In commemoration of the 20th anniversary of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s Nov. 4 assassination, three Brandeis scholars lectured on and later discussed his legacy as a peacemaker.

Interim Director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies Rabbi David Ellenson introduced Wednesday’s event, the date of which he said was significant as it had been “seared undoubtedly in our souls” twenty years earlier.

Prof. Uri Bialer (NEJS) began his lecture by stating that he was close to the assassination when it occurred, noting how eerie it was when everyone around him dove to the ground, believing the gunshots to be a terrorist attack.

Bialer spoke on Rabin’s military career from age 19 to 46, discussing how his military background led him into politics. Bialer noted that Rabin’s rise to the position of Chief of General Staff — leader of the Israel Defense Forces — took “longer than usual” for someone of his stature and achievements, adding that Rabin should have been the third or fourth in that position, not the seventh, because Rabin had to wait for more senior officials to hold the office first. Bialer went on to note that Rabin’s military career was riddled with conflicts with David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister, who was mistrustful of Rabin’s left-leaning politics during his time in the Palmach, an elite fighting force.

After touching on Rabin’s involvement in 1967’s Yom Kippur War as the leader of the IDF, Bialer went on to discuss Rabin’s legacy as both a military man and as a peacemaker. “The military has often been associated with war-mongering. … Rabin was definitely not the case.”

Bialer then quoted from Rabin’s 1994 speech at Oslo upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. In his speech, Rabin spoke about how difficult it is, as a commander, to make decisions, especially knowing that the decision could cost some individuals their lives. “‘That is the moment you grasp that as a result of the decision just made, people will be going to their deaths. People from my nation, people from other nations. And they still don’t know it,’” Bialer read from Rabin’s speech.

Prof. Gannit Ankori (FA) then shared images produced by Israeli artists in response to the assassination. Common motifs and themes in the artwork, she noted, included bloodstains, bullet holes and an encompassing sense of both despair and hope for future peace.

One of the images that Ankori showed the audience was of the bloodstained lyrics sheet for “Shir LaShalom,” the song for peace, which Rabin had publicly read moments before his assassination. “As the blood articulates in a loud shout, he became a martyr in the war for peace,” Ankori told the audience.

She went on to note that intergenerational peacemaking was just beginning to occur at the time of the assassination, as both young and old had begun to join forces to create peace in the Middle East. She added that Rabin’s assassination certainly affected these efforts and that many artists have expressed frustration with the apparent stalling in these peace efforts.

Ankori finished her lecture “on a sad note” by briefly touching on songs and artwork that praise the assassination, including the band Dead Rabinz, a punk group whose album “Israhell” has one song on it that begins with the broadcasters’ announcement of Rabin’s death, followed by the tune of “Hava Nagila” — “Let us Rejoice.”

Prof. Yehudah Mirsky (NEJS) then took the podium to discuss how his own life and work were affected by the assassination. Mirsky stated that he was in his 30s working in the U.S. State Department’s human rights bureau as a special advisor during the Clinton administration when he heard news of the assassination. At that moment, he said, he decided to go back to school and study Judaism and the Middle East. “I realized that my home was going up in flames,” he told the audience.

He also touched upon his roots in the Zionist movement and how early Zionists may have contributed to the current tension in the Middle East through the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. “It was that community and its incendiary rhetoric in particular … that helped set the tone,” he said.

Mirsky also argued that, in not speaking to the settlers directly, “Rabin himself and the then-leadership unwittingly contributed to the supercharged atmosphere.” He added that Rabin paid for this mistake “with his life.”

“This absence of conversation resulted not only from Rabin’s own temperament … but also from the long-term cultural malaise of Israel’s founding leaders, who in distancing themselves from their own cultural resources, left themselves unable to make the case for their political views in culturally compelling terms,” Mirsky concluded. “What I’m trying to say is that the witches’ brew of Israeli politics today is the result of many people … and that there is more than enough blame to go around.”

The three speakers then took the stage for a brief question-and-answer session. The lectures and discussion were sponsored by the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies.