Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 5, 1995 TAG: 9511060126
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETTY HAYDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Natalie Sheffler spent the day watching TV news coverage from Israel.
"I think it was a very, very tragic event that was inevitable, given the fact there was so much incitement by the right wing against the peace process," Sheffler said. "It's a frightening thing that a young man could be incited to the point ... that he would kill the prime minister of his country."
Sheffler, a Roanoke resident who has visited Israel 10 times since 1978, said the assassination should be viewed as a political event, not a religious one. She has another trip to Israel planned for April and said, "I'm afraid of what we'll see."
Bonnie Margulis, rabbi of the Blacksburg Jewish Community Center, spoke with controlled anger of Rabin's assassination.
"It's so outrageous that this was done by a Jew in the name of destroying the peace process," Margulis said by telephone from her Staunton home. "It never occurred to me that a Jew would kill a Jew."
The assassination goes against Jewish tradition, which commands that Jews pursue peace, she said.
The confessed assassin is a member of a right-wing group that Margulis characterized as a vocal minority of religious fanatics who have a fundamentalist interpretation of the Scriptures, especially God's promise of land to the Jewish people.
"They see any move to return any of that land as heresy," she said.
Blacksburg resident David Barzilai spent Saturday on the phone with friends and relatives in Israel who described scenes of people crying in the streets, he said.
Barzilai, a political science professor at Virginia Tech who lived in Israel before he founded Tech's Judaic studies program last year, compared Rabin's death to the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy and said Israelis will remember where they were when they heard the news.
While people respect Rabin's accomplishments now, Barzilai said, "it will take time for people to understand his greatness to its fullest extent."
Barzilai said Israel's right-wing extremists share responsibility for Rabin's murder because they created the political climate that made such an event possible. They have campaigned against Rabin and have described the prime minister as a Nazi, he said, and they wanted this to happen.
"You need only one person to commit the crime."
Beyond the sadness caused by Rabin's death is the fear of what it means for Middle East peace.
"The way it was going, I think he could've succeeded," Sheffler said. He stood for something previous prime ministers couldn't, because he was the first one born in Israel, she said.Margulis said Rabin's election was a "coming of age for Israel." He also enjoyed widespread support because of his military record.
"When he said it was time to make peace, he had a certain amount of legitimacy," Margulis said.
"The peace process will go on even though there are lunatics on both sides who don't want it to go on," said Jerome Fox, rabbi of Roanoke's Beth Israel congregation.
Fox said he held his breath when he heard the news, hoping the gunman wasn't an Arab. He said while it's difficult to accept that a Jew killed Rabin, the consequences of an Arab assassin would have been much worse.
Sheffler said Rabin's peacemaking efforts make it that much harder to accept the violence with which his life was taken: "Here's a man whose last words were of peace."
A memorial prayer for Rabin will be held at Beth Israel during the prayer service at 8 a.m. Monday.
by CNB