As <i> Shiva </i> Ends, Thousands Bid Rabin Shalom : Mideast: Israelis flock to grave site and square where prime minister was shot as one-week mourning period comes to a close.

On a crisp, clear Saturday, tens of thousands of Israelis streamed past Yitzhak Rabin’s grave, still unable to let go of the fallen prime minister a week after his assassination.

The Sabbath outing that families traditionally enjoy here turned into a day of national pilgrimage, with grandparents joining children and grandchildren and making their way to Mount Herzl, the forested Jerusalem hill where the nation’s leaders and many of its fallen soldiers are laid to rest.

By midafternoon, police warned that the national cemetery’s parking lots were filled and urged drivers to approach the site with caution.

“We never expected so many,” said Jerusalem Police Chief Arieh Amit. “There were many tens of thousands.” Mourners waited hours in traffic jams that began several miles from the main entrance into Jerusalem, and some were unable to get anywhere near the grave.

As the shiva , or one-week mourning period, for Rabin drew to a close, the grave-site scene was repeated in Tel Aviv’s Kings of Israel Square, where thousands more visited the site where Rabin was murdered as he left a massive peace rally last Saturday. A memorial rally is scheduled to be held in the square tonight, and it will be formally renamed Yitzhak Rabin Square. Rabin’s widow, Leah Rabin, is scheduled to speak.

These gatherings were very different from the one that took place Monday, when dignitaries flew in from around the globe to attend Rabin’s funeral and eulogize him as a statesman, warrior and peacemaker. Just as Rabin’s granddaughter, Noa Ben Artzi, stepped from among the world leaders to deliver a highly personal eulogy that reclaimed her grandfather for the family he left behind, on Saturday Israelis reclaimed their fallen leader as one of their own.

Sad-eyed housewives pushing baby strollers rocked their infants silently as they stared at the grave. Pensioners leaning heavily on canes walked slowly along the stone path to the site, gazing uncomprehendingly. Students earnestly penned letters and poems to a man who was five times their age. Soldiers stood awkwardly among the civilians, their heads bowed.

Together, Israelis of all ages, from across the political spectrum and from every walk of life, wept, hugged, lit slow-burning memorial candles and added more bouquets to the mountain of flowers rising above the ground where Rabin was laid to rest. And they vowed that they will keep coming back.

“This is not goodby,” said David Schattner, 50, as he walked with his wife and children from the grave. The Schattners had driven nearly three hours from their northern kibbutz to join the grieving crowd.

“Everyone will come here. Every child in Israel will push his parents to bring him,” Schattner said, pausing often to wipe tears from his eyes as he spoke. “It is not the last time we will come here to him.”

Schattner said he worked with Rabin as an adviser on water and border issues in negotiations for peace with the Palestinians.

“I feel privileged to have met this great man. As we drove here today, along the highway, I told my children that there was not a meter of this country that Yitzhak Rabin did not fight for. He is a part of our history,” Schattner said.

Among the crowd Saturday were personal acquaintances, including soldiers who had served with the youthful Rabin when he was a commander in the Palmach, the elite fighting force of the pre-state Jewish community. They are old men now, their bodies bent with age and with the memories of many wars and many fallen comrades.

There were also those who never met Rabin but came because they felt they had lost something precious.

“Rabin was one of us,” said Espen Kon, 32. Kon, his wife, Tami, and their infant son, Roey, drove 40 minutes from Rosh Hayin, a small town in the coastal plain, to pay their respects. “He was the first prime minister who was born here. He fought here. He cut the path for so many of us in so many ways. Rabin was a part of the popular culture, the way he spoke, his inarticulateness, his slang.”

A reserve member of the Golani brigade, the same elite infantry unit that Rabin’s assassin, Yigal Amir, served in, Kon said that he regrets now not having more actively supported Rabin’s efforts to make peace with the Palestinians.

“I was too passive,” he said. “I won’t be passive anymore. Rabin understood that Jews and Arabs do not want to live together, that there has to be a separation. He wanted to make life better for me and for my son.”

In the early morning, before the crowds grew too thick, it was still possible to slip under the ropes marking off the grave site. Dozens knelt to relight the memorial candles that had been extinguished by rain the night before. Hundreds of the squat candles formed a flickering border around the four-foot-high and growing mound of flowers.

Signs propped on the flowers bespoke the anguish of the mourners. “We have come to give you respect, great man, but this is not last respects. You’re forever with us,” read one sign, hand-lettered in Hebrew. “Look what we have come to,” said another.

Someone stuck a bumper sticker saying “Shalom, chaver”--goodby, friend--on one of the poles. It was the phrase that President Clinton used when he first spoke after Rabin’s death, then repeated at the funeral. “Shalom, chaver” bumper stickers are spreading across the nation as quickly as the bumper stickers that proclaimed “Rabin has lost his mind” and “You voted Rabin, you got Arafat” are disappearing.

Throughout the day, the mourners maintained a decorum despite the interminable traffic jams.

“I think it is beautiful,” Kon said as he watched the orderly and quiet crowd near Rabin’s grave. “It gives you hope that maybe the country will be all right after all.”