A large, dark, circular room. Blue ominous lighting from the front of the stage. I look around and recognize faces that I’ve passed countless times in countless hallways, yet I’ve interacted with very few of those faces. One of the realities in attending a larger college. I’m seated in between friends and we catch up on our days, waiting for the ceremony to begin. It’s Yom Hazikaron, I’m wearing black and white, and the people around me are looking for the most optimal seats in Lamport Auditorium. The lights dim eventually, the background music stops, the flag is lowered to half-mast, and we begin.
As a Modern Orthodox community we have defined the commemoration of catastrophic national events like Yom Hazikaron and Yom Hashoah as the attendance of big ceremonies put together by a few students who do not represent the entirety of the Stern and Yeshiva College student bodies, never mind the Modern Orthodox community as a whole. The ceremonies are always the same: dark lighting to erase the faces of the audience as they look toward a screen that plays videos containing photos of places that are recognizable to many, but not most. These photos are meant to evoke memories that aren’t ours, memories that we don’t have, to manipulate our emotions in an attempt to evoke feelings of pain and hurt, of injustice and unfairness, of gratitude and of course, empathy.
As I sit in Lamport Auditorium, I watch the screen as stills of life in Israel flash by, and I know I’m supposed to feel longing, wanting, a yearning to return. I’m supposed to remember something; the images are supposed to help me go back to a time and place where life existed in stills, when I passed my days not yet knowing how deeply I would desire to come back. Maybe I’m supposed to think about my year and a half in Israel, or my brother’s bar mitzvah, or maybe I’m supposed to think about visiting Israel on a Birthright trip, and the shuk, market, on Fridays as I made my way through the crowds, swarming the streets. Maybe I’m supposed to think about my relative in the army, my cousins who have made aliyah, or the propaganda videos about the chalutzim, the pioneers, that have been played during my Hebrew classes and at other ceremonies like this one.
I listen to speeches on people’s experiences in the Israeli military, and I know I’m supposed to feel gratitude and wonderment as I understand the depth of that person’s sacrifice and bravery, or the loss they have endured. And my loss? My bravery? The sacrifices I’ve made and the pain I’ve endured that have led me to this moment in time where I chose to attend a ceremony to celebrate Yom Hazikaron with my peers? It isn’t mentioned, isn’t noted; it isn’t important, because my pain and sacrifice are minuscule if compared to the pain and sacrifice of a soldier, of course. And rightly so.
I listen to two songs I’ve never heard before sung acapella style; their melodies are moving and lovely, but I have no idea what the words are. Have you ever tried to decipher Hebrew words in a song that you’re listening to for the first time? Well I have, and it’s difficult, and I speak Hebrew fluently. Many of my friends and peers at Stern and YC who are present tonight don’t speak Hebrew fluently at all. The ceremony is supposed to be inclusive of all Jews as we are here for one reason that is assumed important to all of us, Israel, but it is exclusionary. I feel like my grandmother at shul on the High Holidays who doesn’t speak or understand a word of Hebrew: while I can appreciate what is going on, without the comprehension that is necessary for me to make meaning of it, the fact is that the music, the singing, the effect of it remains…ineffective. I’m not moved by the music, but I am bothered by it. I want to be intellectually engaged in commemorating the day that is actually deeply important and personal to me. I am bothered by the music because it is used to, again, play on my emotions, and I feel as though I am being treated as a soundboard.
These memories of moments that took place in Israel that are shown on screen and relayed in the speeches are not mine. Speakers discussing their love for Israel that was affirmed upon seeing a cute “Chag Sameach” signs on buses perhaps belittles the meaning of Israel for those who have never visited Israel, and even for those who have, and it seems childish because that’s about as superficial as it comes.
However, is there another way to celebrate? Is there another way for a community to commemorate these catastrophes? Is it worthwhile to go through these motions at all if we’re celebrating this holiday seven hours in the past and six thousand miles away? Is it meaningful for those who feel unattached from Israel for whichever reason?
I don’t know the answer to that, but I know that what remains unsaid in a way gets affirmed: by not acknowledging or verbalizing the disconnect Yeshiva Uni-versity students may feel from Israel or from an event that is (understandably) detached from their immediate lives, we are perpetuating it. If the ceremonies we attend strive to invoke a reality that is not reflected in our immediate surroundings that most attendees live in, how can it be considered meaningful?
When I voiced this frustration with a few of my friends, many of them felt like I was vocalizing and articulating something they hadn’t been able to do for a while. Many said, “That’s interesting, it’s very true. And also…” We opened the conversation that we felt needed to be had so that we, members of the YU and Modern Orthodox community, could begin to address this concern. I recognize that not everybody feels disconnected from Israel and her national holidays, and for many of us, these ceremonies we attend are very powerful. I am supportive of my peers who do feel that, but envious of them at the same time, since not many of my friends share this sentiment. But I suspect that Michael Osborne’s presumed “apathy” that students feel toward Israel does not quite ring true for many of us; instead, it’s an unacknowledged reality for which there is no viable outlet for expression. Apathetic feeling and the feeling of detachedness are two different things; the latter implies a desire for improvement while the prior is dismissive of any.
I’m having a difficult time focusing the night of the ceremony, and after a long day I all but fall to pieces when I understand that there is yet another speech to be given. I look at my watch and I see that an hour and fifteen minutes have passed. I’m having a hard time sitting still, and yet I understand that it’s important that I be here. Still, my eyes close, my body refuses to obey me as I fidget in my seat. I get up and leave, appreciating what I’ve seen and heard so far and mumble a short Tefillah for Israel’s fallen soldiers and the continued protection of the Jewish homeland as I head to the shuttle.