Every year on the 4th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar, the war sirens sound in Israel. This time it is not war they are screaming but rather a reminder to stop and give respect and honor to those who are already resting in peace.
I clearly remember the first time I visited Mount Herzl, the military cemetery in Jerusalem, I was a teenager visiting Israel and our camp took us on a trip to the biggest military resting place that was located in Jerusalem between Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial museum, and the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.
I can clearly remember walking between the endless number of graves and feeling sad, proud, fortunate and most of all a historical responsibility. As if my soul was shouting, "these brave men and women died in order for you to live! So stop fooling around in the States and get your Jewish backside home to Israel!"
Two years later I came to Israel to study for a year and then decided to be a part of Jewish history and with tears of 2,000 years streaming down my face, I put on the IDF uniform and served my country, my homeland, my people and most importantly, my G-d!
When things got physically and even emotionally tough in the IDF, I just pictured my grandma, who survived 5 different concentration camps, and the tiredness and difficulties I thought I had, melted away like butter.
In March 1993, a friend, a brother in arms, a hero and a very righteous Jew, was kidnapped and murdered by Arabs who call themselves Palestinians. His name was Yehoshua Friedberg and he was an unbelievable soldier, friend and on top of all a human being (A super mench as they say in Yiddish)
Four Arab terrorists dressed themselves up in Hassidic garb and picked Yehoshua up and shot him in the heart point blank and then threw him off to the side of the road like some piece of garbage.
This time, I was not visiting Mount Hertzl as a tourist but as a mourner. His funeral defined exactly who he was. The headlines read; "Hundreds of thousands religious, secular, Hassidic and nationalistic Jews followed the coffin to its final resting place." Tens of thousands of Jews from all over the world along with Yehoshua's parents, who were flown in from Canada, laid Yehoshua down like a national hero that he was!
Since that horrible day, I have had a hard time with Memorial Day ceremonies. The siren sends shivers down my spine as it brings me back to that nightmarish time when we found Yehoshua's body on the side of the road.
I have unfortunately attended several other military funerals and have had other friends who were killed in battle (Second Lebanon war) and every time, I am ripped back in time to that horrible day when I first buried a brother.
They say everyone mourns differently and I guess I just haven't figured how to do so for Yehoshua, so I went for a run. Faster than my feet can carry me, the thoughts were rushing through my head. They aren't only thoughts about Yehoshua but he certainly is the trigger for some very deep thinking.
After remembering the good times we had, I remember the day our officer walked in to our tent and told us that Yehoshua was missing. I remember the three days of pouring rain when we, his platoon, along with thousands of volunteers searched for him, hoping for the best but expecting the worst.
I remember the horrible cries when we found him, lifeless!
I remember his funeral like it was yesterday. I remembered his family and most of all, I remember who he was.
Year after year, I tell my children of a soldier that served with daddy, I tell them about his incredible personality and love for the Land of Israel, the Nation of Israel and the Torah of Israel. I tell them stories about how Yehoshua was always volunteering for jobs in the army when most were shying away from taking responsibility and I tell them how our enemies murdered Yehoshua for no reason at all!
As I pass the 2 kilometer mark I become ill when I remember the fact that Israel's Prime Minister let ALL Yehoshua's murderers go free! The monsters who pulled the trigger as well as those sick minded animals who planned his murder were treated like some kind of missing link to peace! If these monsters are the missing link to peace then I choose WAR dammit!
The thoughts continue to pound my head like a jack hammer that won't not give up!
Have we not learned a thing from history?!
Israel has always had an outstretched hand for peace and that hand has ALWAYS been bitten!
In 1947 we accepted the partition plan to which the Arabs refused and started an all out war to push the Jews in to the sea, we won!
Then again in 1956 and in 1967 Egypt brought all their troops to the border and the familiar war cries of push the Jews in to the sea were heard again. Once again, in six miraculous days, Israel defeated all the Arab armies that tried to destroy us and for the first time in 2000 years, Jews were free to walk and pray in Jerusalem.
NO! We are not free! There is one place where Jews are not allowed to pray when it comes to Jerusalem, the Temple Mount!
Does apartheid exist in Israel? You bet it does!
The Muslim rule together with Israeli authorities forbid Jews to ascent to the Temple Mount and pray. It is simply unbelievable that in the State of Israel there is a LAW forbidding Jews to pray at their most holiest spot!
This video was not taken in Poland in 1942 but in Jerusalem in 2014! Arab women spitting at little Jewish children whose wish was only to pray and Arab men who wave their hands in violence to the point that the a Jewish father had to count his children so that none were left to the blood thirsty Muslims on the Temple Mount in JERUSALEM!
It is right about the 4th kilometer that my mind wonders internationally. The UN! The totally irrelevant UN that keeps silent as Iran, Syria, Libya, ISIS and the rest of the fanatic Islamic terrorist organizations and regimes keep basic rights far from their population. Women are subjugated to rules and laws that limit their freedom, civilians are beaten for using Facebook and their own populations are gassed and murdered and beheaded as they seek democracy, but when Israel builds a kindergarten, the UN is up in arms as if some terrible atrocity just took place!
No, the UN is not irrelevant, the UN is dangerous!
With a majority coming from countries that have no clue what freedom means and civil rights committees that are made up of racist, anti semitic and ditatorship representatives, the UN is a very dangerous threat to all countries who believe in freedom.
An Apartheid?!
Those who suffered the Apartheid government in SA should be deeply hurt and insulted by such claims. Are there separate benches, hospitals, beaches or bathrooms for Arabs?
In SA, were there Black parliament members with equal voting rights, military generals, supreme court judges?
Were the Blacks living under apartheid permitted to demonstrate and even call for the destruction of SA and still be protected by the laws of free speech?
The anger inside makes me pick up my pace as I think of all those calling for a boycott of Israeli products.
You want to boycott Israel? GO AHEAD! No Apple, no Facebook, No cellphones! ENJOY THE CAVE!
We are no longer that 'feel sorry for us' nation!
When the Nazis boycotted the Jews in Germany, there was nothing we could do, but today? You want to boycott Israel? Start with your Intel chips and move to your mobile phones and don't touch our medical breakthroughs!
Go ahead, boycott the Jewish State and at the same time ignore China's child labor or Africa's slave trade or Islamic regime's lack of freedom and human rights! It's ok for them to ACTUALLY treat people with no respect at all, as long as it is not Israel!
You want to boycott Israel? Go ahead! Just don't make believe it is for some righteous reason. Israel offers rights and freedoms to all its citizens. Christians, Muslims, Druze and atheists all live in Israel under one law! You are a bunch of anti semite bigots and you don't deserve to use Israeli goods!
Take a good look at the video below and when you see the packed shelves in supermarkets in what you claim to be starving Gaza, FILLED with Israeli goods and food, you might change your mind! Take a good look at this video. How dare you compare Gaza to the death camps and the holocaust? The Audacity is unbelievable!
Kilometer number 7 is coming up and my mind comes back to Yehoshua. I tear up as I imagine his parents looking in to what was Yehoshua's room. So many memories, hopes and dreams that were cut short by a bunch of terrorists! I almost feel guilty as I remember that MY Prime Minister let the murderers of their son free.
WHY? WHY? WHY?
Kilometer number 8, I start to talk to Yehoshua.
"We didn't speak enough when we were in the army but I tell my kids all about you all the time. Your decision to move to Israel during the first Gulf War, when everyone was running away, you came home. Your decision to join the IDF even though you didn't have to and your final decision to try out for officers course which would have meant another 4 years in the army even though you were already engaged to be married. Memorial ceremonies are difficult for me, I don't like them at all, but as I finish my run, my mind is now clear and it is in your memory Yehoshua, along with the other 23,320 heroes, that we, the Jewish people, will be strong; physically, nationally and religiously!
May you rest in peace and may God avenge your blood.
