This past Saturday, Nov 4th, marked 11 years since the assassination of former Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin. Every year there is a memorial ceremony in his honor in Rabin Square. Seeing as though I live within a 2 minute walk from this site, I decided to check it out this year.

The square was full of people, estimates were around 100,000, yet it did not feel overly crowded or too packed to move. There were many youth groups present, totting their flags and t-shirts as well as all sorts of others from the community, both near and far.

Like many commemoration ceremonies in Israel, this one took the usual format of MC, music, some poetry and a few speeches. Musicians ran the range of older, more established singers to new pop idols, all singing songs that were fitting to the occasion, including a song called A Million Stars that was written by a sister of a fallen solder from this past war. The poetry was short and too the point and the MC was decent. However, what made the evening really stick out in my (and many other’s) mind was the keynote speaker- David Grossman.

Grossman is a well-known and well-respected Israeli author. His son was killed in this past war this summer and this was Grossman’s first public speaking appearance since his son’s death. He spoke for close to 30 minutes but no one seemed to notice the length of his speech because they were too busy hanging on his every word. Those who organized this year’s event decided not to invite politicians, but his speech was more political than anything one politician might say. Rather than paraphrase his thoughts, I recommend you read it for yourself (click here to read). What I will say is that Grossman touched on issues that hit home to many Israelis, from the lack of real leadership in the Government, to average citizens who want peace and see peace as the only real solution.

I must admit that I was proud to be standing in that crowd of 100,000 as an Israeli citizen who was listening to one Israel’s leading authors speak about the real issues facing us today.