For Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas: 'I remember the first time I said “mi amor” to you', by Yarden Bibas - 2025

26 February 2025, Israel

I remember the first time I said “mi amor” to you.

It was at the very beginning of our relationship.

You told me to only call you that if I was certain I loved you, not to say it carelessly.

I didn’t say it then because I didn’t want you to think I was rushing to say “I love you.”

Shiri, I’ll confess to you now that I already loved you back then when I said “mi amor.”

Shiri, I love you and will always love you!

Shiri, you are everything to me!

You are the best wife and mother there could be.

Shiri, you are my best friend.

Mishmish, who will help me make decisions now? How am I supposed to make decisions without you?

Do you remember our last decision together?

In the safe room, I asked if we should “fight or surrender.”

You said fight, so I fought.

Shiri, I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you all.

If only I had known what would happen, I wouldn’t have fired.

I think about everything we went through together — there are so many beautiful memories.

I remember Ariel and Kfir’s births.

I remember the days we would sit at home or in a café, just the two of us, talking for hours about everything under the sun. It was wonderful. I miss those times deeply.

Your presence is profoundly missed.

I want to tell you about everything that’s happening in the world and here in Israel.

Shiri, everyone knows and loves us — you can’t imagine how surreal all this madness is.

Shiri, people tell me they’ll always be by my side, but they’re not you. So please stay close to me and don’t go far!

Shiri, this is the closest I’ve been to you since Oct. 7th, and I can’t kiss or hug you, and it’s breaking me!

Shiri, please watch over me … Protect me from bad decisions.

Shield me from harmful things and protect me from myself.

Guard me so I don’t sink into darkness.

Mishmish, I love you!

Chuki, Ariel.

You made me a father.

You transformed us into a family.

You taught me what truly matters in life and about responsibility.

The day you were born, I matured instantly because of you.

You taught me so much about myself, and I want to thank you.

So thank you, my beloved.

Ariel, I hope you’re not angry with me for failing to protect you properly and for not being there for you.

I hope you know I thought about you every day, every minute.

I hope you’re enjoying paradise.

I’m sure you’re making all the angels laugh with your silly jokes and impressions.

I hope there are plenty of butterflies for you to watch, just like you did during our picnics.

Chuki, be careful when you climb down from your cloud not to step on Toni … Teach Kfir all your impressions and make everyone laugh up there.

Ariel, I love you “the most in the world, always in the world,” just as you used to tell us.

Poopik, Kfir.

I didn’t think our family could be more perfect, and then you came and made it even more perfect …

I remember your birth.

I remember during the delivery when the midwife suddenly stopped everything — we were frightened and thought something was wrong — but it was just to tell us we had another redhead.

Mom and I laughed and rejoiced.

You brought more light and happiness to our little home.

You came with your sweet, captivating laugh and smile, and I was instantly hooked! It was impossible not to nibble on you all the time.

Kfir, I’m sorry I didn’t protect you better, but I need you to know that I love you deeply and miss you terribly!

I miss nibbling on you and hearing your laughter.

I miss our morning games when mom would ask me to watch you before I went to work.

I cherished those little moments so much, and I miss them now more than ever!

Kfir, I love you the most in the world, always in the world!

I have so many more things to tell you all, but I’ll save them for when we’re alone.

For Ro'i Rotberg: 'Yesterday morning Ro'i was murdered', by Moshe Dayan - 1956

30 April 1956, Nahal Oz, Israel

Yesterday morning Ro'i was murdered. The morning's silence dazzled him, and he didn't see those lurking for his soul at the edge of the furrow. It's not among the Arabs in Gaza but in our own midst that we must seek Roi's blood.

How did we shut our eyes to the reality of our fate, unwilling to see the destiny of our generation in its full cruelty? Have we forgotten that this small group of young boys, settled in Nahal Oz, is carrying the heavy gates of Gaza on its shoulders?

Beyond this, hundreds of thousands of eyes and arms huddle together and pray for our coming weakness, so that they may tear us to pieces. Have we forgotten this? Don't we know that in order for the hope of our destruction to perish we must be armed and ready, morning and night?

We are a generation of settlement, and without the steel helmet and the canon's maw we cannot plant and build a home. Our children won't have lives to live if we won't dig shelters. And without a barbed wire fence and a machine gun, we won't be able to pave a path or drill for water.

The millions of Jews who were exterminated and have no land are watching us from the ashes of Israeli history and command us to settle and rebuild a land for our people.

But beyond the furrow that marks the border lies a surging sea of hatred and vengeance, yearning for the day serenity will dull our alertness, for the day that we'll listen to the ambassadors of conspiring hypocrisy, calling us to lay down our weapons.

Roi's blood is crying out to us, and only to us, from his shredded body. Although we have sworn a thousandfold that our blood shall not flow in vain, yesterday we were tempted again. We listened. We believed.

We will make our reckoning with ourselves today. Let us not flinch from the hatred that accompanies and fills the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs, who are sitting and longing for the moment their hands can get our blood. We must not avert our gaze, lest our hands be weakened.

That is our generation's fate and our life's choice -- to be willing and armed, strong and unyielding, lest the sword be knocked from our fist and our lives cut down.

Ro'i Rotberg -- the blond boy who left Tel-Aviv to build his home alongside the gates of Gaza, to serve as our wall.

Ro'i -- the light in his heart blinded his eyes, and he did not see the flash of the blade.

The yearning for peace deafened his ears, and he did not hear the sound of murder lurking.

The gates of Gaza weighed too heavily on his shoulders and defeated him.

Original Hebrew as Delivered

אתמול עם בוקר נרצח רועי. השקט של בוקר האביב סנוורו, ולא ראה את האורבים לנפשו, על קו התלם.

לא מהערבים אשר בעזה, כי אם מעצמנו נבקש את דמו של רועי. איך עצמנו עינינו מלהסתכל נכוחה בגורלנו, ומלראות את ייעוד דורנו במלוא אכזריותו? הנשכח מאיתנו כי קבוצת נערים זו, היושבת בנחל עוז, נושאת על כתפיה את שערי עזה הכבדים, שערים אשר מעברם מצטופפים מאות אלפי עיניים וידיים המתפללות כי תבוא, בכדי שיוכלו לקורענו לגזרים, השכחנו זאת? הן אנו יודעים, כי על מנת שתגווע התקווה להשמידנו, חייבים אנו להיות, בוקר וערב, מזוינים וערוכים. דור התנחלות אנו, ובלי כובע הפלדה ולוע התותח לא נוכל לטעת ולבנות בית. לילדינו לא יהיו חיים אם לא נחפור מקלטים, ובלי גדר תיל ומקלע לא נוכל לסלול דרך ולקדוח מים. מיליוני היהודים אשר הושמדו ואין להם ארץ צופים אלינו מאפר ההיסטוריה הישראלית, ומצווים עלינו להתנחל ולקומם ארץ לעמנו. אך מעבר לתלם הגבול, גואה ים של שנאה ומאוויי נקם, המצפה ליום בו תקהה השלווה את דריכותנו, ליום בו נאזין לשגרירי הצביעות המתנכלת, הקוראים לנו להניח את נשקנו. אלינו ורק אלינו זועקים דמי רועי וגופו השסוע. על שאלף נדרנו כי דמנו לא ייגר לשווא, ואתמול שוב נתפתינו, האזנו והאמנו. את חשבוננו עם עצמנו נעשה היום.

אל נירתע מלראות את המשטמה המלווה וממלאת חיי מאות אלפי ערבים, היושבים ומצפים לרגע בו תוכל ידם להשיג את דמנו. אל נסב את עינינו פן תיחלש ידינו. זו גזרת דודנו, זו ברירת חיינו, להיות נכונים וחמושים חזקים ונוקשים, או כי תישמט מאגרופנו החרב, וייכרתו חיינו. רועי רוטברג, הנער הבלונדיני אשר הלך מתל אביב לבנות ביתו בשערי עזה, להיות חומה לנו. רועי, האור שבלבו עיוור את עיניו, ולא ראה את ברק המאכלת. הערגה לשלום החרישה את אוזניו, ולא שמע את קול הרצח האורב.

כבדו שערי עזה מכתפיו ויוכלו לו.

for Yitzhak Rabin: 'Yitzhak Rabin lived the history of Israel', by Bill Clinton - 1995

6 November 1995, Mount Herzl, Jerusalem, Israel.

Leah, to the Rabin children and grandchildren and other family members, President Weizman, Acting Prime Minister Peres, members of the Israeli government and the Knesset, distinguished leaders from the Middle East and around the world, especially His Majesty King Hussein, for those remarkable and wonderful comments, and President Mubarak for taking this historic trip here, and to all the people of Israel:

The American people mourn with you in the loss of your leader and I mourn with you, for he was my partner and friend. Every moment we shared was a joy because he was a good man and an inspiration because he was also a great man.

Leah, I know that too many times in the life of this country, you were called upon to comfort and console the mothers and the fathers, the husbands and the wives, the sons and the daughters who lost their loved ones to violence and vengeance. You gave them strength. Now, we here and millions of people all around the world, in all humility and honor, offer you our strength. May God comfort you among all the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.

Yitzhak Rabin lived the history of Israel. Throughout every trial and triumph, the struggle for independence, the wars for survival, the pursuit of peace and all he served on the front lines, this son of David and of Solomon, took up arms to defend Israel's freedom and lay down its life -- his his life to secure Israel's future. He was a man completely without pretenses, all of his friends knew.

I read that in 1949 after the war of independence, David ben Gurion sent him to represent Israel at the armistice talks at Rhodes and he had never before worn a neck tie, and did not know how to tie the knot. So the problem was solved by a friend who tied it for him before he left and showed him how to preserve the knot simply by loosening the tie and pulling it over his head. Well, the last time we were together, not two weeks ago, he showed up for a black tie event, on time, but without the black tie. And so he borrowed a tie and I was privileged to straighten it for him. It is a moment I will cherish as long as I live.

To him, ceremonies and words were less important than actions and deeds. Six weeks ago, the King and President Mubarak will remember, we were at the White House for signing the Israel[i]-Palestinian agreement and a lot of people spoke. I spoke; the King spoke; Chairman Arafat spoke; President Mubarak spoke; our foreign ministers all spoke; and finally Prime Minister Rabin got up to speak and he said, "First, the good news: I am the last speaker...."

But he also understood the power of words and symbolism. "Take a look at the stage," he said in Washington.

The King of Jordan, the president of Egypt, Chairman Arafat, and us -- the prime minister and foreign minister of Israel -- on one platform.... Please, take a good hard look. The sight you see before you...was impossible -- was unthinkable just three years ago. Only poets dreamt of it. And to our great pain, soldier[s] and civilian[s] went to their deaths to make this moment possible.1

Those were his words.

Today, my fellow citizens of the world, I ask all of you to take a good, hard look at this picture. Look at the leaders from all over the Middle East and around the world who have journeyed here today for Yitzhak Rabin, and for peace. Though we no longer hear his deep and booming voice, it is he who has brought us together again here, in word and deed, for peace.

Now it falls to all of us who love peace and all of us who loved him, to carry on the struggle to which he gave life and for which he gave his life. He cleared the path and his spirit continues to light the way. His spirit lives on in the growing peace between Israel and her neighbors. It lives in the eyes of the children, the Jewish and the Arab children who are leaving behind a past of fear for a future of hope. It lives on in the promise of true security. So, let me say to the people of Israel, even in your hour of darkness, his spirit lives on and so you must not lose your spirit. Look at what you have accomplished -- making a once barren desert bloom, building a thriving democracy in a hostile terrain, winning battles and wars and now winning the peace, which is the only enduring victory.

Your Prime Minister was a martyr for peace, but he was a victim of hate. Surely, we must learn from his martyrdom that if people cannot let go of the hatred of their enemies, they risk sowing the seeds of hatred among themselves. I ask you, the people of Israel, on behalf of my nation that knows its own long litany of loss, from Abraham Lincoln to President Kennedy to Martin Luther King, do not let that happen to you. In the Knesset, in your homes, in your places of worship, stay the righteous course. As Moses said to the children of Israel when he knew he would not cross over into the promised lands, "Be strong and of good courage. Fear not, for God will go with you. He will not fail you. He will not forsake you."

President Weizman, Acting Prime Minister Peres, to all the people of Israel, as you stay the course of peace I make this pledge: neither will America forsake you.

Legend has it that in every generation of Jews, from time immemorial, a just leader emerged to protect his people and show them the way to safety. Prime Minister Rabin was such a leader. He knew, as he declared to the world on the White House lawn two years ago, that the time had come, in his words, "to begin a new reckoning in the relations between people, between parents tired of war, between children who will not know war." -- here in Jerusalem I believe, with perfect [faith?] that he was leading his people to that Promised Land.

This week, Jews all around the world are studying the Torah portion in which God tests the faith of Abraham, patriarch of the Jews and the Arabs. He commands Abraham to sacrifice Yitzhak. "Take your son, the one you love, Yitzhak." As we all know, as Abraham, in loyalty to God, was about to kill his son, God spared Yitzhak.

Now God tests our faith even more terribly, for he has taken our Yitzhak. But Israel's covenant with God for freedom, for tolerance, for security, for peace -- that covenant must hold. That covenant was Prime Minister Rabin's life's work. Now we must make it his lasting legacy. His spirit must live on in us.

The Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for mourning, never speaks of death, but often speaks of peace. In its closing words, may our hearts find a measure of comfort and our souls, the eternal touch of hope.

"Ya'ase shalom bimromav, hu ya'ase shalom aleinu, ve-al kol Israel, ve-imru, amen."4

Shalom, haver.