Israel‘s 58th Independence Day celebrations commence on Tuesday evening, May 2. The following is the description from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs:
With the establishment of the State of
Israel in 1948, Jewish independence, lost two thousand years earlier, was restored. Independence Day is a celebration of the renewal of the Jewish state in the Land of Israel, the birthplace of the Jewish people.
In this land, the Jewish people began to develop its distinctive religion and culture some 4,000 years ago, and here it has preserved an unbroken physical presence, for centuries as a sovereign state, at other times under foreign domination.
The day before Independence Day is Remembrance Day, which begins this evening with a state ceremony at the Western Wall, an address by President Moshe Katsav, followed tomorrow by memorial services at military cemeteries, a two-minute siren around 11 a.m., and a silence throughout the nation in honor of the 22,123 persons (the equivalent of more than one million in a country the size of the US) lost in defense of the Land of Israel.
The juxtaposition of Remembrance Day to Independence Day is intentional. The losses remembered on the first day made possible the state celebrated on the second. The two days are thus actually a single holiday of sadness and joy, captured by Nathan Alterman in a remarkable poem entitled “The Silver Platter.”
"A State is not handed to a people on a silver platter" —
Chaim Weizmann, first president ofIsrael
Heartsick, but still living, a people stand by
To greet the uniqueness
of the miracle. . .
— Then, soon,
A girl and boy step forward,
And slowly walk before the waiting nation;
In work garb and heavy-shod
They climb
In stillness.Wearing yet the dress of battle, the grime
Of aching day and fire-filled night
Unwashed, weary unto death, not knowing rest,
But wearing youth like dewdrops in their hair.
— Silently the two approach
And stand.
Are they of the quick or of the dead?
Through wondering tears, the people stare.
"Who are you, the silent two?"
And they reply: "We are the silver platter
Upon which the Jewish State was served to you."