Jerusalem the Golden

My dear Friends

I think it is very important to remember how complex the situation in Israel/Palestine is. We must not forget that in November 1995 Yitzchak Rabin, the premier, was assassinated and the devastating effect this had on the population, particularly the Jews. 'A house divided cannot stand' - it was an Orthodox Jew who murdered Rabin when he was at a peace rally in Tel Aviv on a Saturday night. I was in Israel at the time with my Indian friend and we were staying in the convent of The Sisters of Sion in Ein Kerem, near Jerusalem.

All Saturday night an Israeli woman had been pacing up and down as if there was something terribly wrong. I woke up early on Sunday morning, intending to go to Mass. I was very tired so my friend suggested I missed it. I went out in the sunshine to have my breakfast. 'Lovely day' I said to a woman sitting on a wall opposite me.'How can you say it's a lovely day when our Prime Minister has just been assassinated,' she replied.

Yitzchak Rabin had been a fighter in the War of Independence and had become a peacemaker, so it was all the more poignant, and some say it has never been the same since. All the great men seem to go..Martin Luther King, Kennedy, Rabin and many more. When I told my Indian friend what had happened he said: 'Maybe we were meant to share the grief as well as the joy of this land.'

The nuns in the convent were weeping as the body was brought back from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. My friend Sat had a visa which expired that night. So we made our way to the airport in Tel Aviv.After a heavy interrogation we were let onto the plane, which was the last to fly out before they closed the airport for the funeral.

Shalom from
Sister Gila