I was married on June 22nd, 1992. The following
day, june 23rd, was my 23rd birthday. I loved the
convergence of numbers, anniversaries of birth and re-birth ...that was the
main reason for choosing that date, but there was also another one: June 23rd,
1992, was election day in Israel, which is traditionally a day off . We wanted people
to stay up late and dance with us into the night without worrying about how
they would get up in the morning…so, it seemed perfect!
The wedding was indeed a joyous affair, friends and family
galore, and to top it off , the next day, we were treated to another wonderful
gift: Yitzhak Rabin’ Labour Party gained the majority of the votes, enabling
him to construct a coalition and become prime minister.
3 years passed. Asher and I moved to a tiny new apartment in Tel
Aviv, nurtured it lovingly, and struggled to pay rent. Asher competed medical
school, my career as a singer was gaining enormous momentum…and most importantly...Yitzchak
Rabin was taking Israel courageously into a what promised to be an exciting,
hope-filled new future. Rabin was making peace!
It started in 1987 with the Intifada, the revolt of Arabs
living in Gaza and the west bank against the ongoing Israeli Occupation and its
dire ramifications. The uprise included multiple forms of civil disobedience,
stone and molotov bottle throwing and other aggression, and lead to hundreds
of lost lives and many thousands of injuries, as the Israeli military
retaliated. Rabin had initially made very firm statements against the intifada,
instructing the military to “break their arms and legs..”….but then, he had a
change of heart and mind. This enlightenment, this deep realization that
without peace the cycle of blood would go on forever, this change of perspective
that only a leader as courageous and honest as Rabin could initiate, gave birth
to the Oslo Accords, which were signed in 1993 and awarded Rabin, Peres, Clinton and
Arafat with the Nobel Prize for Peace. Two States for two people, Israel alongside
Palestine….who would have believed, finally it was going to happen! Nearly a
100 years of violent conflict were poised to reach their end, long overdue!
The days were highly
charged…there was enormous tension in the air. The majority of Israelis believed
in the peace process wholeheartedly and could hardly contain their excitement
and anticipation as it slowly came to fruition. Investments started flowing
into Israel, bus loads of tourists came
to behold the miracle in the desert, world leaders visited, praising and blessing the fledgling accords..it
was a time full of wonder and replete with hope…everything was possible!
But not all of Israel’s citizens shared this enthusiasm: quite
the opposite. Rabin’s political rivals on the right were seething. The
messianic rabbis and their followers, the settlers and their extreme religious-nationalist
leadership, and an array of others who found the idea of a Palestinian state
between abhorrent and sacrilegious, went on a horrible crusade against Rabin.
The incitement was appalling. Rabin was called a traitor; he was cursed, harassed
and threatened. At the pinnacle of this criminal incitement against him, during
a demonstration in Jerusalem , Rabin was
pictured in a Nazi SS soldier’s uniform, and the angry, violent mob yelled: Death
to Rabin ! At that same demonstration, political leaders from the right stood
on the terrace, in the fashion of dukes and princes of the middle ages, and smiled approvingly as the mob
erupted with hatred, like burning lava.
One of the politicians on the terrace with a big smile spread across his face, was
Binyamin Netanyahu.
Flash back to the land of hope. The city of Tel Aviv decided
to organize a huge rally in support of the Oslo Accords. Shlomo Lahat, Tel Aviv’s
legendary mayor, contacted me through my management, asking if I would agree to
perform at the rally. I was a rising star at the time, already very popular and
filling large halls. I was honored to have been approached and immediately
agreed. He asked if I was willing to have my name on the billboards advertising
the rally, I was quick to say: of course! Anything that will help bring the
crowds and support peace!
I remember driving through Tel Aviv on the days prior to the
rally, seeing those billboards, and wondering: where are all the big names that
should have been there? Where are all the stars?
None were written on the announcement. (small red light
should have gone off in my head, but..i was, as so many were then…in a state of
euphoria…)
The night of the rally was magnificent, hundreds of thousand
showed up, waving flags and banners, supporting Rabin and Peres vociferously,
sending waves of good energy their way. It was a spectacular sight to see. Gil
Dor, Zohar Fresco and myself performed three songs and felt a surge of
energy and excitement over come us…we were thrilled!!
We stayed after our show, listening to some other performers
and to some of the speeches, and just as Rabin joined Miri Aloni to sing “song
for peace”, in his raspy voice, endearingly and completely out of tune , we decided to leave the square and get a head
start home, preceding the crowds who would spill into the surrounding streets
and clog them.
We walked down the stairs, to where our car was parked.
The very same stairs, that a few moments later Rabin was to
descend, on his way to a horrible death, shot three times in the back by the murderer
Yigal Amir: Israel’s first political assassination and one that was to change
her history forever.
I remember where I was when I found out….
I had decided to go to my grandmother’s apartment in the
south of Tel Aviv, to give her a hug before I drove home. As I walked into her apartment,
in the old Yemenite neighborhood near the Carmel market, I saw her staring at
the TV screen, tears running down her face.
“They killed him! They murdered him ! those bastards! ” she
kept repeating again and again at the top of her voice.
I was shocked, I couldn’t breathe.
Millions mourned him, vigils were set up at the
square, lighting candles, singing softly. I sang at all the memorials, barely
able to extract a clear voice from a throat choked with tears. Droves of people
ascended the mountains to Jerusalem, to pass by his grave and pay him last
respect…numerous monuments and edifices were named after him, including the
square where he was murdered, and a glorious building erected in his memory,
dedicated to educating for tolerance and democracy.…
But not all mourned, not all throats choked with tears. In
the shadows, there was much rejoicing, thanking of the Lord for the removal of
the Satan Rabin, and self-satisfied chuckling and rubbing of hands…
Palestinian extremists, realizing their hopes of independence
had been shot three times in the back by Yigal Amir and buried along with Rabin,
resorted to terror and suicide bus bombings .Israel was blasted back in time to
the middle ages, and the political, nationalist, messianic right, swords swinging,
war songs emerging from their cracked throats, rose into power and embarked on
the first and longest Jewish crusade in history…that has brought us to this day….
…20 years later.
The man on the terrace had fulfilled the Biblical prophecy: “did
you murder, then inherit?”
After 20 years of intermittent rule Netanyahu, with a little
help from his friends, has almost single handed, destroyed Israel, trampling
our hopes for peace under the stiff boot of messianic nationalism run amok. He
has transformed Yitzchak Rabin’s dream of a peaceful, prosperous, democratic
Israeli society living aside an independent, free Palestine, into a paranoid, racist, messianic, extremist,
xenophobic, violent, arrogant, ignorant, ethnocentric nightmare.
He has continued using his well-honed tactic of incitement
to instill fear and self-righteousness into the hearts of the masses, securing
his recurrent re-elections and ensuing privileges as he preys on these most
base emotions. He has fed the monster of
religious extremism to his own political gain, given Israeli citizens a
personal example of conniving, tale-spinning, slippery conduct, coupled with a
clear penchant for the good life at the expense of the common working man and
woman’s hard earned tax money….such stark and tragic contrast to Yitzchak Rabin’s
modesty and reticence.
Netanyahu, who stood on the terrace and smiled as the blood
thirsty crowd roared, has become the “Big Dictator” in the Chaplin film: full of
himself and paranoid at the same time, driven by a warped, dangerous vision of Israel’s
future, seeped in dishonesty, contradiction and feeble leadership, committing
generations, with his actions and reactions, to an eternity of bloodshed .
Some believe Netanyahu will eventually bring peace, that he is still able to change heart and mind, as Rabin did. I once wanted to believe so...but i am no longer able to fool myself. Netanyahu has betrayed this nation. He has put his considerable talents of oration, political savvy and purported intelligence, in service of self-glorification and religious , nationalist extremism, at the expense of every single principle upon which Israel was founded to begin with. I fail to see how this man can ever emerge from the dark pit he has thrown himself, and all of us, into. maybe i am wrong, but i believe the solution will come from somewhere, and someone, else.
Some believe Netanyahu will eventually bring peace, that he is still able to change heart and mind, as Rabin did. I once wanted to believe so...but i am no longer able to fool myself. Netanyahu has betrayed this nation. He has put his considerable talents of oration, political savvy and purported intelligence, in service of self-glorification and religious , nationalist extremism, at the expense of every single principle upon which Israel was founded to begin with. I fail to see how this man can ever emerge from the dark pit he has thrown himself, and all of us, into. maybe i am wrong, but i believe the solution will come from somewhere, and someone, else.
As for me, since 1995
I have been speaking out. I have been fighting that battle that Rabin lost,
that Rabin gave his life for. I too have been giving…not my life (yet..), but
much of my well-being and comfort, my popularity and personal gain. I have
given all of these things lovingly, for the sake of future generations, for the
sake of what is left of the soul of this once-beautiful place. I do this by
singing for peace, volunteering, speaking out, writing, and supporting the
endless organizations that do the thankless, diligent job of building bridges
every possible way, making sure their voices are heard!
There is a ray of
light that keeps stubbornly seeping into the darkness of my heart, lighting up
that patch on the ground where grass insists on growing even in the shadows,
where a song is born despite the numbing silence : The place of hope. That voice
keeps telling me: Things will change, the pendulum will swing, focus on the
good people, focus on the positive action, be patient and selfless as you build,
educate, communicate, believe in the power of change. Focus on all that’s
right, keep your chin up, and keep going.
20 years have passed since Yitzchak Rabin’s murder, and 23 since
the day of our marriage. Asher and I have three beautiful children now….it is for them
that I write these words, for them to know and remember, for them to carry in
their hearts like a beacon, long after I am gone.
