The daughter of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yithak Rabin, who was murdered 20 years ago this week by a Sefardi Zionist Orthodox man with a haredi background, lashed out today against the government funded Zionist Orthodox school system which she claimed does not visit the Rabin Center, a state-established and state-funded institute and museum.
Above: Yitzhak Rabin
Zionist Orthodox Schools Refuse To Visit Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Center, Rabin’s Daughter Says
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
The daughter of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was murdered 20 years ago this week by a Sefardi Zionist Orthodox man with a haredi background, lashed out today against the government funded Zionist Orthodox school system which she claimed does not visit the Rabin Center, a state-established and state-funded institute and museum, the Jerusalem Post reported.
“The state Zionist Orthodox education [system] does not come here unfortunately,” Dalia Rabin told Army Radio during a special broadcast from center Monday morning.
Rabin was killed on the evening of November 4, 1995, the 12th of the Hebrew month of Marheshvan. The Hebrew anniversary of his murder was Sunday.
“Because there was such a demand that anyone who was religious, or on the right, or disagreed with the Oslo process, must apologize and repent for the assassination of Rabin, people in the national-religious [Zionist Orthodox] community could not relate to the how the commemoration of the man was done [by the state or at the Rabin Center itself],” Goodman told the Post.
Goodman also insisted the relatively liberal Zionist Orthodox Bnei Akiva network of 74 high schools, which is part of the wider network of Zionist Orthodox state-funded schools, now have robust educational programs on the assassination and that each conducts a ceremony marking the assassination.
“We need to educate our children to believe in values but at the same time respecting the opinion and stance of others. We need to understand the conflicts facing Israeli society even today, but at the same time how we can participate in the debate while loving and respecting those who disagree with you,” Goodman reportedly said.
But Shmuel Shetach, who heads the Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah liberal Zionist Orthodox lobbying group, thinks Dalia Rabin’s claim is false. He said the Rabin Center glorifies Rabin and the Oslo peace process. The right-wing, including almost all Zionist Orthodox, strongly opposed Oslo in 1995 and still do today, and that opposition makes taking school trips there unlikely.
Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah made its own commemoration of the assassination in 2012 because it claimed the official state commemoration was too political and had been hijacked by the left-wing.
Shetach said since the alternative commemoration began the official state commemoration has become less political, and for the past two years, Bnei Akiva and some other Zionist Orthodox groups have participated in it.
“I am very optimistic that education about Rabin in the state national-religious [Zionist Orthodox] schools is increasing and that the values of the democratic decision making process and respect for the other is being taught alongside that,” Shetach told the Post.
The Ministry of Education, which is supposed to supervise such things, did not respond to the Post’s request for comment.
The official commemoration of the assassination is scheduled to take place Saturday night in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv.
Before Rabin was murdered, right-wing Zionist Orthodox and Chabad rabbis issued proclamations and rulings against him. He was accused of endangering the lives of Jews and compared to Hitler and Arafat.
One Chabad rabbi, Avrohom Hecht, was barred from entering Israel after labeling Rabin a “rodef” (a pursuer trying to kill another person; in Orthodox Jewish law, a rodef can be summarily kiled by anyone to prevent the rodef from killing) and making other inciting statements.
Meanwhile, talk about killing Rabin was common in many synagogues and study halls in the months before Yigal Amir pulled the trigger.