air.

I was also listening to the poignant, more recent “A Million Stars,” sung in 2006 by Amit Farkash at the funeral of her big brother, all of 23, an Air Force pilot killed in the Lebanon War.

“A Million Stars” sort of became the national anthem of that war. Amit made an entire country cry together for her brother, whom we had never met.

Simultaneously, I was watching Israeli Yom Hazikaron television programming on Mako. People shared their honest, vulnerable stories of coping with pain and the loss of loved ones, be they heroic IDF soldiers from the wars Israel has valiantly fought, or innocent civilians bombed to death while going about their daily lives, eating at a cafe or walking to the library.

AS I am listening to this, I log into Yahoo to check my email. The headlines say a breaking story is about a blast in Boston. The accompanying picture is of a man fallen to the ground, with an  Israeli flag seen in the background.

For the briefest of moments, I was confused. My two worlds, my childhood home of Jerusalem and my American country, specifically the Boston of my birth, are mashed up together. What is going on? America or Israel? Bombs? Who am I grieving for?

And then I was grieving for both. These two distinct parts of me, blurred, became one. Boston and Jerusalem, violently met.

As a Bostonian by birth, I was aware that it was Patriots’ Day as well as the day of Boston’s famous marathon.

Although I left Boston as a baby, in my twenties I visited there a lot when my sister was at Brandeis and I was living in New York City. The T, The Charles (ChAHles) River, The Emerald Necklace, Fanuel Hall, J.P. Licks Ice Cream, Boston Harbor, Newberry Street, I loved it all. As an official Bostonian, I follow Boston stuff here and there.

Watching this celebratory Boston day, a marathon of people inspiringly striving to reach beyond their physical limits, marred by an act of evil, by someone trying to put the ultimate limit on life . . . another visceral contrast, intensifying the situation.

Here is a group of people, marathoners, with the mental grit and discipline to overcome various challenges so they can reach a hard earned finish line, being stopped by cowardly, evil people, imposing the cruelest of finish lines. The finishing off of life.

Never before have the words “finish line” held such haunting meaning.

The finish line of a marathon is crossed with a sense of euphoria. I remember that feeling the one time I ran a marathon. Although you are practically numb, the knowledge of this crossing, of this finish line, is physically and mentally exhilarating. You met your goal. You made it.

The two staggered bombs placed precisely at this point of happiness was like an extra, cruel twist of the knife, an emphasis of sorts, a mocking the confidence of anyone who thinks they can make it or have made it.

How many running the Boston Marathon broke our hearts, never having reached their finish line, literally and figuratively. It makes you think about what really is the goal at the end of the day. How prepared or in control can one really be?

YET, laced among the questions and the pain of that day, was the human spirit that bombings, whether in Jerusalem or Boston, highlight, regardless of finish lines.

What the evil bomber forgot to take into account was that, yes, he or she met their goal of sowing fear and destruction. But more than that he or she brought Americans together in a way that was truly brave, and that removed all labels from people.

People helped people, period.

The bomber did not dampen the American spirit; rather, the bomber strengthened it, bringing out the best of humanity. I was enormously touched, watching picture after picture of marathoners and by- standers running toward the scene of the bombs, showing the depth of the human heart — people rushing into harm’s way, to a scene of possible death, in order to offer kindness to total strangers.

There are goals and there are goals. Leading up to this day there was a lot of preparation. On one side, the marathoners prepared themselves to transcend limits, to project a spirit of strength, of human possibility, lighting up a city with an aura of inner drive and comraderie.

On the other side was evil, elaborately scheming to hurt, maim, and cut down that spirit of good living.

AS the melancholic music of Yom Hazikaron played on, it became the soundtrack of what happened in Boston, grafted onto its usual subject, the people of  Israel.

In the usual Israeli spirit of determination in the face of evil, I heard the Bostonian voice of solidarity in me silently say, “Next year I am running the Boston marathon.” To the finish line.

My prayers are with Boston. Especially to those families who have sustained injuries or, heartbreakingly, lost loved ones. Prayers . . .

Copyright © 2013 by the Intermountain Jewish News



Tehilla Goldberg

IJN columnist | View from Central Park


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