Memory, honor, shame: this is how it works

...But even if Mahmoud Abbas and his words of inspiration, calling yesterday to the continuing generation of Palestinian Arabs to seek out Jewish victims of their own, sticks in the collective memory of his people longer and more effectively than Malki's memory does on our side of the fence, this much remains clear. People of conscience, decency and goodwill - people with a genuine passion for peace, tolerance, co-existence and life - will prefer to remember the children on our side who hold charity bazaars and musical concerts to honour the memory of those whom they seek to emulate.

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
18 July '13..

We have long assumed no one comes to this blog unless they want to know how we feel about things. So we permit ourselves without too much apology to express personal reflections here on life through the prism of our personal experiences.

That's why we wrote here ["15-Jul-13: Summer reveries don't have quite the same golden gentle glow for us as they do for others"] a couple of days ago about things that might seem only distantly connected, if at all, to events in the war against the terrorists. But in reality, we think the way you look at memories and, in a way, at history, is highly influential on what you do when confronted with terrorism. And since we think almost everyone everywhere is confronted with terrorism and in rising measure, even while they themselves might not see it that way, the issue of memory seems to us more than just important. It's a defining characteristic of societies and political leadership.

Yesterday, as that post of ours from July 15 noted, was the day our murdered daughter's life is remembered each year here in the Jerusalem community where we live. (Not the annual graveside service - that's going to happen on July 28.) It's a peer event: the teenagers who were Malki's social circle started it eleven years ago, a year after her brutal murder in a Hamas attack. And each year, the cohort that comes after the one before - always 16 and 17 year olds, always from here in the 'hood or from the social circle made up by members of the Ezra youth organization which was such a large part of Malki's life - continue it....

As it happens, we were not alone yesterday in expressing our remembrances and respect for lives ended. This is from today's Jerusalem Post.

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