A Day like no Other

Friday, June 1st 2001 at the Tel Aviv Dolphin disco

Today, we expect that many Jewish educators will want to create a memorial ceremony for the victims of the horrific suicide bombing outside a discotheque at the Tel Aviv Dolphinarium on Friday night, and we would like to give you some guidance, pointers and information to help you do this in a meaningful manner for the group and its individuals, within your limited time.
The suggested outline takes you from outside into the depth of the emotional pain and human dilemmas, with the traditional prayers providing a method of dignified and respectful conclusion.

Index

Notes
Setting up the Ceremony
Outline
* Opening Words
* Minute of Silence
* Readings
* Sorrow and Soul-Searching
* Lighting the Candles (Names of the Victims)
* Prayers
Personal Expressions of Condolence
Talk Through
News Links
Poem by Ephraim Sidon

 

Notes

1. As you prepare and perform this ceremony, funerals will be taking place in Israel for some of the victims.
2. Working with young people and talking about young people being slaughtered make this a particularly sensitive engagement.
3. We have something to say as Jewish Agency personnel who have nurtured the aliyah of the young people who died on Friday night, a personal note of grief.
4. This is not the place for a frontal or group discussion of the incident, and especially not for calls for revenge, but if you are working with a small group (rather than a school assembly or large group), you may wish to work through feelings (bewilderment, fear, connection), reinforce a sense of personal security, talk about how participants can make their opinions known.
5. See also guidelines for activities & clarification for Yom Hazikaron http://www.jajz-ed.org.il/festivls/zkatz/zk/acts.html

Setting up the Ceremony

1. Personal contributions and readings can be prepared before the Memorial ceremony if the ceremony closes your activities - and copied onto the Memorial board at the Exhibit.

2. Please provide memorial candles on a raised platform, copies of readings for participants.
Take care if you choose to allow personal candles, as this is not good fire safety practice.

3. Pictures of the students can be duplicated for a memorial exhibit. (Please do not use pictures of the attack zone.) See : http://www.jafi.org.il/agenda
Images of memorial candles can be taken from this file http://www.jajz-ed.org.il/actual/rabin.html

4. Letters and cards of condolence can be prepared and dispatched to families. Another option is a condolence book.

5. A Memorial board allows people to write their individual feelings for a period of time. Prepare writing materials and more memorial candles (unlit)

Outline of Ceremony

I. Opening words

- On Friday night a lethal suicide bomb attack took place in south Tel Aviv, extracting a terrible toll on dozens of innocent young people: 20 killed - almost entirely teenagers; 120 injured - 2 young people in critical condition, 6 seriously wounded; one quarter of the injured still in hospital.
- We express our horror at this heinous crime, as we recognize our fears for the safety of all Israel's citizens.
At this moment we voice our total condemnation of this cruel, murderous act designed to kill & maim, and we wish to be part of a commemoration with a special message: that we share in the grief of the families and their suffering.
We would like to convey our condolences and pray for the recovery of the injured victims.
We wish to pray for the safety of Israel and peace for the Jewish State.

II. Minute of Silence

- So that we may each reflect and may remember in our hearts in our own way.

III. Readings

Readings should be thoughtful, and may be taken from Jewish, Israeli or general sources, including the media.
Focus can be: loss, youth, friendship, dreams of the future, perceptions of Israel.

Readings of poetry may also be taken from files #2-#3 from Yom Hazikaron. http://www.jajz-ed.org.il/festivls/zkatz/zk/index.html
and poems by Yehuda Amichai, from an anthology - or see http://info.jpost.com/2000/Supplements/Amihai/3.html
http://info.jpost.com/2000/Supplements/Amihai/7.html
http://info.jpost.com/2000/Supplements/Amihai/9.html
http://info.jpost.com/2000/Supplements/Amihai/10.html

Please note the appropriate references for Psalms & Ecclesiastes appear in file #3

IV. Sorrow and Soul-Searching

Israel is no stranger to losses, but each time an innocent person dies in a terrorist attack the wounds are re-opened, and it might seem like our grief knows no bounds. How can Israel live through this and go on?

We ask these questions, both inside and outside Israel - and we do not have the complete answer.

No cause justifies individual or group murder in our liberal democratic world: there is no political cause which justifies the slaughter of any Israeli, young or old.

We feel a deep need to express our unity with the families of the victims and the injured in Israel and with all the Jewish People. We feel your pain and grief and want to stand with you, beside you.
Across continents and down the generations we have sought peace and survival as a People. Today, we seek it both in Israel and in the countries where we live.

We do not know why these young people, especially - for whom we worked so hard to make it possible to come from the former USSR and live in Israel - should be the target of this heinous crime.
We know only that this adds an additional bitterness to the blow and the heartbreak - that the freedom of a million former Soviet Jews in Israel should be so marred by bloodshed, and the vision of their homecoming so scarred as their children are killed and maimed on the verge of their adult life.

Israel decided 10 days ago not to retaliate under this extreme provocation and called a ceasefire, to prevent further escalation. It is Israel's spiritual and mental strength that these terrorists seek to shatter with their bombs, even more than the frail human body. Israel has chosen not to apply its physical strength, but observe a policy restraint, an expression of its great reserves of emotional strength.
"There is strength in silence" - PM Ariel Sharon
The world can see clearly that it is indeed not Israel which initiates and escalates the cycle violence, but the propaganda machine of Yassir Arafat's Palestinian Authority and its publicly tolerated, fanatical, militant groups.

We cry out our protest at the acceptance and tolerance for those who incite towards and instigate terror.
* We appeal to every sane and decent person to condemn and bring pressure on the perpretrators of this violence against Israel and her citizens - without conditions, and as a basic human right.
* We call upon every democratic leader and politician to withdraw support for terrorist organizations and their supporters - because funds to their coffers or even passive condoning only encourages the bloodshed.

V. Lighting the Candles

If possible, allow several participants to light candles in front of the group at a large ceremony, or one by one in a small group.
At this point, read out the names of those killed :

"We mourn the deaths and commemorate the lives of the innocent young people at the Dophinarium discotheque last Friday night. "

Jan Blum, 25, Ramat Gan
Marina Borokovsky, 17, Tel Aviv
Roman Dezanshvili, 21, Bat Yam
Roman Gorochovsky, 20
Ilya Gutman, 14, Bat Yam
Anya Kachkova, 16, Holon
Katherine Kastiniyada Talkir, 15, Ramat Gan
Aleksei Lupalov, 16, Ukraine
Mariana Medvedenko, 16, Tel Aviv
Irena Nepomniyzhych, 16, Bat Yam
Yelena Nalimov, 18, Tel Aviv
Yulia Nalimov, 16 Tel Aviv
Raisa Nimrovsky, 15, Netanya
Diez (Dani) Normanov, 21
Irena Osadchiy, 18, Holon
Simona Rodin, 18, Holon
Liana Sakiyan, 16, Tel Aviv
Ori Shahar, 32, Ramar Gan
Yulia Skolnik, 15, Holon
Maria Tagilchev, 14, Netanya
Mariana Zhykovskaya, 17, Tel Aviv

Evgenia Haya Dorfman, 15, critically injured in the suicide bombing at the Tel Aviv Dolphinarium, died Tuesday morning 19th June, bringing to 21 the number of victims.

"Yehi zichram baruch - may their memory be blessed."

VI. Prayers

El Maleh Rahamim & Kaddish in Hebrew

http://www.jajz-ed.org.il/festivls/zkatz/zk/images/elmale.jpg
Lines 5-7 need to be changed:

lenishmot hakdoshim shenaflu bepigu'a teror beTel Aviv vemasru nafsham...

http://www.jajz-ed.org.il/festivls/zkatz/zk/images/kadish.jpg

A prayer for the recovery and for those still in critical condition:

Mi sheberach avoteinu Avraham Yitzchak veYaakov, Moshe veAharon David uShlomo, Hu yevarekh virapeh et nifga'ei peulat hateror beTel Aviv.
Hakadosh Baruch Hu yemaleh rachamim aleihem lehachlimam ulerapotam ulehachzikam ulehchayotam veYishlach lahem meheira refuah sheleimah min hashamayim lechol avareihem ulechol gideihem betoch she'ar cholei Yisrael, refu'at hanefesh urefhuat haguf, hadhta ba'agala uvisman kariv, venomar amen.

Personal Expressions of Condolence

A quiet time to allow young people to walk around, compose a poem or any item for the memorial board, talk to each other, write condolence messages, light more candles.

Talk through

Provide a coffee table or informal atmosphere for young people and counselors to talk through the feelings of bewilderment, fear, need to connect and offer links for further reading, organized activity.

News Links

Updates with ambulance rescue team, links http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/home.asp
Newsflash with area map http://www2.haaretz.co.il/breaking-news/Newsflash/365328.stm
Jerusalem Post report and additional files http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/06/03/News/News.27371.html
CNN captures the ambulance rescue on gallery http://www.cnn.com/interactive/world/0106/telaviv.gallery/frameset.exclude.html

http://www.yourdear.co.il/dolfinarium.html
[Hebrew version only, works in IE5 upwards.]
Recent photographs of the victims killed in the discotheque bombing; send a condolence letter.
Click on a photo to see a biography/send individual condolences/

Memorial website http://www.yourdear.co.il/build.html
Please note - this appears to be a business agreement whereby you can build any memorial album in return for agreement to purchase it.

Link to place: http://www.yourdear.co.il/dolfinarium.html
[Hebrew version only, works in IE5 upwards.]
Recent photographs of the victims killed in the discotheque bombing; send a condolence letter.
Click on a photo to see a biography/send individual condolences/

Memorial website http://www.yourdear.co.il/build.html
Please note - this appears to be a business agreement whereby you can build any memorial album in return for agreement to purchase it.

Poem

Absorption Basket - A Poem by Ephraim Sidon (c)

Reprinted and translated with the author's permission from Maariv 04 June 2001.

A future transformed into the past / Hope that became tears / For is this not one path / To becoming part of this land

They came to ensure their children's safety
Skies of blue and heat of sun
The national anthem unknown to many
But their souls indeed are yearning.

They came to give their children hope
Bright light, opportunity and space
Leaving behind the past, their friends, their love
Even husbands and fathers.

They came to give their children a future
The wilderness generation carrying the weight
Of financial struggle, even outright hostility
For the sake of their sons and daughters.

They came to give their children everything
Whatever they need, whatever they can manage
They came to give their children everything
And remain with nothing, without tomorrow.

Between the roar of the explosion and the sound of weeping
There are no longer native Israelis and olim
Irena, Yulia and Ilya become
Israeli names.

A future transformed into the past
Hope that became tears
For is this not one path
To becoming part of this land.

How terrible and how painful it is
How sad and how despair-provoking
That the fate of children in this land
Is sealed with blood and fire.

NB

Car bombs in Jerusalem
And tragedy in Tel Aviv
Do we pass muster now, Mr Landau?
A question from Uzi Haviv

May we now taste again
Some cheese and take a sip of wine
Or do we have to wait until
Another Raanana tragedy still?

June 5, 2001