Israel Matzav

Overnight music video: Mama Rochel and 'Rabin's legacy'

I missed 3:00 am Israel time tonight (went to dinner with a cousin), but I'm going to do 3:00 am US time instead because tonight is the 11th of Cheshvan, and there's a song I must play in honor of the occasion. But there's also much more after the video.

The 11th of Cheshvan is the yahrtzeit (anniversary of the death) of our Mother Rachel.

Here's Abie Rotenberg with Mama Rochel (Our Mother Rachel).

Let's go to the videotape.



I'd also like to post part of last year's post from this date (when I was not allowed to post music).

There's a connection between Yitzchak Rabin, the Prime Minister who was assassinated on the 12th of Cheshvan, and our matriarch Rachel, and it goes beyond the coincidence of the consecutive dates of death. Here's the connection.

"During the Rabin administration, Kever Rachel was slated to fall into 'Area A', that is, under full Arab civil and military control. Upon seeing this, Knesset Member Chanan Porat [National Religious Party. CiJ] decided that he must speak with Rabin in the hopes of changing his mind. As Chanan Porat was walking to Rabin's office, Knesset Member Rabbi Menachem Porush [United Torah Judaism. CiJ] asked Porat where he was going. Hearing that Porat was about to fight for Kever Rachel, Porush asked to join in the meeting. At Rabin's office, Chanan Porat was diligently explaining the ins and outs of the security situation at Kever Rachel and making rational arguments that did not seem to move Rabin.

"Suddenly Rabin looked at Porush and saw that he was crying. Porush held Rabin's hands and with tears streaming down his face, said: 'Yitzchak, it's Mamma Rachel, Mamma Rachel.' At that moment Rabin's heart opened, and he altered the map so that Kever Rachel would remain in Jewish hands."

Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from the respective turnouts for the two memorials on Saturday night. Some  70,000 people showed up to pray at Rachel's tomb. Only 15,000 showed up for the Left's annual hatefest in Rabin Square.

Maybe the people of Israel have figured out that they have never been told the truth about Rabin's death.

More here and here.

The Left tried to turn this year's Rabin memorial (which took place already) into a demonstration for democracy. They weren't successful. This is from al-Monitor - a mostly Left publication.

Some 35,000 people gathered in Rabin Square, in the center of Tel Aviv, for the event on the night of Oct. 12. Most were youth movement members, both right and left wing. In other words, a large number of the attendees were not even born at the time of the assassination.

Inevitably, they became the subject of intense discussion during current-event TV and radio shows the next morning. Studio discussions dealt with the general question of what happened to Rabin's legacy, the relative dearth of participants as compared with previous years and the reason why senior political figures and the general public alike were absent from this year's memorial, especially when compared with years past.

The general tone was critical and expressed a kind of longing for the way the assassination was marked in the early years. Back then, assembling tens of thousands of participants who were joined by political leaders from the left and the entire Rabin family needed no organization — while the event itself was broadcast on every channel imaginable.

In an interview on the Israeli Army radio station — with the event's moderator, actor Moshe Ivgi — anchor Niv Raskin tried to get him to compare the enormous funeral for Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, which took place on Oct. 7, and the significantly more modest event to commemorate a prime minister who was killed because of his efforts to achieve peace. Luckily, Ivgi was both wise and seasoned enough to avoid falling into that easily refuted populist trap.

Efforts to blame the current political leadership or the growing ignorance of the general population for the decline in the event's stature misses the main point: Most Israelis are not interested in the Palestinian issue.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Mama Rachel, overnight music video, Rachel's tomb, two-state solution, Yitzchak Rabin

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:51 AM