Tzvi Feldman. Eli Cohen, ‘our man in Damascus.’
This Memorial Day, the dead soldiers are fresh. Not least, the countless tens of thousands in Ukraine and the hundreds in Israel. Killed in action. Or killed by accidents. Each fresh grave is a horrendous end to hope. The life taken. The family torn.
Two recent discoveries remind us that the dead have a grave, the missing do not. Another horror of war: the soldiers whose fate is unknown or whose resting place is unknown.
The first discovery is the body of Tzvi Feldman, killed defending the State of Israel 43 years ago. That is 43 years of agony for the family.
The second discovery is the Syrian archive of Eli Cohen, “our man in Damascus,” the most successful and ingenious spy in Israel’s legendary history of spycraft. Cohen penetrated the highest echelons of Syria’s military and government. He evaded detection for four years before he was discovered and hung in Syria in 1965 — but not before he delivered enough intelligence to Israel to help it later win the Six Day War of 1967. One of the central enemies in that war was Syria.
Somehow, Israel has now extracted from Syria its entire file on Eli Cohen (section a, page 13).
These, too, we mark and remember — the missing, the soldiers who know no grave; and their families, who suffer in uncertainty and who themselves are often forgotten.
Memorial Day is not just a national holiday; it is an important marker in Denver and in Denver’s Jewish community. Cemeteries around the area will be visited, ceremonies held, tears shed, sincere but inadequate expressions of gratitude offered. Among the remembrances in Denver on Memorial Day will be the reading of the names of Colorado’s deceased’s Jewish veterans. The IJNis proud to have assembled and updated this list year by year. Each name will be pronounced next Monday, Memorial Day, at the JCC, at 2:30 p.m.
Come. Remember. Memorial Day is for remembrance, not for barbecues. We owe each American veteran our best, if feeble, attempt at saying thank you, at honoring them and their sacrifice.
The missing equally demand our attention. To remember them, to be humbled by them, is the very least we can do, at least once in the span of a year.
© IJN 2025
