Ohana opens session to mark 75 years of the Knesset with moment’s silence: Today ‘is not a happy birthday’
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
This year’s anniversary of the founding of the Knesset “is not a happy birthday,” says Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, opening a special session marking 75 years since the establishment of the parliament attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog.
“The war exacts a heavy price from us every day, for a 110 days now. Yesterday we woke up to a particularly difficult and painful morning, when we learned that no fewer than 24 of our sons, IDF soldiers, had fallen in the past day. Twenty-four souls, each of which is a whole world,” he says, calling for a moment of silence.
“One hundred and ten days our brothers and sisters, whose beautiful pictures look down on us here from above, have been in the captivity of Hamas. For one hundred and ten days our hearts and thoughts have been with the victims of October 7, from the cities, the moshavim, the kibbutzim, the partygoers, the soldiers of the IDF, the Israel Police and all of the security forces.”
He quotes fallen soldier Elkana Vizel who wrote that “we have so much to be proud of and be happy about, we are a generation of redemption! We are writing the most significant moments in the history of our nation, and of the entire world. So please be optimistic. Keep choosing life all the time. A life of love, hope, purity, and optimism.”
“This house was not always characterized by all of these. May we consider – all of us, together and separately – to agree to the prayer of a fallen soldier, to strengthen each other,” Ohana tells his fellow lawmakers.
The first use of the phrase Am Yisrael Chai — the people of Israel lives — was recorded following the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, he recalls, stating that “the people of Israel are no strangers to riots, persecutions, massacres and the Holocaust. But always, out of the deep pain, out of grief and bereavement, out of the abysmal sorrow and sadness, we knew how to grow, build, learn and teach, blossom and bloom, live, and bring life into the world. It will be the same this time,” he says.
“Elkana was right when he said that we are writing the most significant moments in the history of our nation and commanded us to be happy and united,” he concludes, declaring “Am Yisrael Chai.”
