To mark 25 years since the murder of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on November 4, 1995, the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality is launching a major educational and experiential initiative in partnership with the Yitzhak Rabin Center.
The aim of the project – “I Remember, Friend” – is to improve and rejuvenate the visitor experience at the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial at Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, providing accessible and relevant information about Rabin’s murder and its impact on Israeli democracy to all age groups.
As part of the project led by Tel Aviv Global & Tourism, hundreds of school groups and other organizations will visit the site of the murder, located at the entrance to the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality building. Groups will meet volunteers whose lives were deeply affected by the murder, hearing personal testimony to understand the rift in Israeli society caused by the murder.
Dozens of volunteers, selected by the municipality following a public call for applications, underwent a dedicated training program to refine their personal story and interweave it with the atmosphere that preceded the events of November 1995.
Many of the volunteers were part of the “candle youth” – young individuals at the time of the murder, who feel compelled to pass on Rabin’s legacy to the youth of today. For several months commencing November 4, volunteers will share their own stories at the memorial every afternoon.
In addition to personal testimony and storytelling, visitors can watch two specially produced short films on a new screen at the memorial site – one focusing on the history of Rabin Square as the “Square of Israeli Democracy,” and another presenting the murder and its impact on Israeli society. The films are translated into eight languages: Hebrew, English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin Chinese and Italian.
Ron Huldai, mayor of Tel Aviv-Yafo: “The murder of Yitzhak Rabin is a memory for me, but it represents distant history for our youth. Some of them sadly do not even know who Rabin was, nor his way: love for the land of Israel, dedication to the Zionist idea and, of course, striving for peace. It is of great importance to tell the story that unfolded on November 4 to the younger generation. There is no more appropriate location for this lesson than the entrance to the municipal building – the place where an evil attacker took the law into his own hands, and influenced the course of history.”
All groups wishing to visit the memorial and experience the project may do so free of charge, arranged ahead of time via Tel Aviv-Yafo’s tourism website. Multilingual volunteers will be available to share experiences with visiting international groups.
The primary target audience of the project is school pupils, who will visit the site as part of a dedicated educational program developed for elementary, middle and high school children. The program will include studies related to Rabin’s life, watching the 2019 film Incitement (Yamim Nora’im in Hebrew), and educational discussions surrounding the impact of the murder.
Within the framework of the project and ahead of the 25th anniversary of Rabin’s murder, Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality has restored and renewed parts of the Rabin Memorial and the surrounding area, including the iconic memorial wall featuring graffiti preserved from the time of the murder.
Eytan Schwartz, director of media and communications at Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality: “Thousands of people pass by the memorial every day – yet unfortunately, many do not even know what happened at the foot of the municipal building. This is exactly what this project is doing: informing the public that does not know the story of the murder, the rift that it created within the population and the danger that it posed to Israeli democracy. No less important, it emphasizes the place of Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality and the square below as fortresses of democracy in Israel.”