Lew Shaw’s Blog from Haifa

This evening I’ve been watching on television the ceremony in Kikar Rabin in Tel Aviv commemorating the assasination of Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish fanatic.  The square is packed with people, mostly young and all hopeful for peace.  There are the usual, but very moving, speeches by all the politicos – Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, etc.  There is also some beautiful Israeli music, songs of hope for peace.  One song, sung beautifully by a chorus of young people, is entitled “We are the Children of the Winter of ‘73″.  It’s the story of the hopeful generation born right after the Yom Kippur war when the soldiers returned from battle.  It’s a generation who has seen signs of hope – peace with Jordan and Egypt, the Oslo accords and other initiatives – but also has seen suicide terrorists, more fighting, illegal settlements in the West Bank.  And it hit me for the first time that my daughter Jenny (named Ginat Egoz) is one of those children, born in the fall of 1974.