When Shlomo Ravid, the executive director of San Francisco’s Israel Center, first met Yitzhak Rabin in the late ’60s, the late prime minister was what he called a classic hero, one of many who had prevailed in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Twenty-five years later, when the two met again, Rabin was in his Oslo phase. Then he was a different kind of hero, one who undermined his own popularity by saying that Israel’s only chance for a sound future was through peace with its neighbors.
Ravid met Rabin one final time on a November night seven years ago at a mass peace demonstration in Tel Aviv.
“It was a special evening,” Ravid said. “The level of hate at the time from the right was unbelievable, but in the square there was such a feeling of peace there.”
It was on the way home from the rally that the news started to come in, that the prime minister had been shot.
“I want to remember Rabin as the ultimate hero,” said Ravid, a panelist during a Rabin memorial event on Monday at Congregation Beth Sholom in San Francisco. “That’s the legacy for me.”
Taking into account the possibilities shattered by that single shot, the significance of Rabin’s death has not been lost in the seven years that have passed since Nov. 4, 1995, judging by the nearly 180 people who came to the memorial ceremony.
The event was sponsored by the Israel Center of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation, the Jewish Community Relations Council and Beth Sholom.
With musical interludes from musicians Marsha Attie and Gideon Herscher, along with a reading by Israeli poet Ronny Someck and a four-member panel discussion, the hourlong ceremony in Beth Sholom’s sanctuary was one of many taking place across the world this week.
Rabin’s picture, set above a bouquet of flowers, revealed the contrast between the man’s gentle face and his steel eyes as Or Shalom Jewish Community eighth-graders with backpacks were among the first to light memorial candles.
“I have memories of a great dream,” said Someck, before reading passages from his book of poems, “The Fire Stays in Red.” “I saw how a brave soldier of the Six-Day War became the soldier of a new army of peace.”
The attendees, about half of them Israelis, came to celebrate Rabin’s legacy and heroic life, which was rich in accomplishment, rather than to mourn.
That legacy, which has followed Rabin, even in death, is embodies Rabin’s vision as well as his character, said Rabbi Alan Lew of Beth Sholom, who also spoke during the panel discussion. Lew called Rabin a man who was infused with bright light all his life.
“I saw him a month before he died,” he said. “I saw then that he had both courage and vision.”
But in the seven years that have passed since Rabin’s death, there are some who contend that his plan for peace is one that has elapsed because of time and circumstance.
“There are those who say his vision is out of date. But I say, when we first made peace, there were those on both sides who swore to derail it. It doesn’t have to be that way,” Lew said.
Many in attendance had never met Rabin. The older attendees Monday night remembered a time of progress, such as the brokerage of a peace treaty with Jordan and the 1993 Declaration of Principles that included mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestinians.
At the same time, the younger attendees reflected on the legacy that they have read and learned about over the years. “I feel that I’ve missed out on the Israel I deserve,” said Jacqui Zadik, a recent graduate of San Francisco State University and a speaker in the panel discussion.
With the chanting of El Maleh Rachamim, the Yahrzeit prayer, the ceremony closed with the flickering memorial candles in pools of cooling wax, rounding out a beautiful presentation that, in an ideal world, would never have taken place.