Should We Keep the Siren? Israel’s Sound of National Remembrance

The Israeli national siren, introduced in the early years of statehood, has long served as a powerful ritual of collective memory. At 10:00 a.m. on Holocaust Remembrance Day, and again on Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and terror victims, the nation halts. Cars stop mid-highway. Children in schoolyards freeze. Shoppers pause. Even within the Haredi population — many of whom have legitimate reasons for resisting the practice — the siren has been adopted, integrated into prayer, or acknowledged as a potent symbolic act strong enough warranting resistance. For two minutes, the country enters a suspended state — tethered to the memory of lives lost to catastrophe. The siren does not explain or soothe. It interrupts. It demands attention not through language, but through resonance. It cuts through routine and insists on being heard. It is not merely audible; it is inhabited.