Today is the specialest day in Israel. We just exited Memorial Day for soldiers and victis of terror, the saddest day of the year by far, and went straight — and I mean straight, within minutes — into Independence Day, the happiest. 24 hours of pain and heartbreak, followed by a short ceremony that throws us into a celebration of what we have gained thanks to those we lost. It’s a rollercoaster, like most things here. Here’s a video I took today at the market during the national moment of silence for the fallen. It’s chilling and frankly pretty cool to watch an entire country stop in their tracks to remember. We do this 3 times a year: once on holocaust memorial day (last week) and twice on memorial day. On other days if you hear a deep siren, you should run for shelter.

In this episode, Chaya Leah invites listeners who are her children to complain about her, Yael reviews the cafeteria at the Holocaust museum in Poland, and we debate the merits of uphill battles, as recommended by Douglas Murray.

Special thanks for our genius editor Mickey for removing as many sniffles, coughs and in general as much auditory grossness as he could find from this one. It was a lot worse before he got involved, trust me.

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Ready for some visual stimulation? First off, here;s CL’s favorite Tel aviv dogwalker doing his morning roll call:

And released hostage Agam Berger blowing our minds at the Holocaust ceremony in Auschwitz:

Did someone say Poland? here are the photos from my trip of my family’s home, factory and places of burial.

Oh wait, I also traveled all around Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the Sea of Galilee. Want to see?

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