Tens of thousands of people took part in the motzei Shabbos memorial event for the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the 22nd anniversary of his assassination. Among the speakers was ZAKA chairman Yehuda Meshi-Zahav.

During his speech, Meshi-Zahav repeated the moments in which he was informed of Rabin’s assassination: “Twenty-two years ago, I stood with many thousands of others at Kever Rochel on her yahrzeit. The bitter rumor about the prime minister’s murder began to pass from mouth to ear, and I remember looking at the gravestone and seeing the sentence: “A loud voice sounds, we weep bitterly, Rachel weeps for her sons, she refuses to comfort her sons because he is gone.”

“I shed tears and said to myself: This is exactly what Rochel is crying about, because her son is not, that a Jew murdered a Jew, and another leader in Israel, and to this day every year when I stand next to the grave of Rachel our mother, Rochel cries for her son for he is not and not consoled – Rabin’s assassination.”

Towards the end of his speech, Meshi-Zahav said: “The murder of every person, wherever he may be, is one of the most serious crimes: bloodshed, murder, murder of a leader, a prime minister.”

“About 2,000 years ago, when a leader in Israel, Gedaliah Ben Achikam, was murdered, which led to the total destruction of the Jewish community in the Land of Israel during Bayis Rison, the sages understood the grave meaning and declared a fast day. And to this day about two thousand five hundred years, every year, we fast on the murder of a leader in Israel.

“We have a wonderful country, a wonderful people, wonderful nation, let’s take care,” said US President John F. Kennedy, “Do not ask what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)