'They weren't only soldiers. They were lovers and football fans, they were human beings'

This Wednesday, Israelis will mark Yom HaZikaron, the Memorial Day for Israel's Fallen Soldiers. As of last count, there were more than 25,000 of them.

Although Israel has a highly developed culture of grieving and mourning, as a country that has suffered war and bloodshed since its first days, an unusual commemoration project has literally taken over the public sphere this year.

It began on a small scale, with friends and relative of soldiers killed in action since October 7 hanging up stickers featuring their photos and other interesting tidbits about them. It quickly spread to the point that in some places in Israel – like the Tel Aviv Hashalom train station – the entire space is wallpapered in them.

On the Haaretz Podcast, Dr. Noam Tirosh, head of the Department of Communication Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, who has spent the past few months studying these stickers, spoke to Judy Maltz about what he has learned. 

According to Tirosh, "the stickers are clearly an attempt by people to tell a wider story. The fallen soldiers were not only soldiers. They were lovers. They were football fans. They were friends of lots of people. They were human beings."

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