About 50 people braved the blustery winds in Berkeley Sunday night to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
“I loved Rabin,” said Mitzi Cooper, visiting from Philadelphia. “He had an ability to see beyond the hysteria and that’s what I admired him for.”
The tribute and lecture took place in the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center auditorium. The evening opened with Israeli television clips showing the jubilation of the Nov. 4, 1995 peace rally in Tel Aviv and then the horror and despair that followed the announcement of Rabin’s death.
The audience listened to a reading in Hebrew and English of Noa Ben-Arzi Philosof’s eulogy to Rabin, her grandfather. Then Nitzan Aviv, director of the Jewish Community Federation of the Greater East Bay’s Israel Center, sang “Livkot Lecha” (To Cry for You), a song from the peace rally.
Aviv was in Tel Aviv on the evening Rabin was killed. “Something was broken in Israeli society after Rabin’s death,” he said. “I wanted to bring these Israeli feelings to the Bay Area.”
The evening’s presentation featured Dan Kurzman, author of the biography “Soldier of Peace: The Life of Yitzhak Rabin 1922-1995.” In his talk, Kurzman drew on his long relationship with Rabin, whom he first met as a Washington Post reporter covering the 1967 Six-Day War.
He painted a complex portrait of the late Israeli leader as a man who hated the military yet became chief of staff of Israel’s armed forces. Rabin overcame his own shyness and insecurities to steer his country to greatness, according to Kurzman.
Describing Rabin as “a dove in hawk’s feathers,” Kurzman recalled an incident from Rabin’s childhood that helped shape his drive and vision of peace. On a school field trip, Rabin’s class passed Arab children playing in the street and the teacher told the group, “These are your neighbors and I want you to respect them and treat them like brothers.” It was this deep sense of morality as well as the quest for security that paved the way to Oslo, Kurzman said.
Riva Gambert, the Israel Center’s director of educational activities and culture, recalled the spontaneous gathering of hundreds of people at Oakland’s Temple Sinai the day after the prime minister was killed.
“Despite the passage of time, people have not forgotten Rabin,” she said at the event, which was co-sponsored by the East Bay federation, the BRJCC and the Jewish Community Relations Council, East Bay region,
Gambert said the assembly would provide “a way for the community to spiritually acknowledge Rabin’s life.”
In a particularly vivid memory of Rabin, Kurzman recalled meeting with him in 1992, shortly before he became prime minister. “He assured me that if he won he was going to make peace within a few months, no matter what. I was so surprised that he could say that because he seemed almost fanatical. I think he was the only man in Israel who could have persuaded the Israelis that this was the only way to act.”
After his speech, Kurzman was joined by his brother Cal and his sister-in-law Pamela of Novato. Cal Kurzman spoke for many in attendance who applauded Rabin’s courage, saying, “He didn’t die in vain.”
Berkeley resident Dorothy Marsh appreciated the chance to come together. “I had high regard for Rabin and want him to be remembered.”
As she left the lecture, Galia Gur of Oakland spoke of Rabin as “the definition of compassion.” Gur, who lived in Israel for many years, recalled the fear that peace prospects would die along with Rabin. “But he was bigger than life, so peace came alive,” she said.
“I came tonight because I was not there when he was killed, so I came to say goodbye to him.”