Leah Rabin

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Leah Rabin, nee Schlossberg, was the wife of Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Born in 1928 in Koenigsberg, Germany, she immigrated with her family in 1933 to Tel Aviv, then part of British Mandatory Palestine. She met her future husband in 1944 when she was a high school student. After completing high school she attended teachers college but dropped out to join the Palmach (part of the Jewish underground). Leah and Yitzhak Rabin were married during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. During this time, Leah Rabin was a reporter for the Palmach newspaper, collecting photos of fallen soldiers for publication.

The first time Leah Rabin was considered newsworthy was in 1977 when it was revealed that she had an American bank account, which was illegal for Israeli citizens at the time. This revelation led to her husband resigning from his position of Prime Minister. Following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, Leah Rabin continued to work for the cause of peace between Israel and the surrounding Arab countries. She was a controversial and outspoken public figure who considered Yasser Arafat to be a personal friend and verbally lashed out at former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Likud Political Party who, in her view, had "created a right-wing climate that permitted a religious fanatic to kill her husband", and at those people she considered not completely devoted to the peace process.

Leah Rabin died of cancer on November 12, 2000. She had two children, Dalia and Yuval, and grandchildren Yonatan, Noa, Michael, Omer and Re'ut.

Last updated: June 21, 2004.

Leah Rabin and her family meet with Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton.

Yitzhak and Leah Rabin's grave on Mount Herzl.

Leah Rabin (Hebrew: לאה רבין‎ née Schlossberg April 8, 1928 – November 12, 2000) was the widow of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995.

Biography

Born in Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany (now Kaliningrad, Russia), in 1933 Leah emigrated with her family to Mandate Palestine where she met her future husband, Yitzhak Rabin, at school. They married in 1948, the year of Israel's independence.^[1]

Yitzhak became Prime Minister in 1974 following Golda Meir's resignation, but in 1977 a US Dollar bank account (illegal at that time in Israel) held by Leah was exposed by Haaretz journalist Dan Margalit. As a result, her husband decided to take responsibility, resigned from office.^[2] This came to be known as the Dollar Account affair.

Leah supported the peace efforts of her husband in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and worked further for a solution after his assassination.^[1] She wrote a book about her memories of her husband, which was released in 1997, under the name Rabin: Our Life, His Legacy.

She supported Shimon Peres in the elections of 1996, calling people to vote for him so that so that her husband's death "would not be in vain."^[3] She also expressed her disappointment after he lost the elections to Benjamin Netanyahu. In the election of 1999 she supported Ehud Barak. However, during Barak's term as prime minister she changed her opinions about him. She was especially disturbed by the fact that he was negotiating a territorial compromise in Jerusalem.

Rabin was diagnosed with lung cancer and died in Petah Tikva in 2000 at the age of 72, a few days after the fifth anniversary of her husband's assassination.^[2]

The couple's daughter, Dalia was later a Knesset member for the Centre Party, New Way and the Labour Party, serving as Deputy Minister of Defense.

References

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1. ^ ^{a b} AP (2000-11-12). "Leah Rabin, widow of slain Israeli leader, dies of cancer". CNN.com. http://archives.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/11/12/obit.leahrabin.ap/. Retrieved 2007-12-28. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Franklin, David. "Leah Rabin dies at 72". Jerusalem Post. http://info.jpost.com/2000/Supplements/Leah/. Retrieved 2007-12-28. 
3. ^ Rabin's widow tells Israelis: Vote for Peres CNN, 30 May 1996

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