No new sirens

This Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, I think of so many people dear to me, who survived.

Who today are no longer with us.

Yet their legacies live on stronger than ever.

I think of my Bubbie of blessed memory — not a Holocaust survivor in the strict sense of the word, but the sole survivor of her entire family. She, not knowing what their fate would be, got out just in the nick of time, right before WW II.

I think of her and wonder. When and how precisely did that knowledge that her whole family was gone, and she was the sole survivor, reach her?

Did the information come all at once, or was it like daggers stabbing time and again?

I think about how strong she was as a model of moving her life forward despite the agony she carried within. She was a model of Judaism, as her lived experience was the closest we came to touching her parents and grandparents and their Jewish experiences and tradition.

I think of this and wonder. Was there a specific moment my Bubbie sat in a corner, understanding the lonely heavy weight left for her shoulders to bear? Understanding the continuity of her family and its Judaism she alone was left to carry, communicate, transmit and rebuild, for us?

I think of the Yom HaShoah siren in Israel. And next week’s Yom HaZikaron, Memorial Day, siren. Those two sacred minutes when the entire country pauses on these sacred days.

I think of these sirens in respect and memory, as I’ve lived those days as far back as my Jerusalem childhood stretches. And this year I think of their juxtaposition with the air raid war sirens we’ve lived with recently.

Sirens of memory and respect for fallen fellow Jews. And sirens, still today, to prevent fallen lives of Jews today.

There are sirens. And there are sirens.

The recent sirens are because of a current genocidal regime bent on our destruction.

I think of the Israel’s soldiers, the bravest heroes, the heartrending losses. Sacrifices made for me and for every Jew throughout history.

I think of the wrenchingly haunted empty places and spaces that I have visited and witnessed these past two years in Spain, Hungary, Austria, Greece and the Czech Republic. Artifacts, photographs, personal stories, histories — but the people? The lives of these people? Gone. Executed. Murdered. Cut.

A strange weeping silence that made my eyes tear and my soul tremble. That’s what’s left.

I think of those vanished lives and vanished worlds, violently stolen.

I think of their eyes.

Of their normal hopes and school days, of their routine excursions, frustrations and family evenings. Their adventures, favorite holidays, hobbies.

Their laughter.

Their tears.

Their screams.

And their silence.

I think of all this, stitched to the tapestry of Israel’s Memorial Day For The Fallen, Yom HaZikaron, hand in hand with Israel’s Independence Day, Yom Ha’atzmaut.

I think of the past two-and-a-half years. The losses feel so personal and viscerally anguished, as we have lived through this war.

Not a war fought to conquer land, rather a war of survival.

Wishing it were a war we never had to fight.

Living the immense and brutal toll this war has on our national soul, and our individual souls.

The heart quivers in pain; today, another beautiful young fallen soldier in Lebanon. It’s simply unbearable!

And yet.

Within all that agony.

I can’t help but also think, “what if?” What if it was like in the time of the Holocaust, when no one was fighting for us?

Sadly, we know the answer to that all too well. Reality is, there is no “what if?” All that is left is the uncontested six million souls of evidence.

I so badly wish this imposed war on Israel had not been on our path, but as profoundly impacted as we have all been and shaped by this war, we can be grateful.

Grateful for a time such as this.

When we don’t concede or capitulate into dead silence, when we are not ripped away from our lives and from our loved ones and from their way of life, just for being Jewish, even as bystanders look on from the sidelines, enabling the villains to execute their plans against us.

I think of all that I carry within me, transmitted to me by my grandparents and their dear friends who lived through the Holocaust and rebuilt in its aftermath.

I think of the bereaved families of modern Israel, especially of this war; families struggling, needing to choose to rebuild their broken apart lives and families anew, their loved ones now dead warriors in the annals of Jewish history.

I think of all this.

How it’s not simple for a Jew to have a safe peaceful corner in this world, and its cost.

And yet, I think how proud I am to be a part of this people, this tribe, this nation, this family of Israel.

At this moment, we are surrounded by growing anti-Israel and anti- Semitic ugliness yet again.

History is echoing stronger than ever.

At the same time, we are also living through an unfolding historic moment, not yet knowing how it will exactly end, yet optimistically hoping for a positive turning point.

I think of all this — and more, as I pause at a standstill for the Yom HaShoah and Yom HaZikaron sirens this year (theoretical for me, as I am currently in the US).

Praying that only these sirens, signalling memories of the past, remain — and no new sirens ring out anymore.

© IJN 2026