Song for Peace

1996

After Rabin was assasinated I saw the stark image of a bloodied song sheet with a bullet hole through it on the front page of the British newspaper, the European (I was in Brighton, England, for my sister's wedding). The song was Shir Hashalom, Song for Peace, a peace song from the 60's that Rabin had just joined in singing with the crowd at the peace rally in Tel Aviv immediately before he was killed. The song is a beautiful poem about peace.

The Song for Peace (sometimes referred to as the Song of Peace) was written by Jacob Rotblit, and is sung to a melody by Yair Rosenbloom. Here's an English translation (thanks to Miri Skoriak, who also provided me with some background to the song's history and significance) :

Song for Peace Let the sun rise Let the morning shine The purest of prayers Will not bring us back He whose candle has been snuffed out And was buried in the ground Bitter tears will not wake him up Will not bring him back No one will resurrect us >From the depths of darkness Neither the victory cheer Nor songs of praise will help So, sing a song for peace Don't whisper a prayer Better to cry aloud A song for peace Let the sunshine penetrate Through the flowers Don't look back in worry Let the deceased rest Raise your eyes and Look ahead with hope Sing a song for love Not for wars Don't say the day will come Make it happen now It's not a dream When in all quarters The praise for peace will sound So, sing a song for peace Don't whisper a prayer Better to cry aloud A song for peace

It really is a song for peace, as if sung by the deceased (i.e. a plea from the grave) to the next generation to pursue peace. The dead are asking the living to concentrate on the future (rather than on the past and the victims) and not be afraid to express their wishes for peace strongly. Aloud. Just like Rabin did!

Rabin had placed the song sheet in his breast pocket. The assasin's bullet passed right through the song sheet. It was tragic, sad and ironic.

When I saw the song sheet (which had been reproduced in the newspaper upside down) I said to myself "That is my canvas." I kept the cutting and from that moment on started working on the portrait in my mind, collecting material along the way.

Nine months later I was asked to submit an image for an exhibition at the headquarters of Scitex in Herzlia, Israel. I knew this was the image and started work on completing the portrait.

Symbols and elements in the collage include the crowds who were at the rally where Rabin was killed, the hand-shake with Yasir Arafat that broke the years of enmity and hate, the Western Wall pockmarked with bullet holes just after the Six Day War in 1967, and a photo of Rabin age 18 taken in 1940 when he was involved with the underground fight against the British mandate in Palestine. The Israeli flag flying at half mast, with the fatal bullet hole passing through it, is a metaphor for the way the bullet ripped a hole through the fabric of the Israeli society.

The portrait itself is a freehand painting based on an image I saw on the cover of Newsweek magazine. It was an image which spoke to me, where I saw the eyes express sensitivity, strength, hope, sadness, dreams and courage. I decided not to simply scan the portrait, but to do a freehand painting, so that the final painting would speak more personally of how I felt.

I presented an Iris print (courtesy of the Image House, Santa Fe) to Rabin's widow, Lea Rabin, in January, 1998. She looked at it in silence and then said:"Those eyes.."

This web page is dedicated to the memory of Yitzhak Rabin and to the hope that peace will prevail. I also dedicate this page to the memory of Lea Rabin who shared her husbands ideals and who sadly passed away a couple of years after I presented her with the print.

All artwork shown is copyright © 2007 Jeremy Sutton
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jeremy@jeremysutton.com
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