NBA player, Oct. 7 folk hero to be honored on Independence Day; singer declines
Yardena Arazi, lamenting wartime division, says she won’t join ‘Rachel from Ofakim,’ Deni Avdija, and 10-year-old Israel advocate at state ceremony on Mount Herzl next week
Israeli-American basketball player Deni Avdija, 10-year-old Israel advocate Ben Carasso, and October 7 heroine Rachel from Ofakim will be among the torchbearers at the state ceremony for Israel’s 77th Independence Day next week, the government announced on Monday.
Singer Yardena Arazi said she was asked to light a torch this year but turned down the offer, saying that “the torchlight ceremony is a state ceremony, but this is not a statesmanlike period.”
The honorees at the state ceremony, to be held at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem, have been announced on a rolling basis since Sunday afternoon by the office of Transportation Minister Miri Regev, who was tapped to lead the planning of the ceremony for the second year in a row.
There were thousands of recommendations made, and the committee that decides on the participating torch lighters is still in the process of announcing the participants, who may number as many as 36 this year.
Deni Avdija, an Israeli basketball player who was chosen ninth in the 2020 NBA draft — the highest of any Israeli in US basketball history — and just wrapped up a breakout season playing for the Portland Trail Blazers, will light a torch this year.
“Deni is a role model for Israeli youth: an example of how it’s possible to aspire to the highest heights without losing your roots, your values, or your national responsibility,” Regev said.
Carasso, a 10-year-old Israeli who, with his mother, began a public relations tour for Israel after October 7 (when he was 9), speaking about his experience as a child living through war, will also be honored.
Carasso “chose to bring to the world the stories of the children of Israel at a time of war — their pain, their hope and their faith. Ben is the voice that promises that the truth won’t be silenced and the Israeli story will continue to be heard,” Regev said.
Rachel Edry, 66, from the Gaza border area city of Ofakim, will also be honored at the ceremony.
When five terrorists invaded Edry’s home on October 7, 2023, during the brutal Hamas-led onslaught from the Gaza Strip, she served the attackers cookies, joked with them in rudimentary Arabic and even sang with them a Hebrew-language song by Lior Narkis that they knew from the radio.
The terrorists spent 15 hours in the home of the Iran-born Edry and her husband David. At 3 a.m. on October 8, a police force broke into the duplex after hours of negotiations, killing all five terrorists and reuniting the couple, completely unharmed, with their daughter and two sons, both police officers who participated in the rescue operation.
“Even authors with the most fertile imaginations couldn’t invent a character as wonderful as Rachel from Ofakim. A courageous, sensitive woman who through the power of intelligence, bravery and cookies managed to trick the terrorists who broke into her home and to become a hero of an entire nation,” Regev said.
“Her determination and deep local connection was also demonstrated by her decision to return to her home in Ofakim and build it anew,” she added.
Arazi, the singer, was also invited to light a torch at the ceremony, but refused, she announced on Monday.
“The torch-lighting ceremony is a state ceremony, but this is not a statesmanlike period. So, despite the great honor I felt, I can’t be part of the ceremony this year,” she said in a statement, following a report in the Ynet news outlet of her refusal to participate.
“I am a citizen of the state and the day-to-day reality seeps into your veins. It pains me, and I wish for better and more unified days, in which statesmanship will return as a value that leads the Israeli public,” she continued.
“I am thankful to everyone who was involved in choosing me. It’s not taken for granted and I’m very moved. And more than any ceremony or exciting position, I want to see the hostages return to us, ‘because not all that was promised to us long ago has yet been given,’” she concluded, quoting a lyric from her song “Homeward.”
It was also reported Monday that singer Boaz Sharabi had refused an invitation to light a torch at the ceremony. Sharabi said in a statement, however, that this wasn’t out of an opposition to the prospect, but because he only received the invitation on Sunday, and opted not to break a preexisting commitment that would have conflicted with the ceremony.
The organizers of the ceremony refused to comment on the matter, according to Walla.
On Sunday, it was announced that among the torch lighters would be American political commentator Ben Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew and prominent Israel supporter whose selection drew criticism from liberal Israelis over his restrictive stances on abortion and LGBT issues; Emily Damari, a British-Israeli 28-year-old who spent 471 days in Hamas captivity and was freed as part of a hostage-ceasefire deal earlier this year; judoka and bereaved father Oren Smadga; and two IDF officers, Lt. Col. Fayez Fares and Lt. Col. (res.) Hagit Alon Elharar, selected by the military’s chief of staff.
The Times of Israel Community.