{"id":82460,"date":"2025-06-09T11:30:57","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T08:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/?p=82460"},"modified":"2025-06-07T01:33:46","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T22:33:46","slug":"jerusalems-sidewalk-of-death-keeps-getting-longer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/jerusalems-sidewalk-of-death-keeps-getting-longer\/","title":{"rendered":"Jerusalem\u2019s Sidewalk of Death Keeps Getting Longer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Across from Jerusalem\u2019s Central Station, on a busy pedestrian route toward Binyanei HaUma, a row of soldier portraits appeared this week. These aren\u2019t formal plaques or bronze memorials. These are photographs \u2013 laminated, identical in format, and posted one after another like a visual liturgy. Each image is of a soldier killed in the current Iron Swords War. Each one bears the same line: Until victory.<\/em><\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t an official site of remembrance. It\u2019s a living sidewalk. People pass on the way to the light rail, to hotels, to their daily lives. But death now lives here too \u2013 framed, repeating, and stretching onward with every new casualty. This isn\u2019t about closure. This is about a presence that refuses to fade.<\/p>\n

Nationalism Above Life?<\/h3>\n

The decision to exhibit the dead this way reflects a deeper value system \u2013 one that has been reshaping Israeli identity, particularly within the religious Zionist movement. In this worldview, the state is not merely a shelter for Jews but a sacred vessel whose preservation may require the ultimate price. Here, the collective overrides the individual. Death is not defeat \u2013 it is sacrifice<\/p>\n

That view now confronts a Western cultural shift: the prioritization of personal fulfillment, bodily integrity, and emotional well-being over national duty. Most Western societies no longer glorify dying for the homeland. But in Jerusalem, death is not only honored \u2013 it is made visible, made present, and normalized.<\/p>\n

This Is Only the Beginning<\/h3>\n

What\u2019s most striking about the strip of portraits isn\u2019t its length \u2013 it\u2019s the fact that it\u2019s designed to grow. More names will come. More faces will be added. The sidewalk is open-ended<\/p>\n

When public grief turns into visual repetition, a society must ask: what is it choosing to see? And what is it choosing to ignore<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A stretch of soldier portraits in Jerusalem turns loss into a public message \u2013 death now shapes the street<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":82461,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"Jerusalem\u2019s Sidewalk of Death Keeps Getting Longer","_seopress_titles_desc":"A stretch of soldier portraits in Jerusalem turns loss into a public message \u2013 death now shapes the street","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[184],"tags":[8747],"class_list":{"0":"post-82460","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-184","8":"tag-jerusalem-en"},"acf":{"subtitle":"A stretch of soldier portraits in Jerusalem turns loss into a public message \u2013 death now shapes the street"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}