Israelis start Yom HaZikaron, their day to honor those killed in wars or in terror attacks, by standing silently as a siren blares throughout the country. When the siren goes off, first at 8 p.m. and then at 11 the next morning, the nation comes to a standstill. Traffic stops in bustling intersections, and drivers get out to stand next to their cars. Bus drivers pull over on the side of the highway.

But what do Israelis do after the evening siren? 

For many, the answer is easy: They sing.

In Tel Aviv, last night, there was “Songs in the Square,” a ceremony held for many years at Rabin Square but now held in the Ganei Yehoshua park. Once emceed by television host Yair Lapid, who brought along his famous friends to sing covers of well-known songs about fallen soldiers, the tradition has continued with a different host — actor Lior Ashkenazi — since Lapid entered national politics over a decade ago.

The Knesset hosted the “Songs in their Memory” event where, similarly, famous Israeli singers performed musical tributes to fallen soldiers and victims of terror, and the defense minister and other politicians read poems and letters by soldiers, in the presence of the prime minister, president and Knesset speaker.

At the Sultan’s Pool, a historic site and concert venue abutting the Old City of Jerusalem, those gathered sang memorial songs, with this year’s slate of famous names including perennial chart-toppers Sarit Hadad and Omer Adam.

And in the small central Israel village of Neve Monosson, a relatively unknown place not far from Ben Gurion Airport, the locals held their 40th annual “Warriors’ Songs Night,” in the place where the tradition began.

Shayna Weiss, senior associate director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University, said that “the intensely communal singing culture of Israel comes from the kibbutz,” where a common form of entertainment was shira betzibur — singing in public — in which people would simply get together and sing while a friend would play guitar. Such nights became a cultural phenomenon beyond the kibbutz.

“Warriors’ Songs Night,” and their various iterations on Yom HaZikaron, feature some of the most culturally pervasive music in Israel. The songs go at least as far back as the 1948 War of Independence anthem “Friendship,” a tribute to the values of the pre-state militia the Palmach, to “Sea of Tears,” a cover of a 1980s Zohar Argov song that clinched Ninet Taieb’s victory in the first season of “A Star is Born,” the Israeli version of “American Idol” in 2003. There are songs from every war in Israel’s history, including the current one, and since the bus bombings of the 1990s, waves of terror are included. There are songs about fathers and about younger brothers and about older brothers. Songs about young love cut short, and grief-stricken prayers to God.

The songs also reflect cultural shifts in Israel, Weiss said.

“There is a standard tension on Yom HaZikaron between the personal and the national,” she said. “How much are we mourning a particular person, and how much are we mourning an idea … As the commemorations have become less about military ceremonies and more about personal mourning, songs are a good way to commemorate that.”

In the 21st century, one of the major sources of songs memorializing soldiers and victims of terror has been Galgalatz, Israel’s most listened-to radio station, which plays popular music and is run by the IDF.

From 2001-2013, Galgalatz had an annual project called “Soon We Will Turn Into a Song,” in which popular Israeli musical artists would turn poetry written by fallen soldiers and victims of terror into songs. Some became genuine hits.

In subsequent years, Galgalatz had soldiers set fallen soldiers’ poems to music and perform them. And on the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, the station produced seven songs by victims of the attack and soldiers who fell in the war. 

This year, Galgalatz and Army Radio, a news and talk station also run by the IDF, worked on a joint project of reported audio features and songs relating to fallen soldiers and victims of terror. Army Radio shared details of the project with Jewish Insider before its release to the public planned for Wednesday afternoon. 

One new song, “You’re Out There Traveling,” is based on a poem written by Aharon Danino, brother of Ori Danino, who was kidnapped at the Nova festival on Oct. 7 and murdered soon after. Danino, 25, escaped the music festival in a car, but went back to help save the lives of Maya and Itay Regev and Omer Shemtov, who were taken hostage and later released. 

The song is performed by “M Hamistaarev,” an IDF reservist who goes undercover as a Palestinian and therefore performs with a mask covering his face. Tiktok videos of M singing in Gaza went viral soon after the war began in 2023, and he has since released original music. M went to the shiva for Ori Danino and became friendly with the family, and Danino’s brother brought him the poem, which they worked together to set to music.

Another song to be featured was written by the family of Shauli Greenglick, an IDF reservist who competed in uniform on the reality show to choose Israel’s representative to the Eurovision Song Contest, and was killed in action in December 2023 in Gaza. Greenglick’s siblings are also musicians, and have performed together in memory of their brother. His sister, Michal, released a song as part of the Galgalatz project called “Come to Me Again Tomorrow.” 

Galgalatz is also featuring a cover of “Ballad of a Police Officer,” a beloved song from the 1971 Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe-winning Israeli film “The Policeman.” This time, however, the song will be performed by popular singer Amir Benayoun — who has covered it before — and the children of three police officers, Command Sgt. Maj. Yaron Dayan, Command Sgt. Maj. Adir Shlomo and Chief Supt. Martin Kyzmickas, who fell in battle at the Sderot police station on Oct. 7.

The final element of the joint project is a new version of “Nothing Will Harm Me,” a song by the band Knisiat Hasechel set to the words of Erez Stark, who was killed in the 1997 IDF helicopter crash. The song was a hit upon its release as part of the Galgalatz “Soon We Will Turn into a Song” project in 2008. It also came to be associated with the Oct. 7 attacks after video surfaced of Amit Mann, 22, a paramedic and resident of Kibbutz Be’eri, singing the song in her Red Magen David Uniform. The members of Knisiat Hasechel recorded an acoustic version of the song using Mann’s voice in November 2023, and Army Radio interviewed the band and Mann’s family about their connection through the song. The band is set to play the song live on the radio on Wednesday.

The project “shows the role of music” on Yom HaZikaron, an Army Radio spokesperson told JI. “It is a way for people to convey their pain. It’s a kind of therapeutic tool.”

Weiss emphasized the ability of Galgalatz to create the atmosphere of Yom HaZikaron in Israel: “The role of Galgalatz is huge. The station is run by the army and it really sets the tone. It becomes the soundscape; its music is around you whether you choose to listen to it or not, and that is how it sets the national mood.”

A playlist of most of the songs linked to in this article can be found here.