Leah Rabin Brings a Message of Peace

‘He was there for the people, and all of a sudden he was not any more.”

The widow’s words, as moving as they are final, are those of Leah Rabin, speaking of her assassinated husband, the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

On Sunday night, she will bring her eyewitness account of that fateful evening to Los Angeles as keynote speaker at the annual Community Dinner sponsored by the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles at the Century Plaza Hotel.

Her visit comes just three days before Jews across Southern California and around the world begin observance of Pesach or Passover, the annual festival that commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people from slavery in the land of Egypt. The ancient holiday is celebrated not only in festive meals but also in familial and communal reflections on questions of justice and peace.

“I want to talk about my husband and the circumstances of the murder and his legacy and how I feel about having lost him,” she said in a telephone interview this week from Jerusalem.

Rabin was fatally shot at the conclusion of a peace rally in Tel Aviv on Nov. 4 by Yigal Amir, a 25-year-old Israeli who described himself as “God’s emissary.” Amir, who hoped that the murder would stop the peace process, was convicted Wednesday of the murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Religious fundamentalists, Rabin said in the interview, present one of the biggest barriers to peace.

“I don’t want to see them as the threat,” said Rabin, who is not religious, “but they’re the obstacles. They are the troublemakers. This is it for both sides, no question, and more Muslim than Jewish, of course.

“But our [Jewish] fundamentalists have played pretty much of a strong role in demonstrating, for instance, against the peace process--violently--less so after my husband’s murder,” she said.

Fundamentalists of whatever stripe, she said, must be isolated and condemned at a time when she said the larger society is “trying to create a better world.”

In the aftermath of the murder, stunned Israelis set aside differences over the peace process and came together in grief.

Since then, however, a series of suicide bombings by Palestinian terrorists have again shaken public confidence in the peace process and threaten to topple the government of Rabin’s successor, Prime Minister Shimon Peres, when elections are held May 29.

American Jews share many of the same concerns. Rabin was asked how she would counsel Jews in the United States.

“I cannot guide them,” she said. “I can only speak for myself and for my husband’s legacy--and for all the people who support the peace process--and try to explain why I believe there is no alternative,” she said.

At the same time, she encouraged attempts by Jews and Muslims in Southern California to develop a dialogue.

“This can only help and this can only add to support for the peace process,” she said. “I don’t see why a suicide terrorist act should stop it or make it more difficult. It should make the need more specific for a dialogue. That’s the way I see it,” she said.

Despite the fact that four months have passed since her husband’s death, Rabin said it is not getting any easier for her. She has embarked on a grueling series of overseas speaking engagements and interviews.

“Is it getting easier? No. It’s not easier,” she told The Times. “It may be getting more difficult in terms of drain and fatigue,” she said. Rabin writes her own speeches and worries that she may repeat something she has previously told an audience.

“Since the murder I am not watching a lot of television, not reading a lot of papers,” she said. “I’m very, very busy, being involved with what I was left with after my husband’s murder. There is an enormous amount of letters to be answered, an enormous amount of [speaking] requests somehow or another either accepted or rejected. At the same time I am trying to write my memoirs,” she said.

“The whole world wants somehow or other for the most unbelievable kind of stuff,” she said. “It’s just wild.”

Sunday’s federation dinner to honor 28 past heads of the United Jewish Fund, the fund-raising arm of the federation, is expected to draw 1,500 guests, according to federation President Irwin Field.

Academy award nominee Richard Dreyfuss is scheduled to introduce Rabin. The campaign is headed by Lionel Bell. Marilyn and Monty Hall are dinner co-chairs.