Today is Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day – a day on which, pretty much regardless of politics, everybody in Israel, or who cares about Israel, takes note of the losses of those who have fallen.  Israel is a small country, and one in which most people serve in the military, so unlike in America, the day hits very close to home, regardless of political or religious affiliation. 

In past years, the day has come to formally include the mourning of those who were murdered in terrorist attacks.  For some time that inclusion made me uncomfortable.  Do we really want to include murder victims along with those who served in uniform?  Would American be comfortable with lumping in the murder victims of 9/11 with the fallen soldiers who have lost their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq?

There has to be a difference between innocent victims of crime, whether here or in Israel.  If we do make that distinction, are we not succumbing to the murderers’ claim that both soldiers and civilians are “legitimate targets”?  If we mourn terror victims and fallen soldiers together, do we not blur a line which should remain clear and bright regardless of politics and policy?

Those are the issues with which I have wrestled for some time, but not as much this year.  For reasons which I can neither fully explain, nor fully justify, it seems to me that by mourning all of these losses together, we force ourselves to admit the grotesque truth about the fact that for our enemies, the distinction between military and civilians really does not exist. 

Opening ourselves to that fact, and allowing it to shape the way a nation mourns, also gives rise to a serious ethical challenge – how to fight an enemy which fails to make even the most fundamental humane distinctions, without becoming like them.  Classically, the notion of a fair fight is one in which both sides engage based on roughly the same terms.  Clearly, that is not the case in Israel’s situation, or in much of that confronted by the United States.

As I mourn the loss of friends and students today, I am left wondering what it means to honor their memories by remaining strong, hopeful and eternally committed to the premise that we can beat our enemies without becoming a version of them.  That’s not easy to do for many reasons, not least of which is the old adage that the longer two sides are engaged in a conflict, the more alike they become.

For me, Yom Hazikaron reminds me, among other things, of how strong we must be on two fronts: the external military one and the internal ethical one.  It is toward the building of a society which achieves both of those strengths that I believe Israel’s fallen gave their lives.  May their memories be blessed.