STATISTICS - JUST NUMBERS?

     Last week statistics were bandied about as to how many Jews were killed, slaughtered during the Holocaust. Were there more than 6 million as we discover more information as records from the former USSR are revealed? And does it really make a difference? Seven million does not make any more of an impression than 6 million. In fact, the better way to look at those figures is to put it into terms that the mind can accept. The three year old who is slammed against the wall, the baby speared on a bayonet. The mother who refuses to abandon her child and goes to death with her. The father who dies trying to protect his aged parents and covers their eyes before they are shot and fall into a pit. The ragged partisan with his treasured rifle. It is the individual stories and people who make the horror clearer, more visual, more intimate.
     In today's world there are constant barrages of numbers being thrown at us, so many that we begin to become numb from them and to them. So many people versus so many others. This many people who get ill versus those many who do not? We begin to skim over these statistics for numbers are cold, just figures. So before I give you some new figures, let me first explain what they are and see if they will be met with more of an understanding, of an internalization, of what they represent.
    This period of time in Israel is often bipolar. We celebrate Passover, the holiday of freedom and the beginning of our becoming a true nation. Then suddenly the commemoration of the Holocaust is upon us, along with the attachments of all the other attempts throughout history to destroy the Jews, from the ravages of the Greeks and Romans, the Persians, through the Inquisition and expulsions, the pogroms - no lack. Yet along with that comes the determination that we are here and will remain so while so many of our enemies are no longer with us.
     A week later , beginning tonite, as do all Jewish holy days, we begin the commemoration to the memory of all those soldiers killed defending their homeland, Israel, from those who came off the refugee boats from the ashes of Europe and were given a gun and taken directly to the battlefields to defend against the six Arab armies that invaded Israel immediately upon declaration of statehood to those killed in the name of terror, of Allah. We mourn those victims of terror, killed and wounded, including two elderly women this morning, 86 and 82, stabbed in the back by two cowards who decided that these two elderly women were their enemies. Big heroes are they?
     Tonite and tomorrow, for most of the day, there will be wailing sirens to stop the country for a minute or two and then to start ceremonies. There will be awards and citations to heroes, including one to a soldier of 21, a father of a little child, shopping in a supermarket, unarmed, who took it upon himself to defend others there in the market and fought with his bare arms against an armed terrorist and murderer. Later tomorrow, late afternoon, will bring a gradual change from buckets of tears to the tears of joy that Israel Independence Day brings out. There will be more ceremonies, kids racketing through the streets with shaving cream and squeaky hammers. There will be parties, barbecues and ultimate joy and acknowledgement that we have our State, the Jewish state and our citizens will defend it to their last breath. Never again will we be taken and slaughtered. We are a people, a nation, with our own land, a land that was ours from times of antiquity. We have restored it and it has restored us. And finally, we will have Lag B'omer, a holiday with huge bonfires and field trips and a few weeks later, the holiday of Shavuot, when we became a spiritual nation, when we were given and accepted the word of G-d at Mount Sinai. A true roller coaster.
     But back to statistics. Here are a few.
     23,447 victims of war and terrorism since 1948.
     68 casualties this year and 58 wounded and disabled IDF soldiers die of their wounds.
     16, 304 bereaved relatives in Israel including:
         9,442 families
         4,917 war widows
        1,948 orphans up to the age of 30
     1.5 million Israelis will visit the military cemeteries today.
     132 ambulances will be stationed by these graveyards. Why? Answer that yourself.
     Tonite at 6:00 PM

COMMEMORATE FALLEN SOLDIERS

Tuesday, May 10 Temple Beth El - Palm Beach Ceremony featuring Izzy Ezagui, a lone soldier from South Florida who lost his arm while serving in the IDF. Also a performance by Mifgash Zikaron, six Israeli teens from our partnership region

                                                          MEET THE VISITING ISRAELI TEENS

Tears and joy. Numbers, cold, yet with a melting heart. From babies to the elderly, it seems it never stops, nor does the hate seem to have any borders, moral, spiritual or physical. Numbers. Statistics. What do they mean?

Get to know the delegation of six Israeli teens who will perform a moving Yom Ha'Zikaron ceremony.