Thirty years have passed since the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin z”l, and we continue to feel the deep wounds it left behind. His murder was not only a tragedy but a national rupture; one that shook Israel’s democracy and derailed the momentum toward peace that had once felt within reach. In the decades since, and especially in the past two years, the vision of peace and security that Rabin embodied has seemed farther away than ever. The forces of extremism that silenced him continue to grow and endanger the moral and democratic foundations of Israeli society today.
We must remember Rabin not only with words, but with conviction and action. His legacy calls us to reject despair and persist in the struggle for peace, justice, and democracy — even when that struggle feels uphill. As Rabin said in his address to the youth of HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed in 1994, “There must be a movement of young people… who will choose to stand up, to support peace, and to resist those who want to assassinate it.” Today, Habonim Dror North America looks to all those working towards peace, equality, and a just and democratic Israeli society, to the hundreds of thousands that have poured into the streets this year in the name of those ideals, and recommits to that call. May Rabin’s memory be a blessing, and a lighthouse guiding us toward the world he dared to imagine.
