Goals:

• The participants will learn about the special connection between the Memorial and Independence Days
• The participants will connect to the main values of the Independence and Memorial Days
• The participants will consider the emotional tension between sadness and happiness through the tension between Memorial Day and Independence Day.

The activity order:

1. Introduction – Mixed feelings.
2. Exercise – What is the meaning of the number.
3. Learning about the meaning of Memorial Day and Independence Day.
4. Debate.
5. Discussion about texts.
6. Conclusion.

We will ask each participant to think of a personal significant event. Each participant will receive paper and will be asked to write down his/her feelings when the event happened on the paper.

(Alternatively, we can ask the participants to choose a suitable emoji and to send it to the group Whatsapp group, if there is such a group).

We will lay all of the notes out on the floor and we will try to identify the feelings that appear repeatedly.

We will see that every significant event involves many feelings, some related to happiness and excitement, and some like sadness, fear and the feeling of a missed opportunity.

The activity leader will spread lots of numbers on the floor that represent certain things e.g. number of cities in the state, number of fallen, number army corps, the year that the state was founded, etc. Ask the participants what each number represents.

The leader will reveal the meaning of each number and will ask the participants how they feel towards the numbers now that they know what they stand for.

The leader will expand by saying that the numbers themselves do not have any meaning and we therefore don’t feel anything specific towards them. The moment they have meaning, our attitude towards them changes.

The meaning of the events behind these numbers represent two very meaningful days in the Israeli calendar- Memorial Day and Independence Day.

We will ask the participants what they know about the Memorial Day for Israel’s soldiers and Victims of Terrorism, and Israel’s Independence Day. 

The leader will read a short explanation about the two days, their essence and things that are usually done on them in Israel, as well as the life story of Sean Carmeli z”l.

The activity leader will present the following situation to the participants:

The year is 1949 and you are part of a committee in the Israeli Knesset. You are just after a difficult war, which was fought for the independence of your young country, in which you lost many friends and soldiers.

You want to decide on a Memorial Day for the fallen soldiers. 

You are sitting with a Hebrew calendar in front of you, trying to find a suitable date.

One suggestion was to choose Lag B’Omer, another was to choose a random day in the middle of the winter.

Suddenly, one of the members suggests setting the date close to Independence Day- the day before.

All the people sitting in the room- among them bereaved parents and siblings- are taken aback by the suggestion. What do you think?

Split the group of participants into two groups.

One group has to argue that the closeness of Memorial Day and Independence Day is the right move and the other group should argue that it is not.

There will be one representative from each group who will present the groups’ arguments and we will switch the representatives every 2-3 minutes so that as many participants as possible can express their opinion.

Methodical Suggestion: Place a table at the front of the room, with a flag of Israel displayed on it. There should be two chairs next to the table and ask each debater to present their view as if s/he were giving an important speech in a court discussion.

At the beginning of, or during, the debate ask two participants to read the sections in “bereaved families talking about the closeness of the days”. The participants can use them as a basis for additional arguments.

At the end of the discussion, hold a vote between participants regarding which side succeeded in persuading them and whether the closeness of the two days is correct, in their opinion.

The leader should ask the participants about their feelings during the discussion and process, together with them, the arguments raised by both sides.

The activity leader will ask for two volunteers and will give each one of them a page with an interview with Rav Goren. 

The interview describes the actual way that the dates of the Memorial and Independence Days were chosen, the reactions to the choice and when the dates were actually officially chosen.

The leader will ask one of the volunteers to be the interviewer and the other to be the interviewee- Rav Goren- and to carry out the dialogue in front of the group.

After the dialogue, the leader will ask  the group a number of questions:

• Is there an importance to the closeness in time between the two days, and if yes, what is it?
• What are the ways of dealing with the intense emotional change?
• Would you forgo the complexity?
• Is the connection between the days an opposing or complementary one?

Conclusion:

The transition from Memorial Day to Independence Day is not a simple one. The extremity between the sadness of Memorial Day and the happiness of Independence Day demands a sharp emotional change. This transition is not new and takes place many times in Jewish history. 

In a Jewish wedding- in the middle of the happiest of moments, we suddenly stop and remember the destruction of Jerusalem with the sentence “If I will forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand whither, let my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy”

Precisely in the happiest of moments, our losses are felt most deeply. So, actually, sadness and happiness are feelings that are deeply intertwined.

The participants will create a poster: Soldiers carry the State of Israel on their shoulders. On this poster, they will write one thing that makes them happy and that they are thankful for in the State of Israel.