Reb Jeff
  • Blog
  • About
  • Favorites
  • Resources
    • Counting of the Omer
  • Wedding Officiation
  • Contact Me
  • Temple Sinai

Remembering Yitzhak Rabin

11/6/2015

 
Picture
This is the sermon I am delivering tonight at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island.

Twenty years ago, I was a first-year rabbinic student at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. That year was a momentous one for me, filled with unforgettable experiences. It was the honeymoon year for my wife, Jonquil, and me. We married in May of 1995 and flew to Israel just a month later for me to begin my rabbinic studies. It also was the first time I had ever been to Israel. I spent the year struggling to learn Hebrew, struggling to understand a culture very different from that of the United States, struggling to survive a very rigorous academic program.

That also was the year that Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated as he was leaving a peace rally in Tel Aviv. For Israelis, it was their JFK assassination. Only it was worse. It was the moment in which everything that Israelis knew about their country changed overnight. It was a moment when, for some Israelis, a dream of peace was shattered; and for other Israelis, it was a moment when a horrifying disaster was averted.

For me, a Jewish American who felt deeply connected to Israel, and yet not really a part of Israeli society, it was a moment of disorientation within disorientation. It was shattering and heartbreaking. It was a time of seeing Israelis at their best, and at their worst. It was a moment I will never forget within a year that I will never forget.

Here is what happened.

On the night of Saturday, November 4, 1995, Prime Minister Rabin was leaving a huge peace rally at Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv. He walked down the steps of Tel Aviv City Hall toward his car. A man named Yigal Amir slipped through the bodyguards to fire two shots into Rabin’s back with a semi-automatic pistol. Amir had painstakingly modified the weapon and the bullets over the previous two years with the single intention of killing the Prime Minister. Rabin was taken to a nearby hospital after a period of confusion. Rabin died on the operating table less than an hour later.

When Israelis learned that Rabin had been shot, most assumed that the assassin was a Palestinian Arab. The truth was much harder to accept. Yigal Amir was an orthodox Jew who, like many other Israelis who identified with the political and religious right, stood in angry opposition to the peace process that Rabin had championed. The Israeli right was angry about the signing of the Oslo Accords, which would place large parts of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) under the control of the Palestinians. There was even talk of a peace deal that would return the Golan Heights to Syria. The country was divided and the rhetoric had been getting ugly.

In the weeks before Rabin’s assassination, there had been posters and billboards around the country (I remember seeing them) that pictured Rabin in the black and white keffiyeh headdress worn by Yassir Arafat and other Palestinian nationalists. There was a poster plastered around the country showing Rabin dressed in a Nazi officer’s uniform.

Yigal Amir was seized and arrested immediately after shooting Rabin. Eventually, he was put on trial, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment. In the days after the assassination, there were numerous news reports that Amir had received approval for his assassination attempt beforehand from right-wing rabbis who declared that it a case of “din rodef,” the law that permits one to kill a pursuer in order to prevent him from killing first. To this day, there are many right-wing Israelis – almost 50 percent – who believe conspiracy theories that say that Amir was not Rabin’s true killer.

I had gone to bed early with a headache that Saturday night. Jonquil stayed up to read. A few hours later, she came into our bedroom to wake me up because she had noticed that all of the Israeli television stations had gone off the air. She was concerned because they all had the same Hebrew message on a black screen. She couldn’t read Hebrew, but she sensed that something was very wrong. I got up, looked at the screen, and told her what it said. “Broadcasting is suspended in respect to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, may his memory be a blessing.”

We were stunned. We didn’t understand how Rabin, the virile former army commander could be dead. We turned on our short-wave radio and listened to the BBC World Service tell us that Rabin had been assassinated. We cried.

The next day, hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv to mourn Rabin’s death. They lit candles. They sang songs. In Jerusalem, more than a million people lined up to view his casket in front of the Knesset to pay their last respects. Jonquil and I were among them. We walked along the route to the viewing area with some of my classmates from HUC. I have never heard so much silence from so many people. The line just shuffled along with nothing more than quiet murmurs for hours. We later heard one news report that said that one in six of all of the adults in the entire country had viewed the casket that day.

On Monday, November 6, 1995, twenty years ago today, Rabin was buried on Mount Herzl. The funeral was attended by many world leaders, including President Bill Clinton. He closed his eulogy with the words, “Shalom, chaver” “Goodbye, friend.” I watched on television in my apartment along with a few of my classmates, including Helen Abrams’ grandson, Michael Schwartz. I remember that Michael and I stood up in front of the television when we heard them reciting the Kaddish.

Israelis love bumper stickers. In the days that followed the funeral, many of the political bumper stickers in Jerusalem – left and right – were replaced with new stickers that said, "Shalom chaver," "Goodbye friend."

I wrote an email (which was still a novelty in those days) to all of my family and friends back in the United States on the day after the funeral. I told them about what my professors had to say in the days following the assassination. This is what I wrote:

“My teachers – all of whom have lived in Israel for many years, and some of whom are native – spoke to us of their feeling that ‘the writing was on the wall’ for such a thing to happen. Israeli society has become increasingly fractured in recent years. The level of violence among Jews has grown. Lines of 'normal' communication between supporters and opponents of the peace process have been almost completely cut off by anger and by the nearly total division between Israel’s ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ societies.

“One of my professors said she was devastated by a threefold tragedy: that this happened in the Land of Israel, that it was perpetrated by a Jew, and, most grievously, that it was done in the name of Judaism. Judaism is the religion that is so sensitive to the spilling of blood, she said, that we cannot even kill an animal for food without acknowledging God’s sovereignty over all life. Judaism is the religion whose creation is bound in the moment that Avraham’s knife was stopped from taking the life of another Yitzhak. How has Judaism been torn to shreds, that it could be twisted to justify this?”

I pondered in my email back to the States, “What will happen now in Israel? Today there sprung up all over Jerusalem a new poster with Rabin’s face. Under the photo are familiar words from the Kaddish, ‘Oseh shalom bimromav.’ In the context of the prayer, the words mean, ‘May the one who makes peace in heaven,’ but in this context they could be translated as, ‘The one who makes peace is in God’s heaven.’ Maybe Rabin’s death will draw together the people of Israel to find a way to reach reconciliation. If so, we will continue the prayer to say, ‘he will make peace over us all and for all Israel.’”

Twenty years later, I look back on the moment of Rabin’s assassination not as a moment of rebirth and renewal, not a moment that unified the Jewish people, but as a harbinger of two decades of deeper divisions, heightened partisanship and polarization, and waning interest in keeping the Jewish people together. I cannot tell you had sad that makes me feel.

Today, Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv has been renamed Yitzhak Rabin Square. Yet, Israel’s current Prime Minister has done little to keep alive the dream of peace that Rabin tried to make real. Walking by the square in the streets of Tel Aviv, there are many school children who have to ask their parents, “Who was Yitzhak Rabin?”

I will admit that I am not nearly as optimistic about the future today as I was twenty years ago. I am sure that my change in spirit has a lot to do with the difference between being 32 and being 52. Twenty years ago, I was ready to see signs everywhere that the tide was turning, that the instinct toward peace would inevitably win out over the instinct toward fear and separation.

Now, I am not so sure. But that turn from optimism toward the direction of pessimism has only redoubled my resolve that we must do whatever we can to help peace win. I no longer believe that peace is inevitable. It will only happen if we force it into existence. We must work with all our might to make it real.

Shabbat shalom.

Marvin Wasser
11/8/2015 08:10:41 am

Thank you for putting this tragedy into a human, personal context. What had been merely a somber headline has been given special significance. It is so enlightening to see world events through the perspective of other persons' eyes.


Comments are closed.

    Welcome

    This blog is about living a joyful Jewish life and bringing joy to synagogues and the Jewish community. Join the conversation by commenting on posts and sharing your experiences. For more on the topic, read the First Post.
    "Like" Reb Jeff on FB

    RSS Feed

    Enter your email address to subscribe to Reb Jeff posts by email

    Follow Reb Jeff's Tweets

    Recent Posts

    Purim & COVID-19
    ​The Honor of Heaven
    Chasing Our Own Tails
    Drilling Under Your Seat
    Change the World
    Self-Righteousness
    Where We Came From
    What We Must Believe
    ​Is Passover 7 or 8 Days?Origin Story
    Va'eira: Leadership​

    Jeff's Favorites

    • First Post
    • Searching for How the Bible Defines Marriage 
    • The Difference between God and Religion
    • In the Beginning of What?
    • Rape, Abortion and Judaism
    • Ten Thoughts about Being a Rabbi
    • Temple Dues and Don'ts
    • A Pesach Lesson from Yoga
    • The Purpose of the Torah

    Torah Portions

    Genesis
    Bereshit
    Noach
    Lech Lecha
    Vayera
    Chayei Sarah
    Toledot
    Vayetze
    Vayishlach
    Vayeshev
    Miketz
    Vayigash
    Vayechi

    Exodus
    Shemot
    Va'eira
    Bo
    Beshalach
    Yitro
    Mishpatim
    Terumah
    Tetzaveh
    Ki Tisa
    Vayakhel
    Pekudei

    Leviticus
    Vayikra
    Tzav
    Shemini
    Tazria
    Metzora
    Acharei Mot
    Kedoshim
    Emor
    Behar
    Bechukotai

    Numbers
    Bamidbar
    Naso
    Beha'alotecha
    Shelach
    Korach
    Chukat
    Balak
    Pinchas
    Matot
    Masei

    Deuteronomy
    Devarim
    Va'etchanan
    Ekev
    Re'eh
    Shoftim
    Ki Tetze
    Ki Tavo
    Nitzavim
    Vayelech
    Ha'azinu
    Vezot Haberachah

    Holidays
    Shabbat
    Rosh Chodesh
    Pesach/Passover
    Omer Period
    Yom HaShoah
    Yom HaZikaron
    Yom Ha'atzma'ut
    Pesach Sheini
    Lag B'Omer
    Yom Yerushalayim
    Shavuot
    Fast of Tammuz
    Tisha B'Av
    Tu B'Av
    Rosh Hashanah
    Days of Awe
    Yom Kippur
    Sukkot
    Hoshanah Rabbah
    Shmini Atzeret/
    Simchat Torah
    Chanukah
    Tu BiShvat
    Adar (Joy Increases!)
    Purim

    Archives

    November 2022
    September 2022
    May 2022
    January 2022
    September 2021
    September 2020
    August 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011

    Loading
    Jewish Bloggers
    Powered By Ringsurf
    Picture