a person who has made a difference : Yitzhak Rabin

INTRODUCTION by Shaked Shabat:

Throughout history, there have been people who have influenced the way we live. Yitzhak Rabin is one of these people.

 I chose to prepare this research project on Yitzhak Rabin for several reasons. To begin with, we were asked to choose a Jewish figure who has left a mark on the world and Yitzhak Rabin was definitely one of them. I have always wanted to learn more about him and about his journey. Moreover, we chose Yitzhak Rabin because of his important contribution, as a military person and as a peace maker, to society and to the Jewish people. I also think that he was special in his way to believe in the best of people, even when some of them were against him. 

There are a number of things that I already know about Yitzhak Rabin. Firstly, I know that Yitzhak Rabin was a man who believed in peace and dedicated his life trying to prevent war and make peace. In addition, I know that Yitzhak Rabin was murdered by a Jewish man only because he disagreed with Rabin’s political way. I also know that he was an Israeli politician, statesman and general.

I expect to learn new and interesting things about Yitzhak Rabin. First and foremost, I expect to find out what he believed should be done in order to make peace and what he did in order to make it happen.

Also, I want to learn what made him believe that it was possible to make peace while others did not believe. Finally, I would like to discover what he had to sacrifice in order to achieve greatness.

Yitzhak Rabin has left his mark on the world. I am looking forward to finding out more about him.

INTRODUCTION by May Luggasi

Throughout history, there have been people who have influenced the way we live. Yitzhak Rabin is one of these people.

I chose to prepare this research project on Yitzhak Rabin for several reasons. To begin with, our teacher instructed us to choose a person who had an influence on our country and Yitzhak Rabin, without a doubt, was one of the most influential. In addition, we chose Yitzhak Rabin because of his important contribution to the development of Israel, and the achievements he had achieved with his unique attitude.

There are a number of things that I already know about Yitzhak Rabin. Firstly, I know that Yitzhak Rabin was the seventh general and the fifth Prime Minister of Israel.

In addition, I know that Yitzhak Rabin signed several historic agreements with the Palestinian leadership as part of the Oslo Accords and that he made the Treaty of Peace Between the State of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

I expect to learn new and interesting things about Yitzhak Rabin. First and foremost, I expect to find out how he succeeded in achieving many goals which most of the prime minister failed to do. Also, I would like to learn what his ambitions were and if he achieved all of

them and what he had to do in order to get them. Finally, I would like to discover what his motives were and how he reached greatness.

Yitzhak Rabin has left his mark on the world. I am looking forward to finding out more about him.

INTRODUCTION by LINOY YAAKOV

INTRODUCTION by Linoy Yakov
Throughout history, there have been people who have influenced the way we live. Yitzhak Rabin is one of these people.
I chose to prepare this research project on Yitzhak Rabin for several reasons. To begin with, Yitzhak Rabin was our fifth prime minister. Also, every year we learn new interest and important information about him and about his tragic murder. We even have one day in every year that is dedicated entirely to him. Fortheremore, I really appreciate what he did for our country. Also, I am interested to know what it is like to be responsible for entire country. I believe it is very important for all of us to learn more about him and more about his life.

There are a number of things that I already know about Yitzhak Rabin and his political career. Firstly I know that he was one of our first prime ministers. In addition I know that he was murdered for his political views.

I expected to learn new and interesting things about Yitzhak Rabin’s life.First and foremost, I expect to find out how he deal with other thoughts and opinions, It is not a secret that our country is divided and there are a lot of different political views, I want to learn how he knew what was the right chose to make.

Also, I want to learn how it feels like to be the leader of the entire country and to make sure your citizens are safe and love

the way you take care of the country.

Finally, I would like to discover how he integrated his political career and family life and dealt with everyone know what you are doing.

Yitzhak Rabin has left his mark on the world. I am looking forward to finding out more about him.

 BIOGRAPHY

FAMILY AND CHILDHOOD

Yitzhak Rabin was born in Jerusalem on 1 March 1922  to Nehemiah and Rosa Rabin, immigrants of the Third Aliyah. When Rabin grew up he wrote about his childhood:”My path was determined and inspired by the characters of my parents, inspired by home customs and inspired by the school I learned in. In this manner, in fact I saw myself during my childhood more tuned to farming life, kibbutz life, and if I had been told that I would have become a military man, I would have thought it ridiculous”. Rabin’s parents were born in different parts of the Russian Empire. Rosa Cohen, Rabin’s mother was dominant in the family. 

 Rosa was born in Mogilev, Belarus, to her father Ithack Hacohen ( Yitzhak Rabin named after him) and her mother Jena Rachel.

 She immigrated to Israel in 1919 as a non Zionist but during the years she became a enthusiastic Zionist.

After Rose became sick on Kibbutz Kinneret, she moved to Jerusalem in order to recover. In Jerusalem she became one of the first members of the Haganah. Nehemiah Rubitzov, Rabin’s father, was born to a poor family in Kiev and moved later to the United States because of the government in Russia. He immigrated to Israel in 1886.  Nehemiah served as a member of the Jewish Legion during World War I. He was shy and quiet, with a good sense of judgment. Nehemiah and Rosa were married in 1921 and moved to Haifa.They moved to Jerusalem because Rosa wanted to give birth to her first child there.

The family returned to Haifa about a month after the baby,Yitzhak, was born, and from there the family moved to Tel Aviv. Yitzhak and his sister Rachel, who was 3 years younger than him, grew up in Tel Aviv. Rosa worked in a bank and Nehemia worked for the electric company. Both parents were very busy in public activities in addition to their work. The values in the family’s life seemed to take a place above the emotions. The children used to be most of the time on their own. Yitzhak had to take care to his little sister. In many ways Rabin’s childhood was characteristic of a child and a teenager who grew up in the heart of the “working land of israel” during the British mandate.   In 1928 Rabin enrolled in the Tel Aviv School House for Workers’ Children and completed his studies there in 1935. The school taught the children agriculture as well as Zionism.

 Rabin mostly received good marks in school, but he was so shy that few people knew he was intelligent. In 1935 Rabin’s mother was sick and he enrolled at an agricultural school on kibbutz Givat Hashlosha that his mother founded. By the age of 16 Rabin had joined the Haganah – the Haganah was the main paramilitary organization of the Jewish Yishuv between 1920 and 1948 – and received his first military training. He learned how to use a pistol and stand guard. He joined a socialist Zionist youth movement, HaNoar HaOved. In 1937, he studied at the Kadoorie Agricultural High School. He excelled in a number of agriculture related subjects however he did not like studying the English language since it was the language of the British “enemy.” Rabin originally dreamed of being an irrigation engineer, but his interest in military affairs had been intensified since 1938. 

In his first year in Kadoorie, Rabin’s mother died of cancer.  Rabin was trained at Kadoorie by Yigal Allon who was a young Haganah sergeant. Rabin finished school at Kadoorie in August 1940. When he finished school, Rabin considered studying irrigation engineering on a scholarship at the University of California, Berkeley. Ultimately he decided that what he truly wanted was to stay and fight in Palestine. 

Family life

Rabin married Leah Schlossberg during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Leah was working as a reporter for the Palmach’s newspaper at that time. They had two children, Dalia who was born in 1950 and Yuval who was born in 1955.

 THE PALMAH

In the summer the Palmah- the fighting force of the Haganah- was established and Rabin was one of the first to join. Although Rabin had not known yet  how to operate a machine gun, drive a car, or ride a motorcycle, he still was accepted. Rabin’s first operation was assisting the invasion of Lebanon which was held by Vichy French forces. In 1943, he completed the senior commanders’ course. In 1945, he became a deputy commander of the first Palmah’s regiment. In that year Rabin took part in the operation of release interned immigrants from the Atlit detainee camp for Jewish illegal immigrants. In the Black Shabbat on 1946- a massive British operation against the leaders of the Jews- Rabin was arrested and detained for five months. 

Rabin wanted to fulfill his plan of  studying irrigation engineering but he was talked down by the Palmah’s commander who accredited Rabin to the second commander of the Palmah’s regiment.

THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE;

In November 1947, during the Arab–Israeli War, Rabin was the Palmach’s chief of operations and coordinator with Haganah headquarters. He was in charge of reinforcing units with weapons and personnel and of keeping the roads to Jerusalem safe because they were being attacked by Arabs from the surrounding villages. Moreover,  Rabin was responsible for organizing the convoys to Jerusalem. He disagreed with the defensive policy established for  these convoys. Instead, he recommended offensive action against villages that served as bases for attackers.

During April 1948, at the age of 26, Rabin became the commander of the Harel Brigade. Shortly after, he became one of the commanders of Operation Yevussi which took place before the British evacuation from Jerusalem and its surroundings in order to  conquer and control key positions in the city. On May 14th, 1948, the day of the declaration of the state, Rabin found himself in the company of his exhausted fighters. Looking back he remembered this period as the hardest of all his years in military service, and recalled commanding young men who had never returned from the battlefield and tormenting over a Jewish force which was not prepared for war. On July 19 a ceasefire took effect and Rabin used this opportunity to asked Leah Schlossberg to marry him.

MILITARY SERVICE

In November 1949, Rabin was appointed to the commander of the battalions school. He also convinced many of the first battalion commanders’ course participants, who were the Palmach veterans to continue and to fulfill command roles in the IDF and therefore preserve the palmah spirit and its values. Rabin’s success in his position opened for him the army’s promotion route. In 1951, he was appointed head of operations in the General Staff Department , with the rank of lieutenant colonel. During this period, he stood out as a definite staff man who knew every detail of his many fields of care and became a senior partner in the design of the IDF defense theory. Two years later Rabin was sent to England as a candidate for senior command duties and studied there for six months.

Not long after he came back to Israel the new commander in chief of the IDF -Moshe Dayan- appointed Rabin to be the head of the training directorate, with a rank of major general.

In this position, he worked for the establishment of an IDF training guidance and a school of command. Three years later in 1956  Rabin was appointed chief of the northern command. This appointment was a transition to a commanding role. During this time he was responsible for the fortification of Israeli control over the scattered areas between Israel and Syria. In 1961, Rabin was promoted to deputy chief of staff, in December that year the Government approved the appointment of Rabin to the chief of staff.

CHIEF OF STAFF

On January 1st, 1964, Yitzhak Rabin became Israel’s seventh chief of staff. Rabin’s tenure took place while the military growth of Arab states was very fast as well as their acquisition of Soviet weapons. His primary task was to prepare the IDF for a big war. He armed the IDF with American weapons and advanced technologies in order to be prepared for an operation. He made operational plans that would continually serve the IDF. At the end of 1966, Rabin had been the chief of staff for three years, and the Prime Minister decided to extend Rabin’s tenure for another year. 

SIX-DAY WAR

In 1967, the six-day war broke out. Rabin had faith in the power of the IDF to win the campaign and the army was ready for the battle. Rabin escorted the big attack from the air- force headquarters. Israel won and Israel’s territory grew. The Hebrew University in Jerusalem decided to award Rabin honorary doctorate in order to express the respect of the public’s recognition in israel to the commander in chief of the IDF victory.

 Ambassador to the United States

At the beginning of 1968, after 27 years of military service, Yitzhak Rabin hung up his uniform and was appointed to be the Israel’s ambassador to the United States.Rabin managed to foster special relations between the two nations. 

MEMBER OF THE KNESSET

On March 1973, after five years of tenure as ambassador , Yitzhak Rabin returned to Israel and joined the Labor Party. In the elections which were held in December right after the Yom Kippur War , the Labor Party lost its power but succeeded in forming the government again and Rabin was appointed Minister of Labor. On April 11, after the retirement of Golda Meir the Labor Party had to appoint a substitute, and Rabin was chosen.

FIRST TERM AS PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL

Rabin’s premiership began on June 3rd, 1974. Rabin led a policy of governmental continuity while, at the same time, representing a willingness to make changes. Renewal of the diplomatic initiative and progress towards peace were his main tasks. 

Rabin started his first step in the progress towards peace  which is an interim

agreement with Egypt. The agreement which was one of his significant achievements as a prime Minister, was achieved after a hard, filled crisis

Negotiations in 1975.

Rabin saw this agreement as a base of the Peace treaty with Egypt. As a result of this agreement Rabin signed on the Memorandum of Understanding with the Federal government of the United States. In this agreement US had received far reaching commitments to Israel’s security and its economy.

While working towards peace, Rabin was required to deal with the terrorist acts of PLO against Israeli civilians.

As Rabin was preparing for the elections, it was revealed that his wife held a bank account in the United States, an act that was illegal at the time. Following the decision to prosecute her, Rabin resigned after three years in office. Shimon Peres was appointed to replace him. After she was sentenced Rabin decided to to retire after 3 years of tenure. Rabin’s decision of taking responsibility for his wife’s offense was accepted with public appreciation.

 THE OPPOSITION

In the Knesset elections were held on 17 May 1977, it turned out that the Labor Party had lost power and for the first time Likud was led by Menachem Begin to assemble the government and the Labor Party moved to the opposition.

In the elections that were held in 1981 in the Labor Party, Rabin supported Yigal Allon to be candidate for prime minister, but after a sudden death of Allon he announced his nomination. Peres was the one who won the nomination but Likud won the election.

DEFENSE MINISTER

Appointing Rabin to be the defense minister was an obvious choice. He had a political and security experience as one. During this time he worked in order to expel the IDF from Lebanon. He also signed on the agreement to “Jibril deal” which means he released 1,150 Palestinian prisoners in order to release 3 IDF prisoners.

When the Intifada broke out Rabin thought at first that there was a military solution to the uprising and he acted in order to stop it with force. In the end he understood that it didn’t work and he phrased a two stages peace initiative which included a suggestion that allowed elections to local leadership in the territories. This would manage the Palestinian autonomy and would ensure peace in the territories. 

SECOND TERM AS PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL

On July 13, 1992, Rabin began his second tenure as prime minister of Israel and also stayed as a defense minister. Rabin changed the national priorities and made a new state budget. The new state budget substantially enlarged the budget for education, welfare, foundations, periphery settlements and for the Arab sector exchange of some of the settlement budget and the security budget. Rabin was determined to integrate Israel in the world reconciliation, and to have peace with our neighboring countries. On September 13, 1993, in a festive status on the White House lawns and with the participation of the United States President, Bill Clinton, “the Oslo Agreement” was signed. The Accords laid the foundation for a permanent status agreement that was to include the foundation of a Palestinian entity alongside Israel.

TREATY OF PEACE WITH JORDAN:

In May 1994, a crucial secret meeting was held between Rabin and Hussein and they began with a process of peace. On October 26 the peace treaty was signed and the borders between the countries was finally decided. Despite the peace treaty there were still attacks.Rabin was under a lot of pressure. On the one hand he had to deal with the attacks and he was determined to complete the peace process but on the other hand, he had to deal with the pressure to stop the conversations for a while. Rabin decided to continue the peace process and as a result he had to deal with derogatory names and people who turned against him.

TREATY OF OSLO 2

On December 1994 Rabin got a nobel peace prize, but the number of  opponents kept growing as long as Rabin continued the peace talks with syria. On September 1995 the second Oslo treaty was signed in Washington but the opponents of the treaty organized demonstrations and rallies against the agreement and Rabin and the security situation wosened.. 

 THE NIGHT OF THE MURDER

In October 1995 the peace camp, which had looked on in hope at the progress of the talks, was shocked by the ferocity of the opposition to TREATY OF OSLO 2 and decided to make a rally  in order to support the government’s moves.  

When Rabin heard about the rally he Wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea at first  but after a while he decided to participate and even agreed on speaking. The organizations told him to put on a bulletproof vest because of the security situation but  Rabin didn’t want to and claimed that he believed in the people. The slogan of the rally was “Yes to Peace, No to Violence” The rally took place On 4 November 1995  in Tel Aviv’s Malchei Yisrael Square. People all over the country came to support the rally and Rabin was amazed by the amount of people.

At the end of the rally, when Rabin was on his way back to his car, he was shot three times in his back by a Jewish murderer. Yitzhak Rabin died at Ichilov Hospital at 23:14

OUR FIGURE’S INFLUENCE ON US

Yitzhak Rabin’s quotation, “Man is not made of steel.

He has a heart and a soul. He weeps and laughs.

He loves and aches.

He attacks, gets wounded and cries. 

Man is human. “ This poem which was written by Yitzhak Rabin has had an influence on us in a number of ways. Firstly, it shows us that a person is allowed to make mistakes and that we are only human. We have ups and downs and it does not matter how many times you have made mistakes in your life, what really matters is how many times you have pulled yourself together and overcome obstacles. It also shows us that everybody is the same even if we have different opinions, or different personalities. At the end of the day, we are all human with feelings and emotions

Intreview

We chose to interview Noa Rodman, Yitzhak Rabin’s grandchild.

   There are several reasons why we chose to interview Noa. To begin with, we chose her because we wanted to interview someone who was related to Yitzhak Rabin and had an important part and influence on his life. Noa was very close to him and she always went with him and with Leah to everywhere they went. In addition, she was the only family member who spoke at Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral which shows us that she was very close to him. It was a very moving and touching speech. Last but not least, we chose to interview her because we wanted to learn new things about Itzhak, that only a person who is related to him knows. In that way, we can learn what kind of person Itzhak was in his personal life and from her point of view as a grandfather.

Noa Rotman’s speech :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vjs1fS6xp9I

Q : What the most significant value you have received from your grandfather?

E : “My grandfather always gave us a sense that all that he and the other leaders had done was for us, which is why we have no right to be lazy or to take advantage of our position, rather we have to work on this thing that called our country. We also have a sentence on our board that says  “We are the home of every Jew in the world,but we are also the responsibility.” From where I grew up the state of Israel is the capital of the Jewish world and we have the duty to be a home that has openness and has the values and it has room for everyone where you can disagree with other opinions and it is okay. 

The most important value that we received from him is that family comes before everything and it is the most important thing that we have in life. My grandfather did not model values, he lived them”.   

Q : How did the Dollar Account Affair affect your life?

“ I was born two weeks before the affair. I think that the affair left a scar on the family and as a result I was educated not to  stand out because it is harmful. You must not shout at teachers, you must not speak with impudence, you must not cross the road at a red light and do nothing that is out of line so no one can use it against you . The feeling was that my grandfather was struggling and paying the price in order to be able to influence again. We all felt that we have the right to be on this captain’s deck.”

Q: Can you tell us about a special memory you have with him?

E: “I remember that every year he took us with a noisy little passenger plane called ” Zamir ” to see the pilot course graduation ceremony which was very special and exciting. I was slept at my grandparents’ house twice a week because my parents got  divorced and they were like my second parents. I remember that he taught me how to eat chocolate in a way that no one would know how much chocolate I ate.”

Q :What kind of grandfather was he?

E : “My grandfather was a great grandfather. Since he was in opposition he always had time for us. There was a feeling there was someone to turn to.  He knew how to spread love and be there for you.”

Q :What was a special characteristic that he had that no one knew about?

E :” We laughed at him that he was both a prime minister and a renovation contractor. When he was nervous he did house work, he painted and fixed things. When he had to think, he told my grandmother that he must paint the pergola. Our joke was that you could know how deep the decision was that he made by the number of the layers of color on the pergola.” 

Q :We all saw your moving speech at the funeral. Can you describe to us how you wrote it? How did you feel?

E : ” I was eighteen when it happened and I was serving in the army at that time. When we were told that there was only one representative from the family we all knew it was going to be me. I was this granddaughter that you bring instead of flowers, I went with my grandparents to a lot of places. I was the one who always wrote the congratulations and suggestions therefore it was clear that the representative would be me. Before the funeral two thousand people had come to his house people that I only saw on the TV and in the meantime I had to write the eulogy. I went to my house in the evening in order to write it. I did not really understand what was going on or what the funeral would be like.”

Q: How did the family help and contribute to his role and success?

E : “There is a very famous story about his complex relationship with Shimon Peres, at the time when the Oslo Accords were to be signed. At first, Peres was supposed to go to the White House without my grandfather to sign the Principles Agreement. My mother, my brother, my uncle and me, opposed to letting Peres go alone. It was obvious that it was on his shoulders, that he was leading the process. It was clear that only he could do it in the right moderation at the first symbolic encounter with this man (Arafat). We all knew that he should be the one who set the tone, and that he should not give up at the most sensitive point of that negotiation and let someone else determine its “aroma”. There was a real debate about it.

He thought that if he went it would offend the victims’ families much more (the victims of the attacks). We thought that if he went, he was the only one who could present this balance between the price of the victims and the hope of changing the bloodshed. We were really angry with him and thought that he had to go. The mistake was that he did not inform Peres about it and Peres heard about it on the news. It created a very big crisis and eventually reconciliation. But I think in the end we were right and it had to be done with his tentative and authentic handshake. He really preferred not to go. He really preferred not Arafat. He was really looking for other ways but he realized there was no choice. The Sentence “peace must be done with enemies. You can choose your friends, the enemies you cannot choose” was built on this move. Yet, we still couldn’t keep him from paying the price for this very revolutionary and brave and potentially dangerous step. 

I say perhaps dangerous because it is not that the Oslo Accord created the Israeli conflict. People forget that there was always a price for terrorism and for the conflict. It is true that the intensity of the attacks was attributed to the agreement, but it must be remembered that there was also the 70s hijackings of aircraft, and the Nine Eleven. Unfortunately evil is constantly perfected, it is only the good that is not perfected. The feeling was that Oslo was an attempt for the good to be perfected and there was great pride in that courage. He did not come to Oslo from the illusion of a new Middle East. He came from a concept that analyzes the opportunities that exist and wants to maximize them so that Israel can live in its own space in a way that will make it prosperous and not to live on a razor’s edge.”

Q  : Where were you at the moment of the murder and how did you hear about it?

E : “I was at the rally in support of the Oslo Accords, I managed to get home. We thought that no one would come to the rally so we had to go there because the people were counted and probably few people would come. When he made his  speech we felt that the square was already full and there was not even a parking space. When the speech was over we decided to go home instead of staying for the rest of the rally. That same week my mom had a cancerous tumor removed so she stayed home and she got a phone call from my grandmother. Grandma told her ” l am at the The Israel Security Agency, I saw dad was hurt, no one is telling me what happened. You must come here”. We Immediately drove there and when we got there we were told that she had gone to the Ichilov hospital.We drove straight to Ichilov Hospital.

 When we got there we had to wait for half an hour before we were allowed to go inside. We encountered another world. At first we were told that they were able to stabilize a pulse but it did not look good. Gabby Barbash’s body language (hospital manager) looked bad. I looked at my mom and we realized that if they said that they had returned the pulse it meant that he was not breathing. I couldn’t look at my grandmother. It was hard for me to stand there, I felt it was not going well. I left the room because I didn’t want to be there when they announced he had passed away. Everything looked like a science fiction movie, the hall in Ichilov was filled with people, and suddenly the whole country flowed into the hospital corridor. All the commanders, ministers came and I thought to myself – what do you think will happen here? Why are you coming here? That is a stupid thought.

 I remember that Shimon Shabes (Prime Minister’s Office) said that morning “My state is gone”  I did not think about that. I just said to myself “God there is no responsible adult, you all came here. What do you want to do? Do you want to wake him up? Ask him what is happening? Can you manage this place?”. Of course my first thought was that I had to inform the army that I would not come the text day, and then my brother looked at me and said to me “I don’t think they will wait for you tomorrow”. But it was such a moment. You have to let yourself feel in a moment like that because it’s yours. I remember the moment of horror when I felt that I had lost my litmus paper for reality, I felt that everything was on my shoulders and I had to mature instantly.

The first thing I did in the hospital corridor was take out a cigarette. It was a kind of statement that I am now the adult, you don’t tell me what to do. But it was also the moment when I realized that I had accepted a role in the family.”

Q: Can you describe life in the post murder period?

E : “I will say that for five years after the murder, I lived with my grandmother, I did not leave her side. Me and my mother took turns, I traveled with her all over the world. Grandmother decided to show up and be wherever he was mentioned, she moved from school to school, every street, city, village, in Jewish communities around the world. She pursued this mission, she saw it as the foundation of the world’s communities’ commitment to Israel. She ran this great commemorative enterprise of being willing to bear his name and say thank you on his behalf in support of what she saw as the right values ​​for Israel.

 In the 30 days after the murder I got an offer to write a book and I agreed for a very small amount, because I saw it as a way to convey the message and bridge the national disaster to the private one. Soon I found myself at the age of eighteen and a half traveling around the world to communities and lecturing and talking non stop at the hardest time for my family and my country. A half year after the murder I realized that I needed to return to being a normal girl, another name on a list. I felt that if he came back and sees me, he would not recognize me. I had a feeling that something here was out of control in this reality. 

It was important to share it with everyone and go through this thing but something in public discourse did not speak to me. Today after 25 years I know how to analyze it, but then I just felt that it was not going well in my personal life, so I applied for an officer course, to be just another name on the list, to be a soldier, to be treated like everyone else.

I served for two and a half years as assistant to  Air Force Chief of Staff, then Chief Danny Halutz and then I returned to my track. I could go on a trip after the army, attend university and it was liberating. I was not a symbol of mourning anymore”.

Q :Do you think that the whole memorial of Yitzhak Rabin’s Memorial Day commemorates him well?

E : “No! A. I think there is a problem setting the Hebrew date and not the Gregorian Date because people remember the Gregorian Date –November 4th.  There is a malicious intent that it feels very Bolshevik that celebrates it two weeks between both dates, because people cannot ignore November 4th .People who lived here at that time, even if they did not agree, even if they didn’t like, no matter what the political opinion they had, I know that whoever lived on this earth on November 4th (except for a very small minority who were glad) it was sad a day for them. There were people whose world was shaken and to keep this shock they had to keep the date. But that is not possible, the Hebrew date is set which competes with the date of Rachel the matriarch’s death, and somehow it deepens the rift in a really painful way.

B. I also do not want the children of Israel to be examined about his biography. It can be done like other prime ministers. The important thing is to keep the boundaries of discourse, and the permanent code that the government does in your favor. It sounds far-fetched these days because we live in an age where most elected officials don’t believe they work for us. They are also not ashamed to say that they work for themselves.

C. My conclusion at the end of all this, the thing I learned most in my life is a sentence of Rosa Cohen my grandfather’s mother who died when my grandfather  was 15 but was a revered figure in our family. She was persecuted by the Bolsheviks in Russia for refusing to join the party. “Be a man and a Jew in your tent and out.” That conclusion should be the main lesson on Memorial Day of the murder. How do you make the link between being a man and a Jew in your tent and out.

In this country the law is violated and it will be strong when morality returns. We must keep law alongside morality in this country.

What is a low level of obedience?  Fear of punishment.What is a high level of obedience? Agree with the protected value. We all need to move to the top level and understand that the entire set of laws should represent the set of values ​​we believe in and if not, then to act to change the system. But being a citizen is not being a customer and it should be taught on the anniversary of the murder. Not who he was, and not the “Reut” song. Because it plays to groups that have been feeling moderated for years to continue being  moderated, to say it’s not mine, I didn’t like him, didn’t believe his way. At times so charged and divided it is noise and it is just harmful, not to him but to us.”

Q : What do you think about the fact that Rabin went onto the stage without a protective vest ?

E : “We never knew that he was asked to put a protective vest on and he refused. When there was an order that he would drive in an armored vehicle he resented that. He thought that there was no place for a Prime Minister to drive in an armored vehicle. I do not think that he was told to wear a protective vest and as I know that if the Security Agency’s Agents asked him to wear it, he would. Unlike other prime ministers, he did not go on Vacations or to movies, he did not dare because it meant that the agents had to go with him. On Saturdays he did not go out of the house, he preferred that we would come to his house because he did not want to make the agents leave their homes and prevent them from being with their families on Saturdays.”

Q : Suppose the terrible murder had not happened, where would we have been as a country in your opinion?

E : “Look, perhaps he would have lost the election in 1996, everything is possible. I think that the main thing is that we would not have lost the innocence. This loss of innocence is existential because one thing that I think about that the country has been Kibbutz Galuyot for seventy years and now is the time for “Moffat” society. The fact that also Russia,Turkey and America are facing the same challenge which is a kind of charismatic leadership that challenges the structure of Liberal Democracy, in my opinion says that we have overcome the Zionist challenge of our time. I am not good at predicting what would have happened if but I think that we always face the challenges of the hour. I think we are standing at the peak of challenges of the hour.”

Q :Can you tell us how you are alike or different from him? E : “In many things I am like him and in many things I am different. You want to think that you are like him in some of the things like being able to analyze a situation and take the main idea out of nothing and many times it has come to my mind,I can’t say I got it from him. I may have heard it in discussions and from there I learned to develop this way of thinking. I can say that he was much more suspicious than me, much less trusting of people, much more cautious than I am, much more focused on details than I am, and he came up with some very great ideas in many fields such as farming and droppers and all kinds of innovative ideas on this topic which are things that most people don’t care about. He would also get down to the root of issues and he would be able to determine the essence as I said before.”

Presentation

In order to prepare this presentation, we followed a number of steps. First, we looked for the most efficient way that would assist us to teach the class. After brainstorming we decided to do a slide shows. Second, we wrote a number of important points that we wanted to present. After we prepared this we went to the digital book and searched for more important information and events that had happened in his life and things that most of the people haven’t heard about before. The next step was to look for interesting facts about him from the interview with his grandchild Noa Rotman. After we finished summarizing all those facts, we started writing our text for the presentation. When we finished writing the text we started working on the slide shows. We created one slide for each subject.

When the slide shows were prepared we divided the presentation in an equal way. Last but not least, we brainstormed about the creativity part. It was important for us to make something special and unique that would make the audience interested. Finally, we decided to make “a wheel of luck” that was divided into four parts with different colors where each color had a task on it that was connected to Yitzhak Rabin. The presentation in class was done in the following way. At first we introduced the figure that we had made the presentation on. We gave to each pair of students a dictionary page that included words about the army that they might not know, for them to understand the presentation properly. We gave them about three minutes to study the words before we started our presentation. When we started the presentation each group member explained about a number of slides that we had divided before.

 During the presentation we asked the audience general knowledge questions about Yitzhak Rabin that related to the topic on the slide. If a student answered the question correctly, he got a candy. The slide shows included pictures of Itzhak and two videos about him in order to interest the audience. After we finished explaining about the slides we moved to the creative part. We presented our game’s rules and divided the class into four rows. On each turn, a student from another row came to spin the wheel. The first task on the wheel was to answer a question about Itzhak that we explained during the presentation. In the second task we gave the student a sentence about Itzhak, and he had to say whether it was wrong or right. In the third task we gave the student a word and he had to explain how it connected to Itzhak.

In the last task we gave the student a word connected to Itzhak and he had to Introduce the word in pantomime to his row. If they guessed right, they got a point. The row that got the most points won the game and got two chocolates and stickers while the others got one chocolate.Immediately after the presentation, we received feedback from our teacher and peers. Miriam said : Your presentation was excellent. You prepared an interesting Power Point presentation that enlightened your audience, myself included, with information about Itzhak Rabin that we didn’t know. You shared inside information that you heard from his grand-daughter and prepared a fun and creative activity which was enjoyed by all.”

Eitan said : “I want to say that the presentation was very good, you spoke clearly and it was nice to hear it. The game was very beautiful, interesting and unique”.

Idan said :” the presentation was very beautiful, interesting, nice and unique. I understood everything. Your English was in an eye level. The game was very creative and I liked it”.

Adi :”I learnt a lot of new things during the presentation. Such as, the fact that he wanted to be a water engineer. You provided a lot of information and I enjoyed studying new things”.

Gil :” Although  I knew a lot about Yitzhak Rabin, I learnt new things about him. For example, I thought that Itzhak was offered to wear a protective vest which now I know is wrong. I think that the presentation was interesting, fascinating  and spectacular”.

We learnt several things about Yitzhak Rabin while doing this section. To begin with, we learnt about his childhood and his family life, and that he was as a family person. 

Moreover, we learnt about his hobbies such as painting and fixing things. In addition, we learnt that he was a decent person who took responsibility over his family’s offenses such as the Dollar Account Affair. Furthermore, we learnt that was willing to give up on his dreams in order to serve the country.

Looking back on our presentation, there are several things that could have been done differently. Firstly, we could have been less stressed and more calm during the presentation. In addition, we could have made the tasks in the creative part more challenging and at a higher level.

In conclusion, we had a great honor to prepare our presentation on Yitzhak Rabin. We are satisfied  that we managed to enlighten the class with new information about Yitzhak Rabin. We enjoyed and learnt a lot of new things about him during this time.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rotman, N’. (Sunday 12 2019). Yitzhak Rabin’s life. (S’ Shabat, Interviewer)

The Knessent . Yitzhak Rabin. http://www.pmo.gov.il/History/PastPMM/Pages/Rabin.aspx

The Yitzhak Rabin Center. http://www.rabincenter.org.il/Web/He/Default.