On the eve of Israel’s Remembrance Day, as sirens pierce the quiet of Israeli streets and the nation stands still to honour its fallen, something different will be happening far beyond Israel’s borders. This year, the pain pulses through the hearts of Jews across the diaspora. The grief is no longer distant – it is raw, personal, and inescapable. The surge in anti-Semitism, venomous and unapologetic, has woven our fates together.
Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers and victims of terror, has always been a deeply Israeli ritual. The massacre on 7 October, the hostages still held in Gaza, suspended between life and death, and the high death toll in the war, make this Remembrance Day particularly painful, with so many families joining the ever-growing circle of loss. Mine among them: four members of my family have been killed by Hamas and Hezbollah since October 2023. Two were mother and son killed by a Hezbollah missile while tending to their farm in northern Israel.
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