Days like this feel just like in the song "To the Land of the Deer," where it says: "Her sorrow and her joy are the warp and weft of her daily cloth." In our private world, there is bottomless grief over what is no longer, and also endless joy and pride in what still is, in who Saadia was, in what he symbolized, and in what he left behind for his children.

In the national sphere, there is profound grief over everything not yet achieved, the defeat of evil, the release of our hostages, and the price we have paid in fighting evil. And at the same time, there is immense pride in what we have accomplished in 77 years of statehood, and in the extraordinary society we call the people of Israel.

Today, on Memorial Day, we are held together as a family. People come from all across the country, bringing a symbolic gift, a flower, or kind words. Knowing that these fallen heroes are held in the heart of this nation gives us strength. Because when you face a mountain of sorrow alone, that's all you can see. But when others stand with you, you grow stronger. On Memorial Day, we are all together.

Last week, I participated in the March of the Living at Auschwitz-Birkenau, standing before tallitot that the Nazis, may their names be erased, stole from the Jews. I couldn't stop thinking of the image of Saadia on the last day of his life, wrapped in a tallit and wearing tefillin, just moments before going into battle. About two months ago, when his son was born, his wife Racheli gave my husband Chaim her late husband's tallit to wear at the brit. That image, of the continuation of generations, shows how much sorrow lives in our people, and just as powerfully, how much pride. Pride in belonging to a nation that refuses to surrender to evil, that insists on hoping for a better future.

And I say "hoping" because hope is an active choice. It means doing something to make things better, not assuming it will happen on its own. That was Saadia. And that was the spirit of his comrades when they put on their uniforms. Miracles, fighting for the sake of good.

I wasn't born in this country; I chose it. And when I see people treating it like it's a given, I cry out. Because this country is anything but a given. It's the result of thousands of years of history coming together. And we must never take it for granted.

The author is the mother of Staff Sgt. (res.) Saadia Yaakov Derai, who fell on June 20, 2024. 

The post "Grief for what is gone, infinite pride for what remains": The story of Saadia Yaakov Derai appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

A famous Israeli performer recently accused a right-wing Mizrachi lawmaker of making "Israel a more violent place." It appears that this performer would prefer to be much paler so that no one would, God forbid, associate him with that lawmaker and others from the same ethnic background. 

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I made aliyah in 1990 with a sense of self-esteem up through the roof, knowing that people like me made it to the highest echelons in France because of their hard work and skills. That's why I have never bought into the ill-conceived notion that there are some cultures that are superior to others or that the Sephardi temperament is somewhat more violent and uncivilized. I never accepted what some in our political culture see as the only normal way of living, thinking, and moving up the social ladder.

I am not surprised by the attempts by various right-wing parties to distance themselves by what they consider "the Likud mob." Their all-out efforts to sever their ties from former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are in fact their way to trying to stand apart from the middle-class Sephardi Israelis who have been on the rise due to Likud being in power for many years and its liberal economic policies. 

The success of France's Jews is proof that those from North Africa should not feel inferior to their Ashkenazi fellow Jews and it shows that when a state lifts barriers and gives opportunities, you can conquer any summit. 

They immigrated to France in the 1960s from Morroco, Algeria, and Tunisia and transformed the country. I believe no other country – other than Israel – has been changed so much because of immigrants since World War II. To paraphrase an antisemitic publication in the 1930s and 1940s, the "Jews are simply everywhere." They can be found in politics (including the newly minted presidential candidate Eric Zemmour), in the sciences, in cultural venues, in the business world. No matter what channel you flip, you will most likely see Jewish personas. If you stroll down Paris' Champs–Élysées you will see plaques denting Jewish-owned law firms next to some of the fanciest buildings. Likewise, some of the most famous Nobel laureates are hail from French Jewry. 

Unfortunately, some in Israel have not realized just how much of a contribution Sephardi Jews have brought to Israel or their superb ability to adapt to their new country, their fusion of West and East, and their holding on to their Jewish identity and uncompromising attachment toward their relatives even if there are disagreements. In a society such as Israel, where divisions are so present in our daily lives, one should perhaps look at and learn from Sephardi Jews' way of combining two worlds.

It is high time that we, the Sephardi Israelis, stand for who we are because no single culture has moral or social superiority. All Israelis will benefit from this. 

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I don't know Haim Shedmi. I understand that he was one of the better-known anti-Netanyahu protesters, and takes pride in the description of "left-wing activist." Last week, he gave a performance that boiled down the essence of how low the camp that supposedly espouses humanism and opposes violence can go. In a speech full of pathos, eyes wet with tears and deep hatred, Shedmi called on the government to give him a gun to point at "the settlers."

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At me, in other world. This militaristic all was greeted by thunderous applause from all those present at the discussion, which was held at the Knesset under the title: "Stop the settler violence." Again, "the."

The conference, organized by MKs from Meretz, Labor, and the Joint Arab List, took place a day after the late Eliyahu Kay was murdered in the Old City of Jerusalem. Irony was welcome, but common sense, morality, and brotherhood were all absent.

In recent months, "violence by the settlers" has become a code that is designed to become a fact on the ground. A quick Google search yields dozens of pages of position papers under that title put out by groups such as Yesh Din, Human Rights Watch, Peace Now, or the UN's "Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Occupied Palestinian Territory."

When I see a well-orchestrated campaign, the first question I ask is, who does it serve? Who has an interest in portraying the residents of the communities beyond the Green Line as potential terrorists simply because they are there? Who wants to make the Israeli public forget who Israel's true enemy is?

I want to offer you a glimpse at the daily life of one resident of these communities, who drives on their roads daily and knows that there are certain times at which one shouldn't drive past a school in Lubban ash-Sharqia, because there's nearly a 50-50 chance you'll get a rock thrown at you. One who knows that in this Russian roulette, the moment a Jew tries to defend himself, there will be hordes of Palestinian photographers, funded by foreign money, waiting to document "the settler violence" and disseminate the footage.

Who benefits from delegitimizing the residents of the settlements? Sadly, the people who want to do that are currently sitting around the cabinet table. And what will happen the day it's not Naftali Bennett sitting at the head of the table as prime minister, but Yair Lapid? The same Lapid who in 2006, after the Gush Katif explusion, wrote: "Why was it so urgent for Israel to pull out of Gaza? I want to propose a theory: it wasn't despite the settlers, but rather because of them. It was never about the Palestinians, demography, the desire for a peace agreement, the IDF being comparatively worn down, or any other of the explanations we have been given. The motivation was completely different: it is rooted in the disruption of the delicate balance that existed between the settler society and Israeli society." According to the alternate prime minister, there was a need "to teach the settlers a lesson in modesty, and maybe democracy, as well."

The lesson hasn't been learned well enough. Lapid and his camp have a monopoly on democracy, as we know, and particularly on "normalcy." And what could be less "normal" in the eyes of the progressive camp than people who insist on holding to their values and believe with all their hearts that their path is the right one, having been paved by a divine commandment? The battle against "the settlers" is just the tip of the iceberg. The next stage will be much broader.

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