Wilson Bids ‘Shalom’ to Old Friend

Thousands of Los Angeles residents mourned the death of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at an array of tributes Monday, including an afternoon memorial service at the Simon Wiesenthal Center and an evening candlelight vigil in front of the Israeli Consulate.

At the Wiesenthal Center in West Los Angeles, beneath a wall inscribed with the names of Jewish ghettos and Nazi death camps, a weeping Gov. Pete Wilson led religious and political leaders in an afternoon tribute to Rabin. During the hourlong memorial service, the normally stoic governor’s voice quivered with emotion in front of an estimated 2,000 mourners as he spoke of his 20-year friendship with Rabin.

“When I think of Israel, whose great men have bled for peace, anywhere I go I will remember Yitzhak Rabin,” Wilson told the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd. “It has been said that blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed, my good friend, you must be. Shalom, my good friend.”

During his remarks at the outdoor service, where candles were placed by an 18-foot-tall menorah, Wilson declared Monday an official day of mourning in California and ordered flags on public buildings flown at half-staff. Fighting tears, Wilson compared the assassinated Israeli leader to American Presidents Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.

Rabin, 73, was shot at a peace rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday night. The confessed killer, Yigal Amir, 25, a law student with links to the Jewish extremist fringe, told authorities he wanted to derail Rabin’s peace policies.

Across the state Monday, Rabin, the man who once fought as a soldier, was honored as a peacemaker by Jews and non-Jews alike.

More than 1,000 mourners attended the candlelight vigil in front of the Israeli Consulate on Wilshire Boulevard. Police closed off a section of Wilshire from Fairfax Avenue to San Vicente Boulevard, as mourners cried and held candles, sang and waived Israeli flags.

A number of politicians attended the vigil, including Wilson, State Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan and City Council members Laura Chick and Michael Feuer.

“Yitzhak Rabin was a warrior for all people,” Riordan said. “It took great strength to fight for peace and to follow what’s right, even if it’s not popular.”

Hayden told those gathered: “Rabin meant a lot to the people of West Los Angeles because his life spread like an ark over the lives of the people living on the West Side.”

Bzalel Nutovits, who emigrated to the United States from Israel in 1979, said outside the consulate that he served in the Israeli army with Rabin in 1948.

“He inspired us all to fight,” Nutovits said. “Since I heard the news yesterday, I can’t eat or sleep.”

In the San Fernando Valley, congregations from several synagogues joined at half a dozen services.

Nearly 3,000 people turned out at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, where Rabbi Harold Schulweis appeared with Monir Deeb, president of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. The crowd erupted in applause when he and Schulweis embraced.

“Yitzhak did not die because of the sole lunacy of a lone madman,” Schulweis said. “The assassin breathed poison air. . . . Yitzhak died because when people burned his effigy, when people dressed him in a Nazi uniform, when people in high places called him ‘traitor’ and ‘murderer,’ too few raised their voice, too few were moved by moral outrage to cry out to everyone. We are fragile human beings and we are killed by words.”

Also speaking at Valley Beth Shalom was the Rev. Clinton Benton of Calvary Baptist Church in South-Central Los Angeles, who recalled that the Bible says God delivered the Jews from slavery in Egypt and then promised them Israel.

“That same God hears your cries tonight,” he said. “Don’t give up. Don’t despair . . . keep peace alive. Shalom.”

“Some of our worst fears have come to pass,” said Jack Mayer, executive director of the Valley Alliance of the Jewish Federation, to a crowd of more than 250 people gathered at the Bernard Milken Jewish Community Campus in West Hills.

“We never dreamt another Jew would commit this act,” said Sylvia Seidman, 74, of Canoga Park. “Jewish people aren’t that way. We don’t even like guns.”

In an interview, Rabbi John Sherwood of Temple Emet in Calabasas said he was confident the peace process would not be seriously hurt by the assassination. “I still believe that by the year 2000 there will be peace in the Middle East, and Israel will be the technological hub of a 300-million member area,” Sherwood said. “And the name of Rabin will go down in world history and Jewish history as one of the people who made that happen.”

Times staff writers Erin Texeira, Antonio Olivo and Miles Corwin and correspondent Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this report.