YOM HA’ATZMAUT 2025-5785
At 77, Israel is an engine of faith and growth. We must never shrink from facing the price.
What is Israel built on?
Yes, it is built on the faith of Judaism, which lays down the centrality of the Land of Israel.
Yes, it is built on Jewish perseverance through 2,000 years of exile and persecutions.
Yes, it is built on what seemed to be the impossible, indeed, mad dreams and visions of small numbers of stubborn Jews over the past 150 years.
Yes, it is built on countless daily deeds of pioneers and experts, of trial-and-error, of farmers and entrepreneurs wildly successfully and wildly unsuccessful, of geniuses and ne’er-do-wells.
Yes, it is built on the spiritual foundations laid by countless Torah students.
Yes, it is built on the struggles of immigrants from some 90 countries.
We can never forget, and must always try to express, that which can never be fully expressed — our gratitude to those who paid the price upon which Israel is built.
Over the past year — since Israel turned 76 — Israel lost 456 soldiers and civilians at the hands of the enemies of the Israel: 316 Israeli Defense Forces soldiers and 79 civilians murdered by terrorists. An additional 61 additional IDF troops, injured in the line of duty, died of their wounds.
We must never shrink from facing the ultimate price for the blessing of Israel.
Over the past year, 1,647 Israelis have joined the community of bereaved families, including 487 bereaved mothers and fathers, 85 widows and 163 orphans.
Out of gratitude, we must face this price, despite the pain.
All told, in acknowledgement of the price built up through all of Israel’s wars, there are now 8,674 bereaved parents, 5,391 widows, 10,302 orphans and 34,250 bereaved siblings in Israel.
Since 1860, when the independence of Israel began to be rebuilt, 25,417 servicemen and women have given their lives.
Since 1860, 5,229 civilians were murdered by terrorists, including at least 800 children and teenagers under the age of 18.
This is the price for Israel and ultimately the price for being Jewish in this unprecedented period of Jewish history.
Since Oct. 7, 2023 and Israel’s launch of the Swords of Iron War, 934 civilians have been murdered, 778 of them in the Oct. 7 massacre. Among them: 58 children, as well as 76 foreign nationals.
As the IDF was announcing all of these figures earlier this week, the IDF made on more announcement: Master Sgt. (res.) Asaf Cafri, 26, a tank driver in the 14th Reserve Armored Brigade’s 79th Battalion, was killed battling Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip on April 24.
A name. A face. An individual. A particular bereaved family — including a bereaved great-grandmother who, on the day that Asaf Cafri was killed, was visiting the Nazi concentration camp she survived long ago.
Behind each of the numbers on this page is its own name, face, and particular family.
This is what Israel at 77 is built on. This is what we must never shrink from facing. As we scoot through the amazing tunnels that now facilitate the traffic all over Israel, as we ride the amazing new trains, witness the amazing new office towers and residences, see the mosaic of gorgeous farmland amidst the urban growth, stand in awe of Israel’s technological inventions and unprecedented number of yeshiva and university students and healers of mind and body — as we face all this, not to mention the intangibles of the Land of Israel that surpass all this — we face the price.
We are humbled.
We are at Israel at age 77.
© IJN 2025
