On Saturday night, Nov. 5, 16 years and one day (on the secular calendar) since Yitzchak Rabin, prime minister of Israel, was assassinated, I visited Rabin Square. All was quiet. There were just a few other tourists straggling by. And me. That was about it. A few Israelis walking and biking by slowed down for a moment to see what was going on, then as usual, realizing it was just the Rabin memorial, continuing on their way.
I thought there was to be a Rabin memorial rally that night. Apparently not. Only later did I get the memo that the rally was postponed because of a chance of rain. It didn’t rain.
In the shadows behind the memorial there is a poster that reads: We will not forget. I wonder if this promise will be kept. Upon the memorial lies a single wreath: Shimon Peres, President of the State. It looks so official, so lonely. I recall that Peres is not merely the President of the State but was once Rabin’s friend and partner in peace, and was by Rabin’s side that infamous night. I wonder how he feels today, 16 years later.
Tuesday is Rabin’s Yartzeit, the Hebrew anniversary of his death. I hear that the new Israeli Museum at the Yitzchak Rabin Center is open and free to the public all day in commemoration of the Yartzeit.
I go with a friend from my program, Tikkun Olam. The museum tells two intertwining stories: the history of the life of Yitzchak Rabin and the history of the State of Israel. It occurs to me that although I have been to nearly every museum in the State, I don’t believe I have ever been to one that even tried to tell the history of the State of Israel since 1948. I have been to countless museums about Israel’s battle for statehood, Israel’s various military battalions and wars, but none that have tried to tell the story of the State since its founding.
How does one tell a “history” that is so new and so fresh, one that is still in the making, still so raw and wrought with contention? How can one even dare to tell the full story of a country, with all its ups and its downs? What will be included? What will be omitted? I can’t remember the last time I had spent three hours in a museum without feeling bored. I’m still not sure how I feel about the museum as a whole, but I know that I was moved.
And I learned. The museum is filled with texts and artifacts and videos, but one video stands out from among the rest. It is in the exhibit on the 1948 War. Above the screen there is a single caption: The Arab Refugees. I’m curious what this video will have to say. I watch. There are no words. There is only footage: images and sounds of Arab refugees during the war – walking, packing, scrambling, leaving – footage that I have never seen before. I am in awe. I wonder why there are no words. Perhaps because there is nothing that could be said that wouldn’t be contested. Perhaps because the images alone are considered significant enough to speak for themselves. I wonder.
On Tuesday night at BINA, the Secular Yeshiva, there is a memorial evening for Rabin. There are two speakers who knew and worked with Rabin personally. From each of them I hear a statement – one that I have heard from both proponents and opponents of Rabin – that Rabin was a man of vision, a man who did what he saw in his eyes was right for the State of Israel and the Jewish People. Not what was best for him, or for his party, or for some ideology, but what he believed was truly best for his People. He was not afraid to change his mind or to change direction, if he came to a new belief of what was right, a novel idea.
The following Saturday night there is a memorial rally and event in Rabin Square. Thousands are present. There are speeches, musical performances – a celebration of a man and of a legacy. I am with friends who were about two years old when Rabin was assassinated. I wonder if they understand what the assassination meant for me and for the members of my generation – Israelis and Americans alike. The hope, the shock, the loss. Sixteen years later, amid all the rallies and speeches and memorials, is there a message or a point to be made from all of this?
Here at the Rabin memorial, upon a plague, it is written:
“Here at this place Yitzchak Rabin, Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, was murdered in the struggle for peace. Peace will be his legacy.”
May his memory be a blessing.
Elliot Glassenberg is currently participating in BINA Tikkun Olam inTel Aviv-Jaffa, one of Masa Israel’s 200 programs.
