Haredim to recite Psalms for fallen IDF soldiers

Thousands of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Israelis will mark Yom Hazikaron (Remembrance Day) by lighting a virtual candle and reciting Psalms to honor the memory of fallen soldiers.

With the coronavirus emergency forcing official ceremonies to be held without any public and preventing bereaved families and friends from visiting their loved ones at the cemeteries, the upcoming Remembrance Day, which will start on Monday at nightfall, will be different from any other in the country’s history.

However, the crisis also represents an opportunity for the people of Israel to foster a sense of unity and community, as explained to The Jerusalem Post by former Education Minister and national-religious Rabbi Shai Piron, one of the organizers of the initiative “One People – Loving and Remembering.”

“For more secular Israelis, commemorating the fallen is embodied by standing in silence and listening to the siren,” Piron said. “Haredim feel that this custom does not belong to the Jewish tradition. For them, the appropriate way to honor the deceased is to recite Psalms, learn Mishna (collection of Jewish oral traditions) and light candles.”

In the framework of the project, participants can choose among the 24,000 soldiers who lost their life for Israel, learn about who they were and recite Psalms for them. The organizers are also helping them connect with the bereaved families.

The initiative is promoted by the haredi news platform Kikar HaShabbat and other organizations, including Bahadrei Haredim. Among the rabbis who are supporting it are Ashkenazi and Sephardi Chief Rabbis of Israel David Lau and Yitzhak Yosef, former Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, and Rabbi Reuven Elbaz, a member of the Shas Council of Torah Sages.

The relationship between the haredi world and the army has always been a source of tension within the Israeli society. Since before its foundation, most haredi groups have opposed or at least remained cold towards the idea of a state re-established by the Jewish people before the messianic era and ruled according to secular law as opposed to religious law.

Decades after, even if most groups have come to at least some form of recognition of the state, they still don’t serve in the army and the attempt to force a higher number of young haredi men to draft has been a great source of political and social tension.

“The situation today is different than in the past. A lot of people are starting to think that even if they are haredi and they do not consider Israel the fulfillment of the big dream of the Jewish people, they feel things are changing and they want to be a part of this change,” he concluded.