Sarasota Temple marks Israeli Memorial and Independence days

Israeli Memorial Day is approaching. The idea of the day is similar to America’s Memorial Day, but its tone is different.

“It’s a different holiday than Memorial Day in the United States,” said Rabbi Elaine Glickman of Temple Emanu-El in Sarasota. “In this country, we honor our soldiers who have died, but we also have picnics and we celebrate. In Israel, it’s a very solemn day of remembrance for the soldiers who gave their lives and the victims of terrorism.”

At one moment during Memorial Day in Israel, an alarm sounds in cities and towns throughout the entire country and virtually everything stops. People stop talking and eating, drivers pull over and turn off their cars, shops and restaurants stop conducting business. For a few moments, there is almost nothing happening in the entire country other than people meditating on others who have lost their lives.

The day is called, in Hebrew, Yom Hazikaron. The Jewish calendar and the Western calendar are different, and days start at night, so it’s not always on the same date in this county. This year it starts right after sunset on Sunday and continues until the next evening.

Yom Hazikaron is actually the first of two Israeli holidays. As soon as Memorial Day ends, Yom Ha’atzmaut — Israeli Independence Day — begins. Independence Day, there and here, is a day of boisterous celebration. Rabbi Glickman said that the mood is Israel changes instantaneously at sundown, at the beginning of the fifth day of the month of Iyar, as the somber Memorial Day yields to the exultant Independence Day.

Glickman and the rest of the congregation from Temple El-Emanuel, in partnership with the Jewish Federation of Sarasota-Manatee, will commemorate Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut on Sunday starting at 2 p.m. with a screening of a documentary film, a brief service, Israel-inspired food and a presentation by an Israeli emissary who has been living and working in Sarasota for the past few months.

(Rabbi Glickman acknowledges that 2 p.m. on Sunday will technically be several hours before the start of Yom Hazikaron. But it’s a more convenient time for a lot of people, and Israeli time is seven hours behind ours. So the commemoration will fall during Yom Hazikaron in Israel.)

The film is “Operation Entebbe,” a documentary about the 1976 hijacking of a of passenger plane that took off from Tel Aviv. It wad diverted to Uganda, where the government supported the hijackers. More than a week later, Israeli commandos rescued the passengers and killed the hijackers.

“We looked at a lot of different possibilities and decided that this was the the film that we really wanted people to see,” Rabbi Glickman said

The emissary’s name is Oded Israely. His exact title in Hebrew is “shaliach.” He’s a representative of the Israeli government and he goes to communities around the world to talk about Israel and Judaism. Before he became a shaliach, Israely served in the Israel Defense Forces and did volunteer work with children in Africa.

He’ll be returning home not long after Sunday’s observance, Rabbi Glickman said, but Sarasota could be honored with another visit shaliach within a few years.

Admission is $18 at the door, and it’s open to everyone of any faith. The money goes to the Victims of Terror Fund.

“So it’s a edifying afternoon,” Rabbi Glickman said, “and it supports a worthy cause.

Details: 2 p.m. April 30, Temple Emanu-El, 151 McIntosh Road, Sarasota. $18. 941-371-2788, sarasotatemple.org.

This story was originally published April 28, 2017 at 5:01 PM with the headline "Sarasota Temple marks Israeli Memorial and Independence days."