Memorial Day for Israel’s Fallen
Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day) is a day of interrupted lives and unfinished stories. It confronts us with the human cost of Jewish sovereignty, measured not in abstractions but in names, faces, and absence. Mourning here is not private grief alone, but a collective reckoning with responsibility and loss. Yom HaZikaron demands attentiveness, humility, and the painful awareness that national survival carries a price that can never be fully redeemed.
4 Iyyar 5786
Begins at Sundown on Monday, April 20, 2026
Ends at Nightfall on Tuesday, April 21, 2026
In Israel, Yom Ha’atzmaut and Yom HaZikaron by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
Words on my Grandsons Enlisting in the Israeli Defense Forces. The joy and honor of joining Israel's army relate to 4,000 years of Jewish history, morals, and ethics, and the universal good.
In Yom HaZikaron by Yael Shahar
The DCA Think Tank gathered last night to mark Yom Hazikaron together, sharing stories of fallen soldiers and victims of terror with whom they had a personal connection, and talking about the day and what it brings up for them.
In English and in Hebrew
In Liturgy & Ritual and Yom HaZikaron by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
A prayer for the Jewish soldier on behalf of those dwelling in the Diaspora.
An open letter to my friends and students in Chutz La'aretz
In Israel and Yom HaZikaron by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
An open letter to my friends and students in Chutz La'aretz on the background of the Arab terror attacks in Israel.