A public controversy erupted Wednesday following reports that Shin Bet Director David Zini ordered the removal of a memorial display at the agency’s headquarters honoring Shin Bet personnel who were killed during the October 7 Hamas massacre.

According to a report by Josh Breiner in Haaretz, the memorial, which had been placed near the entrance to the Shin Bet headquarters in Tel Aviv, commemorated members of the security service who lost their lives in the October 7 attacks.

The report said Zini justified the decision by saying that “there is no need to see the failure before our eyes every day.” Sources close to the Shin Bet chief were also quoted as describing the memorial display as conveying “defeatism.”

According to the report, a senior security official said the directive to dismantle the memorial was met with “astonishment” inside the agency.

In response to the report, the Shin Bet issued a statement explaining the reasoning behind the decision.

“The failure of October 7 was one of the greatest and most painful failures in the history of the State of Israel,” the agency said. “In the view of the head of the service, displaying only some of the fallen minimizes the scope of the failure and reflects only part of the terrible disaster that befell us. At the agency’s headquarters there is an official memorial wall displaying all of the service’s fallen, not just a small portion of them.”

Opposition leader Yair Lapid sharply criticized the reported decision, calling it “a moral failure.”

“In Jewish thought, memory is not weakness—it is strength,” Lapid wrote.

Quoting the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Lapid added: “To be a Jew is to carry the burden of memory without allowing it to rob us of hope and faith.”

“That is why we commemorate the destruction on Tisha B’Av,” he continued. “That is why the country comes to a standstill on Holocaust Remembrance Day and Memorial Day.”

Lapid concluded by warning, “What we forget, we are liable to repeat. What we remember, we can prevent. Memory is not only pain. It is also responsibility. It is our moral compass and the source of the strength to build a different future.”

He called on Zini to reconsider the decision.

{Matzav.com}