With the sun drenching the plaza outside of Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center, hospital staff, patients and visitors gathered to commemorate Yom Hazikaron- IDF Soldier Remembrance Day. In addition to the 22,684 men and women memorialized on this day, special attention was made to those from within the Shaare Zedek family who have lost loved ones during service in the IDF and to acts of terror.
 

The ceremony included musical presentations and reading of various texts by Shaare Zedek staff members. Following the two minute siren which is heard all across the country, Professor Jonathan Halevy addressed the crowd saying “We honor those who were sanctified in their deaths because their deaths were only to allow us to continue to live. We are therefore here to demonstrate our solidarity with those family members who have lost their loved ones.”

A special reading was dedicated to the story of the Peretz family who lost its second son Eliraz only three weeks ago after their first son Uriel was killed in Lebanon almost twelve years earlier. Eliraz was also a close friend and neighbor of Roi Klien, an IDF officer who was credited with saving the lives of his soldiers by jumping on a grenade and losing his own life during the Second Lebanon War.

The ceremony also included a prayer for the safe return of Gilad Shalit who remains in captivity for more than four years. 

With the sun drenching the plaza outside of Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center, hospital staff, patients and visitors gathered to commemorate Yom Hazikaron- IDF Soldier Remembrance Day. In addition to the 22,684 men and women memorialized on this day, special attention was made to those from within the Shaare Zedek family who have lost loved ones during service in the IDF and to acts of terror.
 

The ceremony included musical presentations and reading of various texts by Shaare Zedek staff members. Following the two minute siren which is heard all across the country, Professor Jonathan Halevy addressed the crowd saying “We honor those who were sanctified in their deaths because their deaths were only to allow us to continue to live. We are therefore here to demonstrate our solidarity with those family members who have lost their loved ones.”

A special reading was dedicated to the story of the Peretz family who lost its second son Eliraz only three weeks ago after their first son Uriel was killed in Lebanon almost twelve years earlier. Eliraz was also a close friend and neighbor of Roi Klien, an IDF officer who was credited with saving the lives of his soldiers by jumping on a grenade and losing his own life during the Second Lebanon War.

The ceremony also included a prayer for the safe return of Gilad Shalit who remains in captivity for more than four years.