Page 5 - Issue 3

Israeli writer, David Grossman, who lost his son Uri during last
summer's war with Hizbullah, delivered the following speech in
front of 100,000 people, (including a large Habonim Dror
th
contingent) who had gathered in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on 4
November to mark the 11th anniversary of the assassination of
former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

This is an edited version of the speech. The full text can be
found posted in the forums on the World Habonim Dror
website at www.habonimdror.org.il

David Grossman speaking at
the memorial for Yitzhak The annual memorial ceremony for Yitzhak Rabin is the moment when we
Rabin in Tel Aviv. pause for a while to remember Rabin the man, the leader. And we also take
a look at ourselves, at Israeli society, its leadership, the national mood,
the state of the peace process, at ourselves as individuals in the face of national events .

It is not easy to take a look at ourselves this year. There was a war, and Israel flexed its massive
military muscle, but also exposed Israel's fragility. We discovered that our military might ultimately
cannot be the only guarantee of our existence. Primarily, we have found that the crisis Israel is
experiencing is far deeper than we had feared, in almost every way .

…for many years, the State of Israel has been squandering, not only the lives of its sons, but also its
miracle; that grand and rare opportunity that history bestowed upon it, the opportunity to establish
here a state that is efficient, democratic, which abides by Jewish and universal values; a state that
would be a national home and haven, but not only a haven, also a place that would offer a new meaning to
Jewish existence; a state that holds as an integral and essential part of its Jewish identity and its
Jewish ethos, the observance of full equality and respect for its non-Jewish citizens .

Look at what befell us. Look what befell the young, bold, passionate country we had here, and how, as if
it had undergone a quickened ageing process, Israel lurched from infancy and youth to a perpetual state
of gripe, weakness and sourness . How did this happen? When did we lose even the hope that we would
eventually be able to live a different, better life? Moreover, how do we continue to watch from the side
as though hypnotized by the insanity, rudeness, violence and racism that has overtaken our home ?

And I ask you: How could it be that a people with such powers of creativity, renewal and vivacity as ours,
a people that knew how to rise from the ashes time and again, finds itself today, despite its great
military might, at such a state of laxity and inanity, a state where it is the victim once more, but this
time its own victim, of its anxieties, its short-sightedness .

One of the most difficult outcomes of the recent war is the heightened realization that at this time
there is no king in Israel, that our leadership is hollow. Our military and political leadership is hollow. I
am not even talking about the obvious blunders in running the war, of the collapse of the home front, nor
of the large-scale and small-time corruption .

I am talking about the fact that the people leading Israel today are unable to connect Israelis to their
identity. Certainly not with the healthy, vitalizing and productive areas of this identity, with those areas