Thoughts A Year Later

Unlike last year, I did not go to a Memorial Day ceremony this year.

However, I'd like to take this opportunity to share some thoughts about the ceremony I attended last year.

Yes, "muted" is definitely the correct word to describe the IDF's official military ceremony for fallen soldiers and terror victims. And on further reflection, I absolutely think that the ceremony is muted by design. However, I do not think that the ceremony is muted for cynical reasons, but rather by necessity.

The official IDF ceremony is open to the public, but it is for the families of those who have died. Those families don't need a moving ceremony to remind them of their losses: those families need quiet acknowledgment that something terrible happened. And I'm sure there's a reason that President Rivlin chose to allocate a portion of his mere 15-minute speech to repeating what he told those families when he visited them the first time, that the dead would want their families to choose to continue.

Muted is the only option.