The evening of April 7 marked the solemn beginning of Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel. That night, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid boarded a flight to the United States for what his team called a weeklong vacation.
Lapid is also opposition chair, thus a national symbol of governance. His decision to leave the country on one of Israel’s most sacred memorial days raised more than a few eyebrows. He was criticized for it. The occasion offered him an opportunity to trot from one memorial to the next and stand alongside the prime minister, the president and the chief justice to address the nation from the nation’s most prominent platforms. Instead, he disappeared from the public eye.