Rabin Memorial ceremony- Kol Ami 2015
1. About Rabin:
Born in Jerusalem on March 1, 1922, Rabin was the firstborn of pioneers of the Third Aliyah, and grew up in a very Zionist house. No surprise he was among the youngest warriors at the "palmach", fought and commanded and eventually became the Palmach's Chief Operations Officer. After the independence of Israel, the IDF was established and Rabin held a senior position such as head of the general staff operations department, head of the Training Branch, Chief of Operations of Northern Command, head of Operations Branch and at his last position was Chief of Staff.
After living the army, Rabin continues serving the Jewish state at a numerous public positions such as Israel ambassador to the US, the minister of labor, minister of Defense, and two terms as a prime minister. The second term ended at his murder.
2. We all shape the face of history. We, the People. We the farmers behind our plows, the teachers in our classrooms, the doctors saving lives, the scientists at our computers, the workers on the assembly line, the builders on our scaffolds. We, the mothers blinking back tears as our sons are drafted into the army; we, the fathers who stay awake at night worried and anxious for our children's safety. We, Jews and Arabs. We, Israelis and Jordanians. We, the people, we shape the face of history. And we, the leaders, hear the voices, and sense the deepest emotions and feelings of thousands and millions, and translate them into reality.
Rabin, American congress 1994
3. Imagine song
4. Don’t take any convention-social or other- as granted. Society must know how to change. A society or a country which doesn’t change it self- will degenerate! The reality is not what we had 50 years ago and if there is anything which designates youth- is undermining the regular conventions, not just for rubble but in order to make a change. Fulfill all that requires fulfillment, change all the requires change- look around you, there is a lot that needs to be done.
Rabin Speech to newly IDF officers
5. It seems that Rabin is being forgotten; is he as prevalent in our minds today as he was 20 ago? The new generation is one which doesn’t really know Rabin; In 1995, an act of extreme violence led to the death of an inspirational Israeli leader.
So what is to us? Today? To the Jewish People?
It is to us to remember. Remember the person Rabin was- his charisma, as well as the magnitude of his ideals, and what he was trying to achieve; remember the chain of events which led to the assassination in order to make sure it won't happen again. As Jews we are commanded to remember more than any other command we were given. All those memories define us, bring us together and constituting the foundations of Jewish Peoplehood.
6. Tomorrow you will return to your homes, to you countries. What will you tell your families? What will you tell your children's? What massage will you bring from this past week in Jerusalem? From this congress? From Israel?
Tell them you visited home.
Even though you sit for year and generations in Buenos Aires and Melbourne, IN New York and LA, in London and Brussel- here is your home.
Here we felt your sadness at times of distress and your pride in our days of glory and prosper.
Rabin's speech at the Zionist congress in Jerusalem 1992
7. If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.
You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid…. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand.
Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit
Martin Luther King