A lesson in remembrance

By ARYEH DEAN COHEN

(November 1) - As teachers and students around the country watch the flag lowered to half-mast today in memory of Yitzhak Rabin, educators hope the message of tolerance will be loud and clear.

Dana Sternau / Israel Sun

"I want it inscribed in their memories: this act should never be repeated. Enough violence; say yes to peace," said Etty Sheps, assistant principal of the ORT High School in Jerusalem's Ramot neighborhood.

Throughout the country memorial ceremonies for Rabin will remember his achievements, review his death, and draw on the lessons that can be used for a better future. The law commits schools to pay tribute to Rabin's memory, deal with the importance of democracy and discuss the danger violence poses to society and the state. Each school, however, determines its individual program, said Yitzhak Shapira, director of the Education Ministry's Values Education Authority, which is coordinating the events.

"The most important place on the day we remember Yitzhak Rabin is the schools," Shapira explained, noting that not all children would be exposed to such discussions at home. "I'm not sure that in every home there is the same identical serious and deep consideration for the Rabin assassination."

Shapira and his staff worked for months providing schools with materials. They ranged from a speech by Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein of the Har Etzion Yeshiva a week after the assassination on the significance of being responsible for someone's education to an article on what an Arab teacher can learn from the assassination by Arab poet and educator Salim Jubran. There are also suggestions about which Jewish texts can be used and a videotape on Rabin's life.

"Each school knows how to prepare its own educational program ... at every school a certain direction has started to form in the past few years on this day," Shapira said.

In the week before today's ceremony, pupils at four Jerusalem high schools were using different doors to the same corridor - all were coming to grips with the Rabin assassination at a time when incitement was again rearing its head.

At Sheps's ORT Ramot High School preparations for the ceremony - organized by the ninth grade - have been going on for weeks. While Sheps doesn't believe ceremonies can work miracles, she's convinced they have far-reaching educational value.

"I don't dare say that this ceremony can change the atmosphere in the country. We do it because it's something that the pupil remembers. Every school has a tradition, a ritual which is repeated. One of them is the ceremony. And a pupil might not remember a math lesson, but they do remember the experiences they have, and this is an emotional experience. They wear a white shirt - they do something before the ceremony. These things stay with the children more than any regular lesson."

ORT's program includes a series of activities on freedom of expression, democracy and mutual respect. "We do word association, like we write down 'Freedom of Expression' on the board, and ask the pupils what associations come to mind.... We talk about insulting someone - when they insulted or hurt someone, and when were they were hurt or offended. Regarding freedom of expression, we ask them if incitement can be caused by saying anything [one pleases]," Sheps explained.

Pupils are asked how the assassination has changed them or the country. "There are all kinds of responses," she says. "Some say nothing has changed. Others say the radical acts of one man do not necessarily reflect on the rest of the nation. There are those who are ashamed of what was done."

The preliminary exercises prepared the youngsters for the ceremony itself which goes "from tragic to tribute to vision," says Sheps, adding that it is open to the public.

It begins with a recording of Eitan Haber announcing Rabin's death and includes Rabin's Nobel Prize speeches, the Shamgar Commission's words to Yigal Amir, part of Rabin's granddaughter Noa Ben-Artzi's eulogy and numerous songs to be sung by a school choir. Youngsters will stand vigil by candles alongside large pictures of Rabin, and pupils will write down their thoughts about the day - along with others from around the country - to be placed at a tent for study and fasting alongside Rabin's grave. Sheps dismissed notions that today's MTV generation can't be reached by such simple ceremonies and activities. "Even if they are the MTV generation, that doesn't mean they don't have values, they don't feel pain over what happened to Yitzhak Rabin. The opposite is the case," she says.

Sheps says that while this week's attacks on the prime minister make her wonder whether the Israeli people have changed, she's still determined to do her share. "I want us to learn a lesson because this act [of assassination] - it's enough ... we don't want it to happen again."

While there will be no mixed choirs at the Horev Yeshiva High School's ceremony, the soul-searching there has been no less intense, perhaps even more so. Some of Horev's pupils still remember an incident which occurred a year before Rabin's assassination, one the prime minister forgave them for.

Rabbi Yaakov Mendelson, head of the school's beit midrash program, recalled how a group of pupils participated in a virulently anti-Rabin demonstration without permission from school principal Rabbi Mordechai Elon.

"Rabbi Elon called them in for a discussion about how one protests and what are the red lines at such a demonstration.... As a result, right before Yom Kippur, some 40 of these pupils wrote a letter to the prime minister and said that they had been through a frustrating year politically, and that they wanted to ask forgiveness for some things, including from him.

"He sent a response, saying: 'This year, when I say "And all the Jewish people will be forgiven because they have all done wrong," it will have special significance to me.' We still have this letter, and this appeal to Rabin was done at the pupils' initiative."

Asked if the school's zeal to hold a ceremony was any less given the perceived political leanings of its pupils, Mendelson happily noted that the opposite was true. "These things come from below, and not just from above," he said, "and we feel that here at the yeshiva. The pupils came to us already a week ago to remind us that we have to do something, that they want something serious."

This week, Elon held discussions in various classes on violence and on how to demonstrate or speak in public. A poster of Rabin will be displayed at the school's entrance today and Elon will speak at a school gathering. Psalms will be read, a film on Rabin will be screened, and all the day's classes will be dedicated to Rabin's memory.

"As regards the day itself and the need to think, clarify, remember and pray - all these things are being done here without any second thoughts - there is no question about this," he said.

Last year, Horev students traveled to sites around Jerusalem connected to Rabin. "This is a day we see not only as a duty, but as a privilege... to remember him, and to also think ahead," Mendelson explained.

The message he wants the Horev pupils to take home is strikingly similar to Sheps's, only with different emphasis. "At the simplest level, it's the pain and the personal feeling, the things about Yitzhak Rabin that the student can identify with... [but] I also want him to very much think about - and this is a vital educational element - how one lives in a complex society in which there are radical opinions on each side. How can the Jewish people survive as one people despite the contrasts in opinions and thoughts."

During a week in which the President Weizman found it necessary to again warn against incitement, Mendelson finds solace in his school's soul-searching. "Unfortunately, we have experienced a very serious fall" he says. "But I believe that from it we learn new things, things that the public may have considered, but not enough.

"I believe that the fact that all educational institutions will be dealing with these relevant issues ... is how we should proceed. Because they feel that there must be some kind of compact reached, a clear path of principles everyone is dedicated to, and I'm sure that at my school, there is no doubt that this is the general desire of everyone."

The sense of a joint struggle with the difficult issues will be most apparent today at the Boyer and Himelfarb high schools in Jerusalem's Bayit Vagan neighborhood, where the two schools - one religious, one secular - will hold a joint memorial ceremony for the third straight year.

For years the two institutions, which sit across the street from each other, lived at arm's length - pupils occasionally mingled but had little formal interaction. Then, after the Rabin assassination, it was decided that the commemoration of his death should bring the two schools together, at least once a year if not more.

"What we're striving for is a sense of unity without obliterating the differences," the principal of the religious Himelfarb school, Yirmi Stavisky, explained about today's ceremony, a mix of traditional Jewish and modern Zionist presentations.

"We just thought that they had a great deal to say, and it would be good if they did," said Boyer principal Hannah Surkis of the decision to put the 12th-graders in charge. "They are the graduates this year, and becoming citizens. We want to give them the stage, to encounter other opinions - it's an additional value, an important goal in its own right."

As in years past, the pupils have both chosen and written the texts, Surkis said, and discussion groups will follow. There have been disagreements, but they've been settled amicably.

When Aviv Gefen's song "Shir Hatikva," urging Israelis to "conquer peace, not the territories," was suggested for the ceremony, eyes went to an Efrat youngster who insisted he didn't understand why this bothered anyone, recalled Dorit Lenberger, the 12th-grade Himelfarb teacher coordinating the activities. "It's talking about the future, and there's no problem," he said. Still, in respect of the possibility that others may take offense, the the song was moved from the closing number to another spot in the ceremony.

Stavisky of Himelfarb thinks that's exactly what the Rabin memorial is meant to do. "They're working on models of reconciliation - how to solve a problem. Two points are essential: There are differences [between them], and these differences can be discussed and overcome.

"It's essential for people to have their own identity and to live with or even love people with other identities." Himelfarb teacher Lenberger notes that "because we have created something together, an emotional feeling is created of togetherness, and that more than anything they might say leaves them with the impression that it's possible for things to be done differently."

That is increasingly what's happening outside, especially at the kiosk, where kids from both schools now hang out together. The cooperative effort also includes regular meetings between teachers and administrative staff. Last year's memorial event didn't end there, either - a response team set up by the pupils issued calls against violence when questionable comments were made by MKs or other public figures, and this is expected to continue this year.

Pictures of Rabin as commander in chief were being added to a bulletin board down the hall from his office, as Stavisky summarized how Rabin's memory has energized the efforts to build mutual respect, exactly along the lines laid down by the new law.

"Unfortunately, as Israelis we respond very deeply to tragedy," he declared, "and sometimes, when we are able to get rid of certain layers of coarseness, prejudice and anger, we find that deep down these kids really have the ability to create a more beautiful society. You need that tragedy as a catalyst for reaching down for something deeper. That's what the day contributes to them as individuals, and to us as a society."

Mordechai: Continue Rabin's legacy
A lesson in remembrance (Feature)
Nothing has changed (Opinion)
Rabin's victory (Opinion)

From the day following the assassination:
November 5, 1995
Rabin Assassinated

From the day of the funeral:
November 7, 1995
Rabin laid to rest on Mt. Herzl

From the First Anniversary:
October 24, 1996
Yitzhak Rabin: The Sabra, the Mensch
From Father to Son

From the Second Anniversary:
November 9, 1997
Massive rally honors Rabin

Yitzhak Rabin Peace Center

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