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The Monumental Importance of Yom Hazikaron
JNS.org – This year, more than most, Jews internationally need to commemorate Yom Hazikaron.
Israel’s Day of Remembrance was created more than 70 years ago with a unique purpose — to honor soldiers and civilian fighters killed during the efforts to establish its nationhood. But in recent years, it has taken on an additional role: to acknowledge the mounting numbers of citizens murdered during terrorist attacks on Israeli soil.
The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism went a step further last year by introducing a policy that recognizes the victims of antisemitic terror attacks throughout the world. No event more symbolizes that connection than the Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel — an attack whose victims hail from across the world and include Jews, Christians, and innocents of other faiths as well.
But this year’s memorial has another, often overlooked significance. This year marks a half-century since the terrorist attack in the northern city of Kiryat Shmona, when 18 civilians, largely immigrants, were murdered in their homes.
Eight of the victims were children in their apartments during the Passover holidays. The massacre, and the terror attacks that followed during the next few months that year, became front-page news in international media, forcing the UN Security Council to intervene and call for a buffer zone on Lebanon’s southern border. According to UN Security Council records from April 1974, Israel’s efforts to persuade the United Nations to hold both Lebanon and the Palestinian Liberation Organization accountable for the cross-border attack were rebuffed. UN peacekeeping troops were established briefly on the border, but Lebanon refused to assume responsibility to stop terrorists from crossing into Israel.
I was in Kiryat Shmona a half-hour before the attack that morning. I was waiting for a bus to Jerusalem, where I planned to spend the rest of the Passover holiday. The bus left filled with travelers, including residents from the apartment building that had been targeted. Egged buses in those days were equipped with a portable radio that in the best of times was hard to hear over the chatter of riders. But when the emergency broadcast came on, panic ensued. Passengers began pleading with the driver to turn the bus around and head back to Kiryat Shmona so they could check on their families. The bus was eventually flagged and pulled over by a supervisor, who confirmed the news. The city had already been cordoned off by Israel Defense Forces, and the driver was ordered to continue on to Jerusalem.
It was a searing experience to step off a bus crammed with families and solitary travelers, knowing that some had survived a terrorist attack because they were on a shopping trip instead of at home — and worse, that they might not find out the fate of their families until they returned home. But the image I think of every Yom Hazikaron is that of the young Russian immigrant from Kiryat Shmona sitting next to me, whose tears were reflected in the window pane next to her. She had confessed to me a few minutes earlier that she was still learning conversational Hebrew. Apparently, she knew enough to understand the worst of the news broadcast.
Public memorials like Yom Hazikaron help us heal. But they also serve as a way to register and reflect public unity and sentiment about compelling issues. And sometimes, when our representatives listen hard enough, responses to those memorials can inspire action.
Perhaps Israel’s decision last year to enact a policy that recognizes the worldwide victims of antisemitism was prescient of the increasing need for global action against terrorism. It’s an uncomfortable thought. But if Israel is going to overcome the greatest threat to its safety, it won’t just come from within — from the yearly sirens that mark its losses or from its incessant efforts to inspire the United Nations to finally support its side of disputes. It will also come from those of us in the Diaspora, who know all too well the importance of a Jewish homeland.
Jan Lee is an award-winning editorial writer and former news editor. Her articles and op-eds have been published in a variety of Jewish and travel publications, including the Baltimore Jewish Times, B’nai B’rith Magazine, Jewish Independent, and The Times of Israel.
The post The Monumental Importance of Yom Hazikaron first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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