A lonely kippa backstage: Rabin Rally is too divisive

Annual Rabin rally hijacked by Left, MK Nisan Slomiansky says.

By AMIR MIZROCH
Nisan Slomianski 248 88 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Nisan Slomianski 248 88
(photo credit: Courtesy)
National Union-National Religious Party MK Nissan Slomiansky is used to being the only man wearing a kippa backstage at the annual commemoration of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Now in its 13th year, the commemorative gathering was no different backstage. There were hundreds of people milling about, mingling and renewing acquaintances. Attendees among them ran the gamut from current and former Labor and Meretz politicians to friends and associates of the Rabin family to generals and television and musical celebrities. The vast majority were secular, Ashkenazi, well-off, and wearing smart clothes. Slomiansky, the only man with a kippa in the crowd has become frustrated at being the sole representative of the settler movement each year at the commemoration. But he still returns, year after year. He knew Rabin well, and worked with him at various junctures. He rejects the extremists in the settler movement who justify political murder. "They are the fringes, and they do not represent the settler movement at all. If the Shin Bet knows of people who are planning political violence, then it needs to arrest them," he said. During the commemoration, a former Meretz MK approached him, smiled and shook his hand: "Kudos for coming here, year after year," she told him. While most people in Kikar Rabin on Saturday night were secular, with many among them wearing the blue-shirt uniforms of the Zionist Labor Youth movement, there were religious people in the crowd as well. Across the square, large balloons bearing posters of Meretz, Labor and Hashomer Hatza'ir (Zionist-socialist pioneering youth movement) towered over the crowd. The lack of Orthodox and right-wing representation among the organizers and VIPs had Slomiansky worried. "They're [settlers] staying away from this event every year because it's not designed to include them," he said. Slomiansky added that he speaks to the Rabin family every year, and warns them that the annual event is driving the Right and Left further away from each other because it had been hijacked by the Left. "I've asked them to change the message, to make it more inclusive," he said, looking across the packed square, adding that the thousands of people present were really just a small number, and that the annual event could draw much larger crowds. "They could have brought many more people. The whole country could have been here. This event has turned political, with each one using it for his political needs," he said. "I feel like this every year. I read the slogans on the posters," he explained, pointing at one that read "Expel the settlers." While speakers at the rally did talk about national unity and decried political violence, they also mentioned the peace process and the need to formulate borders for the country. "It's all words, the songs, the speeches, the slogans - just words," the MK said. Slomiansky, who lives in the Elkana settlement, just east of Rosh Ha'ayin, came here alone. His neighbors know he comes every year, but no one from the community has ever joined him. "I come because I'm stubborn. I try to spread the message that this should not be a sectarian or political event, but one for the whole nation. I haven't succeeded yet, but I'm stubborn, and I'll keep on coming," he said. He believes the central message of the annual Rabin assassination anniversary should be the total rejection of violence in general, and of political violence in particular. "Our land has become extremely violent, and I'm not talking just about settler violence. These days people are being killed over parking spots and looking at girls in clubs. This means only one thing - that our education system is not working, that we are not educating for the right values," he said. Labor MK Colette Avital rejected the notion that the annual event had been hijacked by left-wing parties. "No actual invitations were sent out, but everybody knows that the whole public is invited, the right wing just didn't show up," she said. For more of Amir's articles and posts, visit his personal blog Forecast Highs