For many, the Yom Kippur War is a piece of history taught in school but for others, including many Israelis, it is a personal memory.
This year Eretz Yisrael marks 40 years since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, a war that caught a nation on its holiest day. One must remember at that time there were no cellular telephones, no internet and no instant forms of communication. It took considerable time to alert the nation and pull the thousands and thousands of reservists out of shul as the country was rocked to the core with the news of an Egyptian assault on Yom Kippur.
Some figures on that conflict:
· 2,656 soldiers HY”D fell in the war
· 1,630 of the dead fell in combat on the southern front
· 872 soldiers fell in combat on the northern front
· 154 soldiers died on other fronts, including vehicular accident and training
· 16 soldiers are still officially listed as MIA (Missing in Action)
· 9 sets of brothers fell in the war
· 144 sets of bereaved parents from that war are still alive
· 740 bereaved parents of the war are still alive
· 933 widows of the war are still alive
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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5 Responses
To put things in perspective: the entire losses of the YK war do not even come close to the amount of people on one train to Auschwitz during the Holocaust (12000). There was at least one such transport per day…
One of my worst memories is being a 7 year old boy, and having my father taken to war that Yom Kippur. A few days later he called us from the battlefield, telling my mother that “this may be the last time we speak”. b”h he came back alive, but one of our neighbors a”h didn’t, and r”l left an almona and three yesomim.
To put things in better perspective. You are clearly a Zionist who is trying to downplay the tragedy that was a result of the state of Israel being there. One neshomo lost is a tragedy. Try selling your “perspective” to the parents widows and orphans of the fallen soldiers.
#1. What does your comment have to do with anything? Any Jew’s death is tragic. You seem to be saying it’s not a big deal by comparison. How pathetic.
yes RebYid, your comment is totally inappropriate. i was just making a memory type of comment, of my own personal feelings at the time, but you said something that isn’t befitting of a “Reb Yid”.
every yiddish neshoma is precious, disregarding any mass numbers