[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 175 (Tuesday, November 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H11813-H11814]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       IN MEMORY OF YITZHAK RABIN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bunn of Oregon). Under a previous order 
of the House, the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, I was unable to get back from the 
presidential straw poll in Maine in time to join the CODEL, the 
congressional CODEL that left a few hours before Air Force One to go 
over to Jerusalem, the most beautiful city on this small delicate earth 
and pay my respects to Rabin, but I wanted to share something with my 
colleagues that I have been sharing with my rather large family all 
week.
  Mr. Speaker, that is for some wonderful reason I had at least 10 
minutes, maybe more, alone with Prime Minister Rabin in the old House 
of Representatives Chamber, Statutory Hall. We both went over to get a 
Coca-Cola, a Pepsi. I started talking to him and for some reason people 
respected us engaged in conversation.
  Mr. Speaker, I asked him about a line that he made in his closing 
remarks in the ceremony in our wonderful Rotunda under the Capitol dome 
for the 3,000th anniversary ceremony here on 

[[Page H 11814]]
Capitol Hill for the founding of the beautiful city of Jerusalem, when 
David bought a small hilltop from a man named Ornan, O-R-N-A-N.
  When I was in Israel on one of my 15 trips there, I obviously 
memorized that name as I heard it because I put D, for David, in front 
of Ornan and got DORNAN. That as a way of remembering it. When he 
bought Mount Zion and Mount Moriah and started that tiny little city, 
David then still not much older than the shepherd boy who had killed 
Goliath, the Philistine, little did he know how many times he would 
offend God or how many times he would please God, or write the most 
beautiful of all poetry, the Psalms, or that he would father the great 
Solomon, the next Israeli king after himself.
  I pointed out to Mr. Rabin that he had used a line in his remarks in 
the Rotunda speaking about the chill of the handmade armored cars among 
the pines.
  Mr. Speaker, I knew what he was referencing. In little workshops in 
Tel Aviv they had built handmade armored cars. They took small, old 
trucks, some of them pre-World War II trucks, in the 1948 war, put 
sheets of metal around them. Welded them. They looked for all the world 
like something out of Jules Verne in the middle of the 1800's.
  Then they would take these trucks southeast up from Tel Aviv up to 
the top of the beautiful mountainous area where Jerusalem is. There are 
pine trees all along that route. I have been in Israel when it has 
snowed. It gets extremely cold, biting cold in those hills on the way 
up to Jerusalem, and that is what Mr. Rabin meant.

  Mr. Speaker, I said, ``Were you a brigade commander then?'' And he 
said, ``Yes, the 10th Brigade. Those were my armored cars.'' I hope 
they never take them away to widen the road, which was attempted this 
last year. The rusted armored cars where people where machine gunned 
and killed in those cars. They are still at several points along that 
beautiful, winding road up to Jerusalem.
  We talked about his age. He was 26 years of age. I said, ``How did 
you get to be a brigade commander at such a young age?'' And he said, 
``Well,'' in that distinctive style of his, ``you must remember the 
ages of your own revolutionary heroes in your War of Independence.'' 
And I said, That is right. Hamilton, 23; Lafayette, whose picture is 
here, the only other person's portrait on the floor other than the 
father of our country, they were both 23. That is right.
  And at 45 years of age he was the overall field military commander 
for all the Israeli defense forces. I still wear my Israeli defense 
force belt buckle that they gave me when I flew a Kafir in my freshman 
year, January 8, 1978, with one of their triple aces, Ovi, last name 
still to be kept secret for obvious reasons. I talked about how at 45 
years of age he commanded it all.
  This wonderful moment I will treasure forever. I did not have to be 
at the ceremony to have tears running down my face, because out of my 
five children, four are freckle-faced red heads. I have my first 
freckle-faced red head in a ninth grandchild, Liam, who is staying with 
me this week. And when his beautiful granddaughter got up, Noa, N-O-A, 
and said to all the leaders from around the world these simple words: 
``Please excuse me for not wanting to talk about the peace. I want to 
talk about my grandfather.''
  Mr. Speaker, I have a tenth grandchild, son or daughter, due in 
January, and I would like to put all of her words in, Mr. Speaker, that 
follow from that, because it is the most beautiful eulogy I believe I 
have ever heard from a child or grandchild about one of their elders in 
my entire life.
  At some point I will read all of her words into the Record. I want 
them to ring forever in this Chamber. Thank you Mr. Speaker, and I 
thank my colleague.
  Mr. Speaker, I submit the following for the Record.

          Goodbye to a Grandfather: We Are So Cold and So Sad

       The granddaughter of Yitzhak Rabin, Noa Ben-Artzi Philosof, 
     17, spoke at his funeral. Her remarks were translated and 
     transcribed by The New York Times.
       Please excuse me for not wanting to talk about the peace. I 
     want to talk about my grandfather.
       You always awake from a nightmare, but since yesterday I 
     was continually awakening to a nightmare. It is not possible 
     to get used to the nightmare of life without you. The 
     television never ceases to broadcast pictures of you, and you 
     are so alive that I can almost touch you--but only almost, 
     and I won't be able to anymore.
       Grandfather, you were the pillar of fire in front of the 
     camp and now we are left in the camp alone, in the dark; and 
     we are so cold and so sad.
       I know that people talk in terms of a national tragedy, and 
     of comforting an entire nation, but we feel the huge void 
     that remains in your absence when grandmother doesn't stop 
     crying.
       Few people really knew you. Now they will talk about you 
     for quite some time, but I feel that they really don't know 
     just how great the pain is, how great the tragedy is; 
     something has been destroyed.
       Grandfather, you were and still are our hero. I wanted you 
     to know that every time I did anything, I saw you in front of 
     me.
       Your appreciation and your love accompanies us every step 
     down the road, and our lives were always shaped after your 
     values. You, who never abandoned anything, are now abandoned. 
     And here you are, my ever-present hero, cold, alone, and I 
     cannot do anything to save you. You are missed so much.
       Others greater than I have already eulogized you, but none 
     of them ever had the pleasure I had to feel the caresses of 
     your warm, soft hands, to merit your warm embrace that was 
     reserved only for us, to see your half-smile that always told 
     me so much, that same smile which is no longer, frozen in the 
     grave with you.
       I have no feelings of revenge because my pain and feelings 
     of loss are so large, too large. The ground has been swept 
     out from below us, and we are groping now, trying to wander 
     about in this empty void, without any success so far.
       I am not able to finish this; left with no alternative. I 
     say goodbye to you, hero, and ask you to rest in peace, and 
     think about us, and miss us, as down here we love you so very 
     much. I imagine angels are accompanying you now and I ask 
     them to take care of you, because you deserve their 
     protection.

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