By MENAHEM BEN-SASSON
Autumn comes to Israel as a fickle season, lacking in profound Jewish values - after the High Holy Days; without a celebration of nature or history, without events of note. For the past 12 years, the anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, which falls in the month of Marheshvan, has been struggling to fill the void in the national calendar. The Israeli public is still searching for an appropriate model to fill the day with meaning.
Should the focus be on the event itself, or on its deeper, national significance?
The immediate lesson from this year's remembrance day is to beware of the high price exacted by the need for media rating: focus on the killer, who has become a celebrity. Those responsible for the form that the memorial day for Yitzhak Rabin takes must meet in good time to define and to avoid the slippery slope. Those shaping the educational content must hit on the right synthesis of the experiential and the analytic to provide what we need on that day, and for the next 364 days that follow.
Prof. Menahem Ben-Sasson is chairman of the Knesset's Law, Constitution and Justice Committee.
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