<HTML>Dear Shalom:
Regarding P.M. Rabin's z"l assassination, last year we held a special
program on Tzom Gedalyah including a film and exploration of the
connections to the events of Tanakh and the chilling events of our day and
age. Last year a student run program commemorating Rabin's life and death
was held on the Hebrew Yahrtzeit. This past year on the Hebrew Yarhzeit, I
spoke for about 25 minutes after tefillah about what lessons we can learn
from living in the generation of the greatest Hillul hashem in the last
centuries (if not more). I spoke about issues of recognition of what led
up to the assassination, the malevolent rhetoric within the Orthodox
community against Rabin, the lack of recognizing the sincerity of other
points of view, respect for democracy as the only framework that for
better or for worse can let us as a people, in the real here and now of
the 20th century with all our divisions, function and live together
without killing each other over issues of substance and debate, the great
gap between religious and hiloni that this engendered and the danger to
the fabric of Israeli society that the schism have and are continuing to
cause. I finished with the charge that we all have to work to increase
civility and tolerance in our communities and be on the lookout for the
delegitimization that is continuing in the rhetoric of ads and speeches. I
showed the kids some examples that are continuing till today e.g. "Barak
is the enemy of the Jews" and other such outrageous statements. We also
said some memorial Tehillim for Rabin and his family.</HTML>
