A sad visit

There were new gravestones jutting into the familiar, well-trodden walkways of the Old Herzliya Cemetery. We had come to visit my parents, who lay peacefully in a corner, next to each other, for eternity. And to pay tribute to our brother-in-law Zeev, whose own grave lay nearby. Of course the cemetery was serene, bearing no signs of the struggles that entry into this hallowed place often includes.

My parent’s stones each bore the name Litwak in English script. They had spent much of their long lives in America and spoke little Hebrew despite their many years in Israel. Many other immigrants’ markers were similarly noted, with their names engraved in French, Russian, Polish, German, Arabic. They too had arrived in this place from numerous other lands from which Jews had left, or fled, or been forced out, never to return.

Zeev, much younger than my parents, a fighter in all of Israel’s 20th-century wars, lay in another section, with his name in Hebrew script, Zeev Goren, a name he chose for himself when he finally reached his home in the Holy Land. Zigu Gorfinkle, Romanian Holocaust refugee, had ceased to exist.

We spoke to all three of them, knowing that they could not possibly hear us but compelled to tell them our stories nonetheless. There have been many welcome new additions to our family and much to report. Somehow we imagined we could feel their joy. We could certainly anticipate how they would have responded had they still been living amongst us.

The graves were separated into sections, and as we walked from my parents’ section to Zeev’s, we came to a large area of military burial sites. These were the pure white matzevot (gravestones) of those who had died in Israel’s wars. Row after row after row, almost exclusively very young adults. Herzliya had sacrificed many many sons and daughters in the battles for Israel’s life. They lay before us.

And then we arrived at the newest, freshest spots: those lost in the past two years of war in Gaza. These plots brought changing images to Israeli cemeteries, with new customs evolving. Many had the familiar stones placed upon them but these were painted white and covered with heartbroken messages from friends and family. There were beer bottles, tennis balls, and other paraphernalia from lives interrupted, never to resume. These were the shocking deaths of those in their very prime, those whose parents screamed to the world in agony that their children had left before them.

Next we came to the harrowing sight of 14 freshly dug graves, empty, ready for new military occupants, chayalim who are still smiling, laughing, enjoying life, unknowing of the fates for which the cemetery has already prepared their graves. May those sites remain fallow forever.

Yesterday we drove to some of the places where the death and destruction of this terrible war in Gaza shook the world. It is almost impossibly hard to reconcile what we saw, the peaceful farmland, the pastoral views, the flowers and trees that brought life and beauty to a desert, the songs and voices of children at play, and men and women at work, rebuilding what has been destroyed, unable to bring back the enormous loss of beautiful beloved lives.

The war itself created new and dreadful locales of regional tourism. Be’eri. Alumim. Zikim. Kfar Aza. Sderot. On and on the list continues of settlements destined for peace and growth and beauty, places where relentless attacks brought murder and mayhem to tranquil oases, to generations of our people, our nation and our land.

There are no words of consolation. May the memories of those whose lives were lost be a blessing and may this be the last of all the wars. I promise you, my little one. At least that is my hope. And prayer.

Rosanne Skopp of West Orange is a wife, mother of four, grandmother of 14, and great-grandmother of nine. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. She is a lifelong blogger, writing blogs before anyone knew what a blog was! She welcomes email at rosanne.skopp@gmail.com