And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Our Dead
What one Jerusalem school tells us about Israel’s story
The principal began with a retelling of the story of October 7. Everyone there – close to a thousand people by my count – knew the story all too well. The soldiers at the border, the families crouched in fear in their ‘safe’ rooms, the ordinary citizens who confronted the Hamas hordes. His retelling, though, was different, although it took me a few moments to compute. For everyone he mentioned, whether soldier or civilian, whether dead or alive, had attended his school.
The Gymnasia Rehavia is one of the most famous schools in Israel. Originally known as the Hebrew Gymnasium (a term used in various European languages for a secondary school that prepares students for higher education), it was the second modern Jewish high school in Mandate Palestine, after the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium in Tel Aviv. Founded by Israel’s second president Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and his wife Rachel Yanait (among others), it was first located in Jerusalem’s Bukharan Quarter, and has been in its present location on Keren Kayemet Street in Rehavia since 1928. Today it remains one of Jerusalem’s best schools, and a bastion of Zionist secularism, with around 1,000 students per year.
Its list of alumni is highly impressive. To name some of the people who those outside of Israel might have heard of: Ephriam Katzir (Israel’s fourth president), the politicians Dan and Sallai Meridor, the IDF general Uzi Narkiss, the former president of the Supreme Court Miriam Naor, Yoni Netanyahu (the commander of the raid on Entebbe), the authors Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua, and Reuven Rivlin (Israel’s 10th president). Not many schools can name two presidents and two world-famous writers among their alumni.
We had gathered, though, on Yom Hazikaron, to remember alumni who had died during military service or had been killed in a terror attack. Many names had been added to that list since October 7, including one alumnus who had died just the previous week. The school’s vast courtyard was filled with fidgeting but quiet students on the bleachers, with the bereaved families on reserved seats to the side. At the front, on the podium, were the students and teachers responsible for the commemorations.
The ceremony began with the two-minute siren, everyone standing in silence, mostly with their heads bowed. It was a surprisingly windy and rainy day for mid-May, but it seemed appropriate somehow, the sun bursting through in breaks amidst the gloom. The structure was as follows: a chronological recital of the school’s fallen, from the pre-state period until today, interspersed with songs and eulogies from family and friends. Each time their name, the year they had graduated, and where they had been killed. The school’s pupils had died throughout Israel’s wars, but the largest proportion fell in 1948 or before, perhaps a reflection of the country’s demographic shifts since then.
The entire ceremony lasted just over an hour; the count took up at least half of the time. There was an unexpected beauty in the steady, sombre recital; the perfect, rhythmic annunciation of the details of the fallen, a piano playing softly in the background. A reminder that, contrary to all expectations, Israel can do solemnity well if required.
Before the ceremony I had taught a class about Yom Hazikaron, and one of the students had noted that, while in the UK Remembrance Day was about the past, here in Israel it was about the present. That felt particularly true this year. In a normal year, and depending on where you attend a ceremony, there won’t always be a recently bereaved speaker; post-October 7 it was guaranteed. Amidst the tears and idolization, though, it was hard to get a sense of the people being described. It felt like the eulogies had been written by some collective consciousness, the same one that produced the mournful songs for the day, the constant shift to the minor key and the distinct lack of individuality. It’s for this reason that I’ve often struggled to connect with Yom Hazikaron; the uniformity of the commemorations, the impossibility of getting a true sense of the person who had died.
The recital of the names of the fallen kept me focused; the impressive and consistent quiet of the students and the other attendees. Hearing Yoni Netanyahu’s name – impossible to think of now without immediately thinking of his brother – and the occasional mention of soldiers who didn’t die in a specific battle, but instead died ‘in the course of their duties,’ a euphemism for suicide. Also noteworthy was the fact that several speakers referring to Hamas murdering people “because they were Israelis,” a formulation that is much rarer these days than “because they were Jews,” and I wondered how they came to this decision (not that I necessarily disagreed with it), because for many it would be controversial, although there were no signs of discontent from the diverse and dignified crowd.
At the end, after we had sung Hatikvah, I thought of how in many ways Gymnasia Rehavia was like any other ‘elite’ school – proud of its alumni and longevity and academic achievements. But there was another, source of pride in the contribution it had made – in blood – to Israel’s history and survival. A pride that nobody wanted to feel, but it was present nonetheless, a dark, ghostly presence, without the silly prattling of politicians that took place elsewhere. And nobody had really wanted to be there, you could see it on everyone’s faces while we sat through that endless list of names and the terrible, anguished tears of the loved ones, but the important thing is that we were there, together, irrespective of our politics or our tribe, on the most terrible Yom Hazikaron yet.
Nice piece of writing.
Beautiful column.