Yoni Merkin | Mazkir Galil, Los Angeles

         This Yom Haatzmaut, Bnei Akiva of Los Angeles took their regular tekes ma’avar between Yom Hazikaron and Yom Haatzmaut and put in on zoom. The tekes was a huge success with over 300 families joining via zoom and facebook live. The tekes consisted of different tefillot, videos, and short speeches given by the mazkirim and roshim of BALA. To start the night our formar shaliach Eyal Friedman lowered a flag from his home in Israel and we shared stories and tefillot to commemorate different chayalim who were killed defending Israel. Then  we raised the flag and began our Yom Haatzmaut ceremony with songs and tefillot for Israel. Additionally, a daglanut made by many different families was shown as well as shofar blowing by multiple members of the community. To finish the night we had an amazing tefilla chagigit led by our former shaliach Rabbi Eli Skaist all the way from Israel and a singing of Yad Achim by our Moshava Alevy director Avi Matanky. While having to change our regular tekes to an online event posed many challenges at first we managed to successfully bring our tekes into the homes of many families throughout the Los Angeles Jewish community.