Uncategorized
When Rabin was assassinated, Israel changed before my eyes
The minibus was crammed with Jordanians making their way from the south of the country to Amman. I couldn’t help but wonder why everyone looked so grim. We had departed at dawn, and throughout the three-hour drive, the radio had been dominated by somber discussion. I hadn’t studied any Arabic yet so I couldn’t make out the conversation beyond a smattering of place names: Tel Aviv, Washington, Amman, Al Quds — the Arabic name for Jerusalem.
No one in the minibus said a word, and I didn’t want to break the silence. So I listened to the radio, keeping my ears open for more proper nouns. Peres. Clinton. Hussein. Rabin.
It wasn’t until I walked into the lobby of my hotel in Amman and saw a TV screen showing a photo of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, along with the text “1922-1995,” that I realized something terrible had happened.
My mind raced through worst-case scenarios — a political assassination by a Palestinian group, a countdown to war, retaliation and counter-retaliation, an inexorable spiral of violence. But when I asked the man behind the check-in counter what had happened, he sounded almost relieved.
“Another Jew” did it, he said, before adding, “So there probably won’t be a war this week.”
I was fresh out of college and had never traveled to the region before. My then-girlfriend (now wife) and I had decided to backpack around Egypt, Jordan and Israel, as the overall political situation had seemed positive — at least when viewed from a distance back home in the United States. The previous year, Rabin, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat had shared the Nobel Peace Prize for the Oslo Accords. Efforts to achieve a two-state solution were moving forward, albeit at a measured pace. It seemed the ideal time to go on a bit of an adventure, and perhaps to feel the hope in the air.
All of those hopes became a blur as we stood in the hotel lobby, trying to figure out what to do next. “There probably won’t be a war this week,” I thought: Instead, an entire country would be sitting shiva, not to mention planning a state funeral for the following day. We made arrangements to go to Jerusalem the next morning.
The road from Amman to Jerusalem by way of the West Bank was nearly deserted. No one spoke a word the entire time, lost in thought, pondering the what-ifs and what-nexts. I expected Israel to be many things, but silent was not one of them.
We arrived ahead of schedule, well before the start of the funeral. As we checked into our new hotel, I asked if it would still be possible to attend the funeral procession, which would begin a few hours later.
“You’re too late,” the clerk told me. “The entire country is already lined up along the route. You might as well watch it on TV at this point.”
I couldn’t just sit there, though. So we left the hotel and began to make our way to the Western Wall.
I’d always imagined my first encounter with Jerusalem’s Old Town would be awash with activity, filled with encounters with street vendors, pilgrims and tourists. Instead the area was nearly deserted. Many shops remained shuttered, save a handful that kept their doors open because they happened to have a TV inside. We stood for a while in one such shop, its owner fidgeting with prayer beads as a small crowd of Palestinian men watched the televised funeral procession in silence.
As we reached the Western Wall, almost no one was present: a smattering of soldiers, a handful of tourists, a davening Haredi man. I ripped two pages from my guidebook and scrawled a pair of prayers on them to tuck between the stones of the wall — one for my grandfather, who had passed away a few years earlier, and one for Rabin. I wish I could remember what I wrote.
After I approached the wall, sirens marking the start of the two minutes of silence began to wail from every direction. The world stopped for two minutes. I stared at the ancient stones, mere inches from my face. Everyone was silent, except for the Haredi man, who continued to quietly pray.
By the time we made it to Tel Aviv several days later, the illusion of normality had returned. People walked along the beach and crowded the outdoor cafes, bundled up in sweaters amid an unseasonal chill in the air, until a downpour sent people scattering. As the weather cleared, I decided to visit Kikar Malchei Yisrael, the square where Rabin had just been murdered.
I had expected the crowds of mourners. But it was the thousands of yahrzeit candles that broke my heart. In some places they were laid out in neat rows, surrounded by drenched flowers; volunteers were drying out each candle and attempting to re-light them.
People had formed some batches of the candles into Stars of David, doves and peace signs. Around them stood children, families, soldiers, most of them quietly grieving. A pair of students sat cross-legged on the wet pavement, engaged in a passionate debate. I couldn’t understand what they said, but the heightened tone of their exchange carried the weight of their worries about the future.
At some point I began reciting Kaddish to myself. People began photographing me, which struck me as odd, until I recalled that I had been doing exactly the same thing to others just a few minutes earlier. I then collected some candles and reassembled them in the form of chai, the Hebrew word for “life.”
I lingered for a while before departing, but returned later that afternoon. The two students were still there.
In the 30 years since that awful week, I’ve thought about them periodically. At the time, they seemed painfully aware their lives had been irrevocably altered by what had transpired, that their hopes and dreams had died alongside Rabin himself.
They must be approaching 50 years old. Have the intervening years been kind to them? Have they prospered, or wasted the decades embittered by the consequences of that seminal moment of their lives, and the life of their country? Have they served in wars, protested against them, or both?
Assuming they are even still alive, do they think about that day each year and feel their heart break all over again like mine does?
And will they, too, light a yahrzeit candle tonight in Rabin’s memory, and for the lost promise of what could have been?
The post When Rabin was assassinated, Israel changed before my eyes appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
UCLA student government condemns campus Hillel for hosting former hostage
A campus event featuring freed Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov drew the condemnation of UCLA’s student government on Tuesday. In an open letter, the UCLA Students Associated Council said that bringing Tov to speak to students “served to legitimize and normalize” atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon.
Shem Tov, 23, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in Southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and held hostage in Gaza until his release in a prisoner exchange in February 2025. UCLA hosted him on April 14 for a Yom HaShoah event.
“While we affirm the humanity of all people impacted by violence, we reject the selective platforming of narratives that obscure the broader reality of ongoing state violence,” the student government letter wrote in the letter, which was addressed to the UCLA administration and UCLA Hillel among others. “Israel is currently continuing to carry out what has been widely identified by human rights advocates as a genocide in Gaza, while also expanding its illegal military campaign into Lebanon.
“In this context, elevating a single narrative, absent of critical political and humanitarian framing, serves to legitimize and normalize these ongoing atrocities.”
Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, UCLA Hillel’s director emeritus, called the statement “completely ridiculous.”
“You can’t present the narrative of your experience without it being called ‘one sided,’” Seidler-Feller said. “There has to be a counter-story to persecution. Is there a counter-story to killing people?”
UCLA Hillel executive director Daniel Gold dismissed the criticism in Tuesday’s letter as antisemitic.
“Hillel at UCLA and Students Supporting Israel UCLA would like to apologize…for absolutely nothing,” he wrote in a statement. “Members of UCLA student government have once again shown they are anti-dialogue, anti-learning, anti-truth, anti-student and antisemitic.”
The USAC did not respond to a request for comment.
As college campuses across the country became a hotspot for pro-Palestinian activism following the Oct. 7 attack, UCLA, with an activist history and a large Jewish population, stood out as a major flashpoint. Its student encampment was the site of a riot in April 2024 and eventually cleared by police in riot gear.
The USAC has sided with pro-Palestinian protesters throughout. In a Feb. 2025 letter titled “We Are All SJP,” the USAC, which is democratically elected by the roughly 30,000-member UCLA student body, condemned Chancellor Julio Frenk’s suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine. The letter referred to Israel only as “the Zionist state” or put the country’s name inside quotation marks.
The University of California has since been sued by the Department of Justice, which said that UCLA created a hostile work environment against Jewish and Israeli faculty in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
The post UCLA student government condemns campus Hillel for hosting former hostage appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Trump extends ceasefire with Iran, even after Iran balks at new round of negotiations
(JTA) — President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he would unilaterally extend the U.S.-Israeli ceasefire with Iran, even though Iran had not agreed to his conditions or even to return to the negotiating table.
Trump announced the decision on Truth Social just hours before the two-week-old deal was set to expire. Citing Iran’s “fractured” leadership, Trump wrote that he had been asked by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to “hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal.”
Vice President JD Vance’s planned trip to Islamabad, where talks were set to take place, was postponed indefinitely after Iran failed to confirm its participation in negotiations.
Trump added that the United States would maintain its naval blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz, despite Iran’s repeated calls for the restrictions to be lifted.
The announcement marked a sharp departure from the president’s statements earlier in the day, telling CNBC that, if a deal was not made before the deadline, “I expect to be bombing.”
In a statement Tuesday, Sharif thanked Trump for his “gracious acceptance” of Pakistan’s request to extend the ceasefire, adding that the country would “continue its earnest efforts for a negotiated settlement of the conflict.”
The announcement adds to uncertain about the war’s future, including for Israelis who lived through six weeks of Iranian bombing, and renews questions about Trump’s commitment to achieving his war goals, which have varied and included blunting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, achieving regime change, and destroying Iran’s stockpile of ballistic missiles. He said earlier this week that he was asking Iran to limit its nuclear program for 20 years, five years longer than was required by the deal struck by Barack Obama in 2015. Trump exited that deal in 2018.
Last week, Trump announced a different ceasefire, between Israel and Lebanon, on Truth Social, contradicting Israel’s claim that the Iran ceasefire would not apply to its fighting with Hezbollah, an Iran-backed proxy in Lebanon.
Trump’s announcement of the ceasefire extension came during the night in Israel, after Israelis began their celebration of Independence Day. It drew criticism from one of his staunchest pro-Israel supporters, the Zionist Organization of America, whose national president Morton Klein said in a statement that “interminable delay is the standard Islamic Iranian regime negotiating tactic” and that acceding to it represented a victory for Iran. The statement did not mention Trump.
The post Trump extends ceasefire with Iran, even after Iran balks at new round of negotiations appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Alan Dershowitz quits Democratic Party, calling it ‘most anti-Israel party in U.S. history’
(JTA) — Alan Dershowitz, the prominent pro-Israel attorney whose clients have included Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, announced on Monday that he was leaving the Democratic party and registering as a Republican.
Describing himself as a “lifelong Democrat,” Dershowitz wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that he had decided to “bite the bullet and register as a Republican,” citing Democratic support for an arms embargo on Israel last week and the Michigan Senate candidate Abdul el-Sayed’s anti-Israel rhetoric.
“There is no denying that the hard left, anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party has moved from the fringe to the mainstream,” Dershowitz wrote, adding that “Republicans have their own antisemitic fringe, but for now it remains a fringe.”
The announcement formalized a political evolution for Dershowitz, who defended Trump during his first impeachment and has increasingly broken with Democrats over Israel in recent years.
In 2021, Dershowitz nominated Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and Avi Berkowitz, Trump’s top Middle Eastern envoy during his first administration, for the Nobel Peace Prize over their hand in shaping the Abraham Accords.
Dershowitz — who has recently faced scrutiny over his ties to Epstein, and previously denied allegations of sexual misconduct made by one of Epstein’s accusers — panned the Democratic Party as the “most anti-Israel party in U.S. history” in the op-ed.
“I believe that the Democratic Party’s hostility to Israel represents a deeper and more dangerous shift away from the center and toward a radical approach that is bad for America and the free world,” Dershowitz wrote, adding that he intended to “work hard to prevent the Democrats from gaining control of the House and Senate.”
Dershowitz’s comments are in line with Trump’s statements about Jews and the Democratic Party. He has repeatedly expressed amazement at how any Jews could vote for the Democrats considering his own record when it comes to Israel.
The post Alan Dershowitz quits Democratic Party, calling it ‘most anti-Israel party in U.S. history’ appeared first on The Forward.