By Gavi Tropper, Features Editor
On Tuesday evening, April 22, the Yeshiva University undergraduate community gathered in Lamport Auditorium for YU’s Yom Hazikaron and Yom Haatzmaut ceremony. Students from both campuses and faculty joined together to mark these central days on Israel’s national calendar.
The program was modeled after the Israeli government’s official Tekes Maavar, Hebrew for “transition ceremony.” A Tekes Maavar marks the transition from Yom Hazikaron, the memorial day for Israel’s fallen soldiers and victims of terror, into Yom Haatzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, that night. The program shifts from commemoration to celebration, emphasizing that the sacrifices remembered on Yom Hazikaron are what allow for the joy of Yom Haatzmaut.
Some did not appreciate the scheduling, though. “It was a very hard transition for me and I think some others,” Bailee Schwartz (SCW ‘27) said. “I think it was interesting that they didn’t do anything the night before.”
The lighting of a memorial candle by Kfir Slonimsky (YC ‘26), the communal recitation of a chapter of Psalms and Dean of Men’s Undergraduate Torah Studies (UTS) Rabbi Kalinsky’s recital of the Kel Maleh Rachamim memorial prayer marked the opening of the program, followed by opening remarks by YU President Ari Berman.
“One can think of no greater example of people who are living not just for themselves, but with a greater mission and purpose than our chayalim, than our soldiers,” Rabbi Berman said in his opening remarks.
Rabbi Berman also emphasized the importance for YU students to personally involve themselves in working for Israel as well: “Wherever you are, it is imperative that you join in the fight, that you see your lives as part of the greater purpose, to defend the state of Israel, and in a larger sense bring the geula (redemption).”
YU Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Meir Goldwicht spoke next about the centrality of the Land of Israel in the Torah’s framework, and the fitting placement of Yom Hazikaron and Yom Haatzmaut within the religious calendar. Noa Terenyo (SCW ‘26) told the stories of three soldiers who fell defending the city of Nahal Oz, one in the 2014 war with Hamas and two in Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023.
“Before October 7, none of us heard the name Nachal Oz,” Terenyo said in her speech. “But then October 7 happened and that name became a wound, a deep scar.”
She added, “Nachal Oz did not begin on October 7, and these brave men did not begin on October 7.”
Menachem Nissim (SSSB ‘28), who had fought in the Tzanchanim (paratrooper) division of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) for the last few years, spoke about three soldiers from his unit who were killed in battle, including his platoon commander, Omri Ben-Moshe. He showed a video that Ben-Moshe recorded before going into battle, for his baby daughter to watch when she was older.
“Little baby, I want to tell you that right now, Daddy is in the middle of a very, very important mission,” he said in Hebrew in the video. “Hakadosh Baruch Hu does with us a kindness, and gives in our hands the power and the strength to destroy this evil so that you and your cute little brothers that will come, with God’s help, will live in a better world, a more repaired world, a world in which the name of God will appear clearer and brighter.”
“I love you very, very, very much,” he concluded his message.
The program was interspersed with numerous performances by the Y-Studs, a YU male students acapella group, who sang “Shvurei Lev” by Israeli artist Chanan Ben-Ari, Kol Birama and Avinu SheBashamayim. The night concluded with the raising of the Israeli flag by Kovi Palmer (YC ‘26), an IDF veteran who left YU after October 7 to serve and a Y-Studs lead recitation of Hatikvah by the entire audience. A festive Maariv was then led by the Y-Studs in the Furman Gym, followed by dancing with an Israeli themed dinner.
Eitan Barenholtz (YC ‘27) appreciated the school’s programming. “It’s a beautiful time to gather and mark the transition from commemoration to celebration,” Barenholtz told the YU Observer. “And Jordan Jessin is just amazing — Jordan Jessin, Aiden Harrow, and all the Y-Studs. I wish I could just listen to them all day.”
“Singing ‘shvurei lev’— which was kind of a post October 7 anthem for grief in Israel—bringing it to this program, and being the one to sing it, was very special for me personally,” Yeshiva Student Union President and Y-Studs Co-President Aiden Harrow (YC ‘26) told the YU Observer.
“Just hearing from our fellow students– the boys and the girls– was the most impactful,” Schwartz said. “It’s one thing to hear a story from somebody who’s from Israel or someone who’s Israeli and someone who’s foreign to us, but to hear it from our fellow students, the fellow girls we’re in class with, the boys we go to shiur with, I think that’s the most impactful.”
“The thing that really stuck with me, the thing I really remembered,” Yaakov Halstuch (YC ‘28) told the YU Observer, “was the statement I heard a few times there by one or two people that said: just think of one name, focus on one name, one person, and learn about that one person, and focus in on one person, and think about them, and try and learn something from them specifically.”
“I thought it was a lot more emotionally impactful than I was expecting it to be,” Halstuch said. “It was a lot more authentic than I was worried it might be.”
Photo Credit: Yeshiva University