Due to the spread of the coronavirus, Yom HaShoah and, one week later, Memorial Day for the country’s fallen will be held this year without crowds, and bereaved families will be forbidden to visit the graves of their heroic loved ones.
In response, Eliphaz Baluha, bereaved father of the late Master Sergeant Nadav Baluha who was killed in a clash with Hezbollah terrorists near the village of Maroun El Ras during the Second Lebanon War, told FM 103 Radio on Monday that he was willing to pay the price and sit in jail in order to visit his son’s grave.
“I wrote and said it more than a week ago and other parents, sporadically, I think, feel the same way I do,” said the bereaved father. “I’ll put it simply: when I get up in the morning, even during the coronavirus days, my first thought is about my son who fell in battle. For me, Memorial Day is far more important than going to the supermarket to take care of my food, because for me it’s something exceptional, as someone who does not visit the cemetery during the year other than on Memorial Day and the death anniversary, for me, this is the most important day. It’s something that is the essence of life for me, Memorial Day.”
Baluha criticized Culture Minister Miri Regev (Likud) who announced, a month and a half ago, the cancellation of the public features of Memorial Day – namely the crowds of bereaved family members who descend on the military cemeteries around Israel for a day-long national remembrance.
No one is telling us what it is we can do on memorial Day, the bereaved father Baluha told FM 103.
Master Sergeant Nadav Baluha was a soldier in the Egoz special force of the Golani Brigade. Besides his monument that was erected in his hometown of Carmiel, in northern Israel, the local First League basketball team a few years ago named itself Maccabi “Nadav” Carmiel – responding to his father’s tireless efforts. In February of this year, the team miraculously defeated Maccabi Haifa from the Premier League 71-67 in the National Cup games. Then, of course, all sports meetings in Israel were stopped because of the coronavirus.
The bereaved father Eliphaz declared that, come Memorial Day, “I’ll get up and go [visit my son’s grave] and I expect my son and daughter and wife to come with me, as well.”
What about the police?
“I will go through them, and if I’m forced to be cuffed and sit in prison because I wanted to go, then that’s the price I will pay,” he said.
“When my son went, he didn’t ask what were the meanings behind the mission they gave him. For me, it’s my mission to be in the cemetery,” he said. “We can be considerate of the public health, we can think of solutions, but if Lag B’Omer rituals can be carried out in Meron, with all due respect, and I respect the religion and I pray, but it’s less important than attending the Memorial Day ceremony. If they say they will permit these ceremonies, if today open-air prayer minyanim can be held, and if political demonstrations can be held, which is the primary democratic right in the State of Israel, you can find a solution to a ceremony for bereaved parents, for the nuclear families, even if it’s done in shifts.”
“So there are solutions, but the easiest solution they all go to is to cancel. If it weren’t Memorial Day, which is a holy day for all the people of Israel, I would have organized a 6-foot distance march in keeping with the rules, with hundreds of citizens, not just the bereaved families, going to the cemetery as a rally. […] I know how much Nadav’s friends want to come,” Eliphaz said.
“We see a complete imperviousness [among political leadership] to what is happening to the people. Absolute imperviousness, and it is in all areas,” the bereaved father said.
