30 Years Since Rabin

Over this past summer, I read Ayelet Tsabari’s somewhat autobiographical novel, Songs for the Brokenhearted (recommend!). While it is mostly a book about grief and love, mothers and daughters, and the complex questions of Sephardi and Israeli identities, it is also set partially in 1995. One of the subplots follows a grief-stricken teenage boy who finds himself drawn toward a world of religious and ideological fervor — the same currents that, in that moment of history, gave rise to Yigal Amir. As I read, I could feel myself traveling back in time, as Yoni went from Petah Tikvah to Jerusalem to, ultimately, the Tel Aviv peace rally that would change history — along with my own identity.

I spent the summer of 1994 in Israel, in a time that — from the vantage point of 2025 — feels almost euphoric. The first Oslo Accords had been signed almost a year before, and the entire country felt poised for peace, for a new Middle East, for a new future. As my tour guide led us up the path to Masada at sunrise, we were told we’d have to descend early; the mountain was closing for King Hussein of Jordan, who would be making his first-ever visit to the historic site. It was exciting; that whole summer was.

Just over a year later, in November 1995, I was sitting in my apartment in New York City when the news came through. I guess we must have been watching TV, since it was pre-iPhone. I remember it was dark, though it should have been much earlier in the day. And I remember making my way, somehow, to the Israeli Consulate on 42nd and 2nd. I remember standing there and feeling, deeply, a part of am Yisrael. I remember staying home to watch the funeral, and friends wondering why — after — my eyes were red and puffy. I realized then that my identity was, and would forever be, tied to the people of Israel. When they mourned, I mourned — and mourn I did.

Thirty years ago, on November 4, 1995, Yitzchak Rabin was assassinated at the end of a peace rally. And while I am neither historian nor political analyst, I am not alone in saying that this was an event that changed the course of Israeli history. Even today — maybe especially today — the “what ifs” resound and reverberate across Israeli society, and perhaps across Jewish communities around the globe. Looking back now, I can trace the ways I was profoundly changed on and by that night; I leave it to the scholars to do the same for Israeli society and world Jewry.

This fall, as the thirtieth anniversary approached, I find myself drawn to Class of ’95/Machzor ‘95 — a collection of Israeli poetry that looks back on that night and all it changed. Reading it, I was struck by how the voices of that generation — the ones who came of age in that grief— are still asking the same questions I am: what broke that night, and what might still be repaired.

And yet, even as I write this, I can still hear that song — the one Rabin sang just moments before he was shot: Shir LaShalom, the song for peace. I can hear the crowd’s voices rising, the paper lyrics fluttering in the night air like fragile prayers. “Don’t say the day will come — bring the day.”

Since October 7, I’ve thought often of that night — and of how the crowds still gather in Tel Aviv, not in Kikar Rabin but in Kikar HaHatufim, Hostages Square. Different plaza, different decade — but the same ache in the air, the same need to stand shoulder to shoulder and sing. I think of what it means to be a part, deeply, of am Yisrael — to love, to grieve, and still to yearn for the promise of Medinat Yisrael.

Maybe that’s what endures: the insistence that we keep showing up, keep singing. That to believe in peace, after all that has been shattered, might seem naïve but is actually holy. That the act of standing together — with candles, with songs, with tears — is itself a form of faith.

Thirty years later, I still believe the melody matters. To remember, to grieve, to dream — and to keep singing Shir LaShalom, even when the harmony feels impossible. Because hope, too, is a form of courage.

Don’t whisper a prayer —
sing a song for peace with a loud shout.
Don’t say the day will come —
bring the day.
Because it is not a dream —
and in all the city squares,
sing only for peace.
(Shir LaShalom, Lyrics: Yankele Rotblit; Music: Yair Rosenblum)

To the memory and legacy of Yitzchak Rabin, z”l.

— Rabbi sari Laufer