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Published: November 7th 2006
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11 years
11 years since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin Hello! I would like to welcome all those who I just recently added as subscribers to my blog! (thats most of you, although I hope more than 7 people were reading my blog before! even if you weren't subscribed).
Well, Tel Aviv is still awesome. The weather has finally started to change. Who knew that it wasn't always 90 degress and sunny out?? So, its the beginning of winter in Israel, which is basically like the fall on the northern east coast. Its raining and chilly and windy, and probably in the 50s/60s. So yeah, winter in Israel does exist, but in comparison to pittsburgh, it ain't nothing. The only problem? I only really have summer clothes! And a few long sleeve shirts and a couple light sweatshirts. I'll have to do something about this, hehe.
Last thursday, we invited our whole group over to our apartment for dinner, and it was a lot of fun.
Its great to get everyone together without the program. We actually all try to see eachother fairly often. Its really nice. So now, I need to start going out and meeting more Israelis like I was doing in the summer before the program
started.
Speaking of summer, its hard to believe that I've already been in Israel 4 months. 4 months today actually. Time has flown by so quickly, its amazing, and unfair, I want this time to last forever!! I'm also starting to get restless in wanting to travel around Israel again on my own, because I didn't really get to this summer like I wanted to. So hopefullly I'll get to do that in the next few weeks.
So, last saturday night was the 11th anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, a former Israeli Prime Minister. He was assassinated in 1995 while he was Prime Minister, at a huge huge peace and anti-violence rally. At the time, Israel had a lot of hope for peace, as Rabin, and Yasser Arafat had signed the Oslo Agreements and were working towards peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. The rally had been attended by thousands and thousands of people and was unlike any other in Israeli history. At the end of the rally, as Rabin was walking off stage, a young fanatical Jewish guy shot and killed him. At the time, it was purely unbelievable and shook Israeli society to the
core. There was a long chain of events after the assassination of Rabin that led to the collapse of the peace process. Today, Rabin is remembered for the chances and major steps he took for peace. At the rally this year, there were several thousand people. My whole group went with a "tour guide" to give us some background information on Rabin, and to help us understand all the speeches. The whole ceremony was very moving, and even though I didn't understand most of what was said (one because it was very hard to hear, and two because it was a very high level of hebrew), you could still understand the emotions and feel connected to the crowd and the speakers. The main speaker of the event was an Israeli author David Grossman. He is a very famous author, and is a big promoter of peace. Also unfortunately, his son was killed in the war this summer with Lebanon. He had not spoken since his son died, so everyone wanted to know what he was going to say. While I didn't understand most of the speech at the time, I came home and read the translation. The speech was amazing, and very inspirational for Israeli society. I would suggest that you read the translation also, but if you dont know much about Israeli society you probably wouldn't really get it. So, every year at the Rabin memorial rally, it has basically become a time for Israeli society to reflect on itself and what has happened this past year. The basic theme of the speech by Grossman was that this year it is hard to reflect upon ourselves, especially after the war, and that we need to stop the corruption and get back towards the goal of peace. After he spoke, there were several famous Israeli singers that sang songs of peace and love, etc. Towards the end, there was a moment of silence, and then a video of Rabin's life. It was amazing that the large crowd that had been so noisy throughout the rally was almost instantly silent. It was a very overwhelming sound and feeling. At the very end, the entire crowd sang Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, and it was so beautiful. Thousands of people singing together in love and support of this amazing country of Israel. It was all very emotional and wonderful.
The rally ended around 10:30pm, and we were all talking about what to do after, like go get a coffee or something, when all of a sudden it began to rain. Well, in Israel, they don't handle rain for well, so everyone started running for cover, like the rain was going to melt them or something! I casually strolled towards cover, as I had gotten very used to cold rain in Pittsburgh (yay pittsburgh! the rain made me feel at home actually). It quickly turned into a torrential downpour, with rivers rushing down the streets. It got extremely windy and all my friends ran into a building to hide. It was almost like hurricane weather actually. It reminded me of watching all the hurricanes on tv last fall in florida and louisiana, etc. The wind and rain was really strong, blowing all the big posters and signs and starting to rip them down. The main difference was that there were no buildings being torn apart, so thats a good thing. But it was so funny to see everyone panic with the rain and wind! I just laughed. hehehe.
Well, I think thats all the good stories I can think of right now. Until next time!!
Love,
Leah
Happy birthday shoutout to my Brother JOEL!!! Happy 22nd Birthday!!!! (when did you get so old??)
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Lisa
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I love the rain!
Hahaha...rain freaking people out. That's great. Hahaha...silly kids. :)