Remembering Rabin

On November 4, Israel marks the 24th anniversary of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination. On that night in 1995, Rabin was shot by Yigal Amir after attending a peace rally in Tel Aviv at Kikar Malchei Yisrael (Kings of Israel Square), now called Rabin Square, that features a memorial wall (kotel) at the site. Solly Kaplinski penned the following poem in Rabin's memory. LOST IN LAST RESPECTS I went to pay my last respects to light candles to mourn a member of my extended family Yitzhak First to Kikar Rabin where it happened and then to Har Herzl where he rests The kotel at the square is an open sore filled with pain and anger and anguish and grief a raw wound publicly exposed for all to see A kotel that wails family tears On the cold wet slab of concrete where his dying breath is engraved as I lit a candle and stood dumbstruck I saw my father on his deathbed and I cried I saw Cain slaughter Abel and I trembled I saw a son murder his father and I screamed I saw beating hearts throbbing and pulsating torn out his mine yours ours gorged with blood and I broke down At the Kever in Jerusalem at dusk teenagers sit quietly staring at the flickering flames writing with dripping hot wax Abba We long for you. The kikar kotel how different from the Jerusalem Kotel with organized minyanim and prescribed prayers for past sorrows present promises and future glories in the world to come and crumpled notes stuffed into narrow spaces – private, personal, silent and closed Let's suppose we could join these two walls Humor me for a moment Even if you tell me that cursive + script = gibberish Let's lift up these walls and place them side by side to form a square or rectangle How then do we fill the spaces in between? And even if we could how do we pierce the walls that surround the heart? How do we gently lower the drawbridge across the moat? One doesn't need a doctor to tell us that if we push too hard we kill the patient These walls can't fit! Can the cool, clear and shimmering sweet waters huggingly caress the heat baked bloody clay? Does the taste of soil quench a hungry appetite? Can it sustain a life support system? So how about a different strategy? Let's place the walls on top of each other maybe if we build upwards… Sound familiar? So do we start all over again? Is this how it all ends? Dust to dust? And still they come And still they write And still they light candles And still they stand in silence and still they place stones And still the mourn for Yitzhak for themselves for us Will it ever end? Only if people who speak different languages people who tell different stories people who live different histories people who sing different songs and people who pray different prayers cry out loud and with conviction You are my brother and I love you

Remembering Rabin

So how about a different strategy? Let’s place the walls on top of each other maybe if we build upwards… Sound familiar?

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Remembering Rabin

So how about a different strategy? Let’s place the walls on top of each other maybe if we build upwards… Sound familiar?

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