Tag Archives: March of the Living

Yom HaZikaron

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Last week, I attended MASA’s Yom HaZikaron ceremony (טקס) with some other Pardesniks.  It had been six years since I had commemorated Israel’s two Memorial Days — for fallen soldiers and victims of terror since the founding of Israel and Holocaust Remembrance Day — in Israel, when I was a participant on March of the Living as a high school student.  I don’t remember connecting especially with Yom HaZikaron that year, especially in contrast to Yom HaShoah, whose importance was especially magnified then as I commemorated it by walking from Auschwitz to Auschwitz-Birkenau to mark the march that those imprisoned in Auschwitz were forced to endure.

This year, however, was different.  MASA deserves a lot of credit for creating a program that was meaningful for its specific demographic: young North American Jews living in Israel on various short and long-term programs.  After getting beyond some of the glitzier moments of the ceremony, the core was devoted to a series of mini-documentaries detailing the lives, and tragic deaths, of a number of IDF soldiers.  Most were victims of the Second Lebanon War, and many were American, again to help the audience relate.  The stories were raw, made even more so (again, in contrast to my last Israel Yon HaZikaron experience) by the fact that many of them were killed in battle before reaching their 23rd birthdays, which I celebrated a couple months ago.  As a seventeen-year-old living in Canada, the notion of going to war and being killed, of knowing friends who were killed, seemed a world away; living in Israel for a year, with friends who are making aliyah and planning to serve in the IDF, changes the picture drastically.

I identify as a pacifist, and see all war as inherently bad (though, at times, war can be justified).  Having spent a year in Israel and having the opportunity to commemorate Memorial Days which mean something, my pacifist leanings are only strengthened, as there is nothing like living in a country where every family has been touched by one of the many wars or terrorist attacks that have occurred in this young country to hammer home the notion that war ought to be avoided at all costs.

(This post was cross-posted to the MASA Blog!)
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[Student Profile] Farrah Green

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“How do I make a positive impact on Israeli society as a Jew living in America?” Farrah Green contemplates aloud.

Farrah has felt a sense of ‘home’ in Israel ever since her March of the Living trip in 2000, and unlike many foreigners studying in Jerusalem she has no sense of being the tourist in Israel. “My roommate is an Israeli, and I have other friends living in Israel – I feel very integrated into society here.”

At the University of Arizona Farrah became a pro-Israel student activist, learning much about building relationships with U.S. Congress members, and the tremendous impact of politics on society and international relations. “The U.S. government provides Israel with three billion dollars in aid every year;” she points out, “much more than the U.S. Jewish Federation.” After college, Farrah worked as a Hillel Jewish Campus Service Corps Fellow, and then continued her pro-Israel activism by working directly for AIPAC.

Today, Farrah is studying at Pardes during the third year of her Wexner Fellowship. She completed her MSW at Washington University in St. Louis last year, and she considered remaining at WUSTL for an MA in Jewish studies, but Pardes’ traditional chevruta-style studies drew her to Jerusalem. After all, she already has a degree in Jewish studies, and she wants to develop some “practical” Jewish skills this year.

Of course, the proactive Farrah wasted little time before looking for volunteer opportunities in the community beyond Pardes, and she now sits on the steering committee of PresenTense‘s Spring issue magazine. “I don’t consider myself much of a writer so I really appreciate this opportunity to be involved at PresenTense;” she says with a smile, “and now two Pardes students and one of the faculty have submitted pitches to the magazine!”

One day, Farrah hopes to create a positive Jewish learning environment back home in Kansas City or St. Louis – she wants to be near her family. Of course, they’re all missing her this year, but she’s visiting them for Chanukah, and she’s bringing back Israeli dreidels and chocolate rugelach from a bakery in Jerusalem… besides, they’re familiar with her passion – she’ll never be far from Israel no matter where she ends up.

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