HONOURING THE FALLEN
Memorial Day for Israel’s Fallen Soldiers – Yom Ha-Zikaron – is marked each year on the 4th of the Hebrew month of Iyar or in proximity to that date. In 2020, it will be held from the evening of Monday 27 April until the evening of Tuesday 28 April.
Yom Ha-Zikaron is observed for all Israeli military personnel who lost their lives in the struggle that led to the establishment of the State of Israel, and for those who have been killed subsequently while on active duty in Israel’s armed forces. The commemoration also honours deceased members of Israeli Police, the General Security Service, the Mossad, and civilian victims of terrorism .
Memorial Day is always marked one day before Independence Day, emphasising and symbolising the connection between the fallen and the establishment of the State of Israel. The changeover from Yom Hazikaron to Yom Ha’atzmaut takes place just a few minutes after sundown. Both Memorial Day and Independence Day – each in its own way – mark the formal Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel in May 1948.
The first Israeli postage stamp marking Yom Ha-Zikaron was issued on 20 April 1966. The stamp – with a 40 Agorot value and designed by Oswald Adler – featured the monument in memory of the ‘Liberators of Galilee’ inaugurated in 1959. Located in the hills of Lower Galilee, the monument was unveiled in the presence of Yitzhak Ben Zvi (1884-1963), the President of Israel, in memory of the Hagana and the decisive battles to free Galilee from invading Arab forces in 1948.
Across Israel, there is a large number of military monuments which are erected and maintained by the Israel Ministry of Defence (its memorials division; its Unit for the Commemoration of Fallen Soldiers; its Families and Commemoration Department). This month’s blog-post – in April 2020 – features a selection of Memorial Day stamps from subsequent years across the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s, the 2000s, and the 2010s, many of which are illustrated with Israeli military monuments.
Oliphant House in the Druze village of Daliyat Al Karmil is the Memorial to Fallen Druze Soldiers. The property had been built by Laurence Oliphant (1829-1888) – a visitor to Ottoman Palestine – in which he lived with his wife and his secretary the Jewish poet Naftali Herz Imber (1856-1909) who wrote the words of the Jewish national anthem Hatikva.
The Druze had fought side by side with the Yishuv in their struggle to establish a Jewish state, taking part both in the fight against the British and later, in the War of Independence. In the 1950s, the Druze community successfully appealed to the Israeli government to be permitted to send their sons to compulsory military service in the defence forces.
In May 1969, the Druze soldier Lotfie Nasr ei-Deen was killed when pursuing a group of infiltrators who had crossed the border in the Aravah (Arabah) area on a terrorist mission. Lotfie’s father – a Member of the Knesset, MK – proposed that Oliphant House become a memorial centre in memory of the Druze who had fallen in Israel’s wars.
The Memorial Site to the Fallen of the Communications, Electronics & Computer Corps was honored with the 1994 Memorial Day stamp issue. The monument is located at Yehud, near Tel Aviv. The Communications, Electronics & Computer Corps of is responsible for communications and effective distribution of orders in the IDF – providing communications at all levels, and the development, purchase, issue and maintenance of communications equipment.
Memorial Day 2001 was marked by a stamp honouring the Monument for the Fallen Nahal Soldiers which is located in a large park, north of Pardes Hanna-Karkur in the Haifa District.
Nahal (NHL) in Hebrew is an abbreviation of Noar Halutzi Lochem – Pioneering Fighting Youth – founded during the War of Independence, as a battalion of the Gadna Corps (a military programme to prepare young people for military service). Nahal soldiers came from the pioneering youth movements, and military service in a fighting unit was combined with agricultural training and settlement. The first Nahal settlements were established along Israel’s borders – near the Gaza Strip, and near Jordan – and most of the settlements later became civilian villages.
The memorial site includes a number of buildings which together preserve Nahal history and bring Nahal closer to the general public. The layout is based on the Nahal symbol… i.e. the scythe and sword, representing the combination of military service with agricultural training and settlement. The principal structure is an open tower – symbolizing the scythe – with the names of the fallen soldiers on the internal walls. An observation balcony is at the top of the tower overlooking the surrounding area. The architect of the site was the late Hanan Havron (1931-2000).
The Garden of the Missing in Action is represented on the 2004 Memorial Day stamp. Planted in the Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem in 2003, the Garden at its centre includes a memorial with the names of hundreds who over the years fought both within Israel’s borders and abroad and whose place of rest is unknown. The Garden also contains remembrance name-stones, including those dedicated to missing soldiers who died during the War of Independence (1948) and the Yom Kippur War (1973).
The 2014 Memorial Day stamp celebrated the memory of Yosef Sarig (1944-1973), poet and composer, who had commanded a tank unit battling in the Golan Heights. He was killed in action and awarded the Distinguished Service Medal of Honour. The ‘tab’ of the stamp is illustrated with words from Sarig’s poem Homecoming…:
‘We did not thirst for war, As we set out for battle. We always loved home, The sun, a field within the soul’.
The first Memorial Day post here was posted last year – in May 2019 – and can be linked to from the Archive, or here at: I. Israel’s Memorial Day, 7-8 May 2019 – Yom Ha-Zikaron
A third selection of Israeli Memorial Day stamps will be posted in April 2021, in a year’s time.
Israeli postage stamps בולי דואר ישראליים 