Israelis use social media to show solidarity with bereaved families
Social networks have enhanced within Israeli society's expressions of solidarity with bereaved families, but could also create space for those who wish to undermine the hegemony of national bereavement and national remembrance.
Three days before Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 13, the Israeli media covered a touching show of solidarity at the funeral of Holocaust survivor Haya Gertman. Gertman, a survivor of Auschwitz, never had children of her own, and died alone at the age of 93. Thanks to a creative initiative by her neighbor, social networks were inundated with calls to the public to attend her funeral. Hundreds of people that she had never met responded to the appeal and accompanied Gertman on her final journey.
As early as summer 2014, displays of mass solidarity surrounding fighting, loss and commemoration have begun popping up on social networks. Experts even consider Operation Protective Edge to be a milestone in the way that expressions and displays of Israeli solidarity have changed to become more oriented to the masses than anything we have ever seen before. It is all a result of social media.
Etched in Israel’s collective memory are the funerals of the three lone soldiers from the Golani Brigade — Sean Carmeli, Jordan Benshemoun and Max Steinberg — who were killed in Operation Protective Edge. Tens of thousands of Israelis who had never met these three young men followed their coffins to their final resting place. Stories of how they immigrated to Israel, volunteered to serve in combat units, and ultimately died while their parents were overseas inundated the social networks, inspiring tens of thousands of people. A new cultural phenomenon was born.
Soldier Barkai Shor, who was also killed during Operation Protective Edge, was well known for his many volunteer activities. Upon his death, his family used Facebook to call on the public to perform a single act of kindness and volunteering in his memory. On the eve of Israel’s Remembrance Day for Fallen Soldiers on April 21, a short film about his death was aired on Channel 2. In it, Barkai’s father talked about the initiative to commemorate his son. The family was stunned when the initiative became a mass movement. Within just a short time, some 15,000 acts of volunteering were registered by people who had never met Barkai, all to commemorate him.
