“Yizkor Am Yisrael et banav u’vnotav…” 

May the People of Israel remember its sons and daughters…

Each year, as the siren sounds across Israel, these words settle over the country. They define the day. Yom HaZikaron is often described as Israel’s Memorial Day, but that description is incomplete. It is not only a national moment of remembrance for our fallen IDF soldiers. It reflects a truth that extends beyond Israel’s borders.

Twenty years ago, during the Second Lebanon War, I walked into Rambam Hospital in Haifa to visit newly injured soldiers. I thought I was coming to help. I did not yet understand that I was about to witness something that would change my life forever.

I came with four friends, and we were accompanied by Gili Ganonyan, a young soldier who had been shot through the neck by a Hamas terrorist a year and a half earlier. He was no longer in rehabilitation, but he carried his injury with him into every room. As we moved from bed to bed, the soldiers we met were withdrawn, in obvious pain and in no position to receive visitors.

Then Gili began to speak. 

He told them, simply, that he had been where they were, in that same bed, facing the same pain and uncertainty. He pulled down his collar to show them where the bullet went through his neck.

The shift was immediate. Faces that had been closed, suddenly opened. There was a level of trust and connection between them that I had never seen before. You could literally see hope brighten their eyes.

In that moment, something became clear. There is nothing more powerful than an injured soldier meeting a newly injured soldier. The soldier in the bed does not need to be convinced. He sees himself. He sees a future version of his own life sitting across from him. Before anything is fully said, something registers, that life doesn’t end in the hospital and it’s possible to find a new way forward.

That moment became the foundation of Brothers for Life.

From the beginning, one principle guided everything that followed. Reclaiming life starts in the hospital room, and it begins with a fellow soldier who has already lived it. When possible, we match injury for injury. An amputee meets an amputee. Someone with a spinal injury meets someone who has already learned how to not just live with it, but thrie. The connection is immediate and the soldier in the hospital understands one thing after many successive visits.

They will never be alone again.

Before Oct. 7, 2023, our model served roughly 1,300 injured soldiers, with about 100 newly injured soldiers joining each year. Today, more than 3,000 injured soldiers are part of our community, and BFL is growing by approximately 800 new members annually. The scale of absorption is a multiple of what it was before Oct. 7, but the core has not changed. Support begins at the bedside and continues through recovery, including financial assistance, medical care, trauma support, education, and employment. Our hundreds of mentors reenter the same hospital rooms they once occupied, becoming the bridge for the next soldier. It is a model built on experience, not theory. And in many ways, it reflects the deeper meaning of Yom Hazikaron itself.

The soldiers we remember on Yom HaZikaron were not only defending a country. They were hurt defending the Jewish People. Israel is the only place where Jewish sovereignty is defended not only by Jewish soldiers, but also by Druze, Bedouin, and other non-Jewish citizens who stand shoulder to shoulder in shared service. Every soldier who puts on a uniform steps into that responsibility.

There is another line often associated with this day: “Hanoflim tzivu lanu et hachayim” — the fallen have commanded us to live. 

For the entrance to Brothers for Life centers, the soldiers chose a connected verse: “Uvacharta bachayim” — And you shall choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19). 

These ideas are not abstract. They are lived out every day in hospital rooms and in the long process of rebuilding.

On Yom HaZikaron, these ideas come into focus. We remember those who are no longer here, and we are reminded that they sacrificed everything so that we may live. When a soldier stands at the border or enters combat, the implications extend beyond Israel itself. The existence of a strong, defended Israel shapes the security and confidence of Jewish communities around the world.

For many of us living far from Israel, Yom HaZikaron can feel somewhat distant. That distance is understandable. And yet this profound day carries an invitation. At a time when Jewish vulnerability is felt more broadly than ever in our lifetimes, Yom HaZikaron offers a moment to stand in silence for two minutes with our Israeli brothers and sisters as an experience of shared connection. When the soldiers visit Diaspora communities, they experience this unbreakable connection first-hand. “I realized that I wasn’t just injured protecting Israel,” one soldier told me. “I saw that I was injured protecting Jewish people living all over the world.” 

Twenty years ago, I watched one injured soldier walk into a hospital room and change another soldier’s life. Today, that same moment plays out every day in hospitals across Israel. Yom HaZikaron is about remembering those who gave everything and recognizing that they were carrying all of us when they did.

Rabbi Chaim Levine is the co-founder and president of Brothers for Life.