Journal of Youth Studies, Vol. 4, No.

3, 2001

Youth GrafŽti as an Existential Coping Device:

The Case of Rabin’s Assassination

DIANA LUZZATTO & YEHUDA JACOBSON

ABSTRACT The research explores the symbolic meanings of the grafŽti drawn by Israeli
adolescents and youth on the walls around Rabin Square in Tel-Aviv, named after the
Israeli Prime Minister, Izhak Rabin, and following his assassination in the same square.
The assassination occurred during a period in which Israeli society was characterized by
feelings of anomie and crisis due to intensiŽed social and political conicts. The image
constructed and conveyed by the grafŽti is that of an eclectic leader; and that image is
also the reection of the cultural characteristics emerging from the liminal situation of
youth in Israeli society. In the discourse carried on by means of walls, the main trend
is the attempt to combine polar and/or diverse characteristics, in a holistic manner. Three
spheres of liminality are discussed: liminality of the leader, liminality of youth, and
liminality of Israeli society. The discussion is carried out in the context of the existential
situation of youth in Israel.

Introduction
GrafŽti as a means of expression has fulŽlled the needs of thousands of youths
and teenagers within the Israeli population, in coping with the assassination of
the Israeli Prime Minister, the late Yitzhak Rabin. The multiplicity of writings
concentrated on the wall near the site of his assassination, at the Tel Aviv town
square, created a multifaceted prism through which one can behold and explore
the phenomena relating to the processes taking place in the Israeli youth cultural
context.
These inscriptions are the visual embodiment of their creators’ perception of
leadership, existential conicts and feelings. The objective of this study is to
examine the interwoven explicit and implicit meanings of these grafŽti mes-
sages. The Žndings show that in the process of constructing the image of the
assassinated prime minister, the grafŽti weave a picture characterized by contra-
dictions; however, these contradictions are not perceived as antithetical but as
intersecting, mediated and crystallized features into an eclectic Žgure which
played, and still plays, a symbolic role in the social context of an anomic, liminal
situation among youths in Israeli society.

The Research Field

Methodology
The study was carried out from the week of the assassination (4 November 1995)

Dr Diana Luzzatto, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel-Aviv University, 69978 Ramat-Aviv,
Tel-Aviv, Israel; e-mail: dianalla@nonstop.net.il

ISSN 1367–6261 print/1469-9680 online/01/030351-1 5 Ó 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd

DOI: 10.1080/1367626012007545 5
352 D. Luzzatto & Y. Jacobson

until February 1997. The major research method used was content analysis of the
writings drawn on the walls, oor, steps and banisters around the square, as a
reaction to the assassination. In order to enhance the data and examine the
validity of the Žndings, and parallel to their gathering, interviews and observa-
tions were carried out every day for the Žrst month after the murder, and about
twice a week for the remaining Želdwork period. This blending of content
analysis, interviews and participant observations takes into consideration a
critical approach adopted by some researchers. For instance, Smith (1986) claims
that most studies do not pay enough attention to the social and cultural context
in which the grafŽti occur, while others relate to the context but do not analyze
the writings.
The writings were photographed for qualitative content analysis. Since the
extent of the corpus of data is enormous, and in order to allows systematic
sampling, the walls around the square were divided into 485 area units (1 3 1m)
from which we photographed every Žfth unit. From these, a set amount of
writings (10 per area unit) were sampled, giving preference mainly to the
clearest and greatest in size. Inscriptions spread over two units (diagonally)
were sampled only once. In summary, about 1000 writings were classiŽed and
analyzed.
An impressionistic review of the writings was performed, for the purpose of
constructing criteria for analyzing the corpus, according to the accepted method-
ology in qualitative content analysis (e.g. Shapira & Herzog, 1984). A set of
criteria emerged, which, at a later stage, was assembled into four main cate-
gories, which will be discussed in this article.

The Research Population

The grafŽti creators’ characteristics were homogeneous on some dimensions—
and heterogeneous on others. Perhaps the most striking resemblance between
them was their young average age (e.g. teenagers, soldiers, university students
and other youth, and even schoolchildren). Many grafŽti creators mentioned in
their writings their age, school grade or army unit. Although some older people
created grafŽti, they were a minority and their number decreased after a few
days. From a religious point of view, the research population consisted of Jews,
most of them secular or mildly traditional. On the other hand, they were
heterogeneous with regard to their socioeconomic and ethnic background. It is
especially interesting to note that while almost only those from the political left
participated in the demonstrations for peace prior to the assassination, a few
from the right felt the need to express their sorrow in grafŽti, so distancing
themselves from the ideology associated with the murder.

The Research Period

The period following the assassination was characterized by a widespread
feeling of anomie and a sense of crisis. The reasons for this were numerous,
including weakening of social solidarity due to the enhanced expressions of
political conicts that had been present within Israeli society for quite a long
time, but which peaked around the date of the murder (e.g. right vs. left,
religious vs. secular) (Avineri, 1995). One should note that while Rabin had
become a symbol of secularity and desire for peace before his death, in his more
 Youth GrafŽti as a Coping Device 353

distant past he had been a hard line military leader. His assassination brought
about simultaneous emphasis on diverse aspects of his personality and life
history, according to the various public positions he fulŽlled during his life. The
Israeli media presented documentary aspects of his life from which the image of
Rabin emerged as a puzzling assemblage of a multitude of properties and
ideological positions, thus leaving the task of integrating all these to their
audience
Most adults were already familiar with those different aspects of Rabin’s
image, and had incorporated them into their collective memory. However, for
young people, and particularly the youngest, it was not obvious that the paciŽst
Rabin they had grown to know had been in the past the hard soldier and
politician they were suddenly discovering through the media. The fact that this
complexity could not be taken for granted among youth is clearly shown in an
article published by Maariv Lanoar (15 October 1998), a popular youth magazine
in Israel:
Yitzhak Rabin was a blushing introvert, adult but youthful, experienced
but naive, stern but paternal, mysterious but unequivocal, and mainly
full of belief in the righteousness of his way.
The same tendency to unify opposed characteristics, herein displayed, is empha-
sized in the grafŽti.

GrafŽti as a Social Phenomenon

A number of sociological studies have attempted to understand the historical
development and social motives of the grafŽti phenomenon (Cunliffe, 1973;
Glazer, 1979). These studies see grafŽti as a social communication medium and
a means of social protest (see, for example, Blume, 1985). In their opinion, grafŽti
can serve like any other media, e.g. movies, music, comics, dress, tattoos, hairdos
etc. (Jacobson & Luzzatto, 2000). These studies also prove grafŽti to be a means
of expressing opinions and feelings unsympathetically viewed and scarcely
recognized by the authorities (Deiulio, 1973).
Most of the grafŽti studies focus on speciŽc population categories while
relating to variables such as sex, age, ethnic origin, class, gang membership, as
independent variables for examining the phenomenon (Lewenstine et al., 1982;
Luna, 1987; Cole, 1991; Ennala, 1992; Lasley, 1995; Ferrell, 1995). However, there
are hardly any studies relating to grafŽti created in a context similar to that of
this study, by a wide population of youths, teenagers, and even more than a few
adults who imitated them. This is not particularly surprising, as the events that
gave origin to the phenomenon were uniquely unexpected and tragic, and for a
short period created a sense of ‘communitas’ in Israeli society, and particularly
amongst youth, who found themselves in a situation of ‘double liminality’: as
youngsters being in a ‘transitional period’ between childhood and adulthood,
and as a result of the mourning situation in which Israeli society found itself
suddenly immersed after Rabin’s murder (Rappaport, 1997, p. 34).
The ambivalent social attitude towards the grafŽti phenomenon in various
cultures is shown in a number of studies (Kirsch, 1995; Harris, 1995; Huebner,
1995). On the one hand, some see grafŽti as vandalism, grossly disruptive of
social order, aesthetics and morals (Lachmann, 1988), while others see grafŽti as
a legitimate means of expression and crystallization of feelings and attitudes. In
354 D. Luzzatto & Y. Jacobson

the middle there can be found an attitude that sees grafŽti as an artistic medium
(Becker, 1963; Blake, 1981; Raymond, 1989) and/or an institutionalized, con-
trolled safety valve allowing the channelling of social conicts into pre-allocated,
agreed and limited areas (Romotsky & Romotsky, 1973, pp. 16–19).
Some researchers stress the opportunity offered by grafŽti, as a form of
communication, for interpretation and insight (Hebdige, 1979; Harvey, 1990).
Abel & Buckley (1977) focus on the psychological aspects of the phenomenon,
which they see as a form of communication expressing personal thoughts free
from inhibitions caused by social norms. Blume (1985), too, analyzes grafŽti as
a model of communication, through which individuals express criticism, protest,
rejection or agreement, and search for contacts. Moreover, on the collective level,
grafŽti serve as a means of documenting group membership and mass and
reexive communication. A more general view is expressed in Freeman’s (1966)
cultural approach, according to which grafŽti reect the nature of the society in
which they were produced.
The present study shows a deep interaction and inuence between two levels:
youth tried to express and communicate their feelings individually, while at the
same time the proximity and even intersecting of the writings created a kind of
collective composition. Each of the levels contributed to the constant shaping
and changing of the other, in a owing ‘dialogue’. In that frame, the grouping
of young people in the square created a feeling of ‘communitas’, as is typical to
people who undergo the same rite of passage (Turner, 1969).

The GrafŽti Phenomenon in Israeli Society

Widespread social attitudes toward the grafŽti in Rabin Square exemplify the
uniqueness of the phenomenon and provision of moral legitimacy to grafŽti.
GrafŽti are considered as art not due to the aesthetic or artistic values of the
work, but in virtue of the context by which and in which they were created, i.e.
the respect shown to the late Yitzhak Rabin.
The concentration of writings related to Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination can be
located mainly in the aforementioned square, which, as we mentioned, was the
scene of the murder and in the vicinity of Rabin’s grave in Jerusalem. In this
context, an unprecedented exhibition took place at the Tel Aviv Museum in
Israel in which photographs of various grafŽti from Rabin Square created by
anonymous artists were displayed.
It is commonly believed that the factor of attraction in grafŽti creation is the
legal ban and/or anonymity in its making, or perhaps the late night adventure
of sneaking up to the site. However, in contrast with these suppositions, the
phenomenon before us shows legitimacy for overtly and publicly creating
grafŽti, provided by the unusual context in which it took place; a legitimacy
which was clearly voiced about 15 months after Rabin’s assassination, when the
authorities planned to erase the grafŽti from the walls of the square, and the
public uproar that arose received media attention and stopped the action.
The grafŽti phenomenon is well known in Israeli society also among groups
with limited access to the centre of power and political inuence. Thus, for
instance, an article (Nawaf, 1990) published in a Tel Aviv local newspaper
showed that the West Bank and Gaza were full of grafŽti since the Inthifada (the
term used by Palestinians to deŽne their rebellion against Israeli occupation).
GrafŽti there serve as a means of communication, to convey messages and
 Youth GrafŽti as a Coping Device 355

express the opinions of the various sectors, in accordance to already stated

theories (Abel & Buckley, 1977; Blume, 1985). A number of examples prove that
grafŽti have earned the position of art and social legitimacy in Israel: for
instance, the popular song by the Israeli protest singer, Si Heiman, called
‘GrafŽti Tel Aviv 89’, and the publication of a photograph album edited by Dror
Green (Green, 1990), in which he documented and classiŽed grafŽti collected in
Israel’s big cities. One should note that according to Israeli law, grafŽti are
perceived as an offence of disŽguration of property, classiŽed as a misde-
meanour, punishable by several months’ imprisonment.
The ambivalent attitude towards the phenomenon is expressed by almost all
the media. For example, on the one hand, news broadcasts report on the
interrogation of grafŽti creators in schools, while on the other hand, grafŽti
corners are allocated in the studios of children’s television shows. Advertise-
ments for various products (paper products, bedlinen, for example),
graphic fonts in word-processing software and shops receive the name GrafŽti,
and even wedding invitation cards are designed and photographed in grafŽti
style.
It therefore seems that the expanding popularity of the word grafŽti and its
various uses, along with the phenomenon of grafŽti creation in Rabin Square
and the fact of leaving it intact despite its illegality, and the aforementioned
exhibition of photographs in the Tel Aviv Museum and publication of an album
of photographs following it (Omer et al., 1996), express growing moral legiti-
macy for the phenomenon. This legitimacy is actually given de facto, and not in
a legal, de jure, fashion. Actions that were deemed in the past as pranks or
protests turn into an act of devotion in the case studied here. While this article
focuses on the grafŽti, it should be noted that grafŽti were the most impressive
but not the only expressive tool used by youth to commemorate Rabin. Other
mourning rituals included lighting of memorial candles, songs that are usually
sung in youth movements, and owers on the assassination spot (Azaryahu,
1996).

Youth Sub-culture in the Israeli Context

The permanent sense of crisis caused by the state of war, experienced by Israeli
youth, creates a situation in which layers of anomic aspects, additional to those
commonly characteristic to youth in postmodern Western societies, are added
(Adler & Kahane, 1984; Kahane, 1997). This situation closely touches virtually all
Israeli adolescents, as almost all of them join the army at the age of 18. Thus,
every adolescent is a future soldier, and a signiŽcant portion of his life is
devolved to his (and his parents’) physical and mental preparation toward three
years of trial: army life. In addition, almost every man will be called to serve as
a military reserve until his forties or Žfties, so that youngsters and adults share
a common army experience. With this background, Israeli youngsters deal with
death on a daily basis, both their own possible death and that of friends and
relatives. However, paradoxically, while this background adds to the anomic
and liminal aspects of their existential experience, it also puts Israeli youth in a
position, in relation to the older generation, which in some respects is far from
being marginal, in comparison, for instance, to that of youth in the USA.
According to Males (1998), in the USA, adolescents are considered and treated
as a burden. Negative myths are attached to them, presenting a systematically
356 D. Luzzatto & Y. Jacobson

false image of teenagers. Giroux (1997) claims that the young in the USA are
ranked particularly low in national priorities, they are neglected by government
and education, they lack public space, and constitute a marginal social group. In
Israel, however, there is a certain amount of respect and consideration for the
young, due especially to the fact that they are seen as a security asset to the state
instead of a burden. While being in a liminal state between childhood and
adulthood, adolescents are also perceived as potential future soldiers. And, one
must bear in mind that the combat soldier symbolizes the ‘New Jew’ after the
Holocaust, an outmost Žgure in the Israeli ethos (Kaplan, 1999). Nevertheless, a
dimension of duality with regard to youth Žnds an expression in the public
political discourse. For instance, on the Žfth anniversary of Rabin’s death, the
Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, referred to young people as ‘the hope of the
country for peace’ and the late Rabin’s widow called them ‘the candles’ gener-
ation’ (meaning ‘peace generation’). It is no wonder, then, that Israeli youth are
used to experiencing a daily dose of contrasting messages about their task as
soldiers/peacemakers, and do not perceive them, in everyday life, as paradoxi-
cal.
A further dimension of duality refers to the tension between collectivism and
individualism. Lieblich (1995), while pointing to an increasing tendency on the
part of youth to individualism and weakening of collectivistic and traditional
Israeli values, questions the possibility of the development of a new individual-
istic culture in the stormy and conictual Middle East. Traditionally, a substan-
tial number of Israeli adolescents (70%) have belonged to institutional youth
movements, as ZoŽm-scouts (Egozi, 1976), and this tendency still exists even if
at a lesser rate. Some of them are very active in youth branches of central
political parties.
In addition to collectivistic values, which stem from the mainstream social and
political culture, Israel is a very ‘familistic’ society, in the Jewish tradition
(Herzog, 1996; Fogiel-Bijaoui, 1999). Ichilov (1984, pp. 61–96, 221) claims that
political disagreement does not lead Israeli youth to rebellion against their
parents. Furthermore, historically, Israeli adolescents and youth tend to organize
along ideological lines similar to those of their parents (Shapira et al., 1979).
According to Clarke et al. (1981, pp. 53–79), although there always exists a
connection between young people’s sub-culture and that of their parents, it can
be tight or loose. It appears that in Israeli society, such connection is particularly
tight. According to Adler (1975), in Israel, youth do not develop protest patterns,
as Israeli society succeeds in sustaining an ideology of ‘revolution yet to be
completed’. In light of the social context described here, it is understandable
why Israeli youth has never developed counter-cultures of the kind depicted, for
instance, by Willis (1977, 1978).
Israeli youth sub-culture characteristics display some central values that are
an extension of the mainstream parent culture. SigniŽcantly, issues of disagree-
ment with the older generation tend to arise on individual bases and less
on ideological ones. Even youth sub-culture symbols like body adornments
(tattoos and piercing), which are considered in literature as counter-culture, are
treated and resolved in the context of family discourse (Jacobson & Luzzatto,
2000).
The grafŽti made by youth in Rabin Square will be analyzed against the
background that has been depicted, and in the context of the social events
during the period that preceded and followed Rabin’s murder.
 Youth GrafŽti as a Coping Device 357

GrafŽti in Rabin Square—Reection of a Liminal Social Situation

Rabin’s assassination took place in the midst of a liminoid stage for Israeli
society, a state between war and peace. The term ‘liminality’, originally coined
in the work of Van Gennep (1960), was developed by Victor Turner (1967,
pp. 93–111, 1969, pp. 94–189, 1985, pp. 159–161). Liminality is deŽned as a stage
in the process of passage between two relatively stable social situations. The
liminal stage (or liminoid stage in modern society) symbolizes the passage from
everyday spheres to a unique sphere found between two stages: ‘separation’,
characterized by behavior symbolizing separation of an individual or group
from a set point in the social structure (or a series of social conditions) and the
‘reaggregation’ (or ‘aggregation’) stage—in which the passage is fulŽlled.
The period preceding the assassination was characterized by the feeling of
renewal and enhancement of the state of Israel’s foreign relations with former
enemy countries and with countries with whom relations had been severed due
to the Jewish–Palestinian conict. The atmosphere of the peace process was felt
on the Israeli street, following long years of strife and loss of lives, accompanied
by difference of opinion arising between various political factors in Israel.
However, some—and not few—perceived the spirit of peace and resolution as
defeatism and weakness. The demonstration that took place to show unity of
support to the peace process was born on the background of these political
conicts. It ended in Rabin’s assassination.
The rally itself, in accordance with the spirit of the time, was characterized by
liminal properties expressed mainly in the atmosphere of communitas. The
feeling of elation during the ceremony, especially toward the end, sprang out in
the mass singing of the ‘Peace Song’, a popular Israeli song, sung usually during
national ceremonies, expressing the longing for peace and sorrow for the price
of war. Various peace symbols were displayed during the ceremony (the peace
symbol of a dove’s foot in a circle, sayings in favour of peace). At the end of the
demonstration, as Rabin was making his way toward his car, he was repeatedly
shot by a young right-wing extremist. The murder brought about an instant
sense of crisis and a feeling of anomie in Israel (Doriel, 1996). Immediately after
the murder took place, thousands began to gather at the site of the assassination,
and many sat watching television and refrained from going to work and taking
care of their usual business. One of the girls who came to the square on the day
after the assassination said:
My parents came home from the demonstration at the square, they
entered my room where I was studying for a test with a friend. I
immediately saw from their faces that something had happened. They
told me they had heard on the radio on their way back that shots had
been Žred and Rabin may have been hurt. We all went over to watch
television and found out he had been assassinated. My parents looked
awful, I couldn’t talk to them, they were devastated. I did not know
what to do. The next day I went to school and saw all my teachers were
broken up. Even though I expected the adults to provide support—they
could not. So we left school, went to the square, my friends and I, sat
there, sang, lit candles, just like we do at Youth to Youth [in Hebrew:
‘Noar Le’noar’—one of Israel’s popular youth movements], and sud-
denly we had a feeling of support and security—we helped each other,
just like we do at the youth movement.
358 D. Luzzatto & Y. Jacobson

The girl’s description is loaded with the atmosphere of the anomic situation,
characterized by a sense of helplessness and deep anxiety, which enveloped
most of the nation in the days following the assassination. As Amala (1995)
points out, young people ‘don’t Žnd a solution in the adults’ world and they
look for a way to a ritual experience that will give them a basis for group
belonging’.
The incapability of the adults themselves to cope with the traumatic event was
such that some of them had to adopt the rituals devised by the young gener-
ation, as exempliŽed in the following anecdote. Two women in their forties, who
we met in Rabin’s square, showed us some coloured markers, and one of them
explained, ‘We came here, me and my friend, after my daughter told me she
came here and wrote a dedication to Rabin. We felt that we should do it too,
what else is there to do?’
In contrast with the vision of peace, which provided clear political directions
for both supporters and opposition alike, the assassination created confusion
and uncertainty about Israel’s political future. The breaking of the prohibition of
murder in Judaism, in view of the murder of one Jew by another Jew, seemed
to erase the moral ground on which Israeli Jewish ultimate norms are built. This
confusion was expressed not only in the political area, but also in the workplace
and in family life, as shown by the girl’s words cited earlier. Another liminal
property is apparent: that of the ‘time out’, in which one is allowed freedom
from everyday life, to change regular habits and to play with fantasies made of
elements of the socio-cultural experience and the everyday experience—de-
tached from their context and connected in new, even unreasonable, ways. The
grafŽti themselves can be seen as a liminal type of writing, between spontaneous
expressions and pre-planned ones.
It seems that the time following the assassination includes two other intercon-
nected properties of rites of passage. On the one hand, it is a liminal period
characterized by a feeling of anomie, in which deconstruction of the cognitive
perception of social–cultural order takes place. On the other hand, simul-
taneously, there is an attempt at reconstruction, of the kind called ‘aggregation’
or ‘reaggregation’ in rites of passage, expressed in, and promoted by, the content
of the grafŽti presented later in this article. In other words, one can discern
between two hidden aspects of the grafŽti activity—the Žrst relates to grafŽti as
a functional tool, instrumental to an expression of feelings, familiar to youth and
teenage cultures coping with forms of crisis (general, social or other). The other,
essentially related to content, implies the cognitive processing of a social
situation and of the political image of the leader, an image which might cause
perplexity and confusion in those young individuals who are only partially
familiar with the nuances in Rabin’s biography—in fact, the majority. The
content of the grafŽti shows in the second instance the longing for coherence and
the linguistic expressions of this yearning. This search for coherence is similar to
the one for the aggregation stage in rites of passage, in which the individual
returns to a more coherent social framework.

The Image of a Liminal Leader: A Unison of Contrasts

The grafŽti surveyed within the study show the construction of the myth of a
leader whose cultural properties rise from the liminal situation described earlier.
The discourse that can be gleaned from the grafŽti revolves mainly around the
 Youth GrafŽti as a Coping Device 359

attempt to unite contrasts and polarities,. Analysis of the messages clearly traces
the bases for the idealization of the image of a leader, bridging between
opposing properties over two time axes: historic time and liminal time.
On the historic axis, Rabin began his social life, in the biographical sense, in
the army, until he reached military leadership serving as chief of staff during the
Six-Day War. During this period, Rabin was perceived as a strong, unrelenting,
omnipotent military leader—a real ‘hawk’. Later, as Israeli ambassador to the
USA, he was perceived as a skilled politician and during his Žrst term as Prime
Minister, he was considered a brave, courageous leader who executed daring
and heroic operations, including the Entebbe Operation. As Minister of Defence,
he supported a strong-armed policy against the Arabs and only in his last term
as Prime Minister did he turn into a symbol of tolerance and reconciliation after
changing his attitude in the direction of peace—thus turning from a hawk into
a dove.
On the liminal axis, Rabin’s image is not perceived in a linear developmental
fashion, but as a set of diverse properties of personality and character expressed
at the same point in time: he could be, on the one hand, a cool, introvert
politician, protecting his privacy, and could appear, on the other hand, as having
supposedly opposing properties, such as humane warmth, openness, and love
for family life. The awareness about the existence of some of these properties is
the outcome of the revelation of a ‘new’ set of Rabin’s attributes, which had not
been familiar to the media and the Israeli public before his death. For example,
familial properties and human warmth were ascribed to Rabin mainly after his
granddaughter’s eulogy at his funeral.
The gap between the characteristics of Rabin’s image on the two axes de-
scribed here is bridged within the grafŽti. The realm of the grafŽti reunites, by
written expression, Rabin’s contradictions, or those aspects of his existence
perceived as being contradictory. The written word and its power to construe
reality allow for the devising of the image of the ‘leader of peace’ as both a
family man and a military leader. The liminal time mobilizes the grafŽti toward
construction of a positive Žgure, unlike the cold, strife-stricken image (familiar
from the historical time) that does not suit the perception of Rabin as a victim
of peace.
The bridging of the time axes is expressed within the following examples.

GrafŽti Bridging the Contradictions on the Life History Axis between the Image of the
Military Leader and the Peace Lover toward the End of His Life
In memory of the peace leader. We will always be with you in Žre and
water—I salute you, General.
This address shows the use of Israeli military terminology that rhymes in the
Hebrew language. This grafŽti saying is borrowed from the military realm. The
prestige ascribed to brave military units and the act of saluting a general also
derives from this world. The bridging is expressed in the combining of the two
sentences, to which the period in between provides rhythm rather than separ-
ation: the Žrst, presenting the peace leader (the political–civilian world); the
second, presenting the general (the military world).
You were our leader in time of war, a prophet in time of hope and the
Messiah in time of peace—and our dream was murdered.
360 D. Luzzatto & Y. Jacobson

This saying divides Rabin’s image into three different roles on the historic axis:
leader, prophet and Messiah. The meaning is derived from the biblical context
of various biblical eras, thus following the historical–logical sequence of the
Bible in order to achieve the uniŽcation of roles in one person.
Role uniŽcation and its relation to the diverse missions of mythical biblical
characters is expressed in the following grafŽti:
Moses wanted to lead us into the land of dreams and you, Rabin, to
peace.
In the three following examples, one can discern sayings that unite the Žgure of
the warrior (military) and the peace-loving image (civilian–political):
The man who won all the wars fell in the battle for peace.
From the Želds of death you returned in peace and from the Želd of
peace you did not return.
The man who dreamt, the man who fought, the man who wanted to
unite the nation.
The following sentence adds elements to the military and civilian ones and
renders the description more vivid with the attribution of feelings of physical
pain (the injury and the operation that followed it) and emotional pain (grief).
The man who is both a war hero and a peace hero lay in helpless pain
on the operating table. The man who was staunch on the one hand but
gentle on the other hand did not last. Yitzhak Rabin died of his
wounds. Our state is orphaned. Our father and leader passed away and
we are all in pain.
It should be noted that Rabin himself insisted on being both a military man as
well as a politician who cried for peace, according to the Israeli ethos which
combines militarism and peace, as he stressed in his speech at the American
Congress in 1994. This ethos is internalized by youngsters in a general manner,
but they applied it to Rabin’s Žgure to a lesser extent, as they knew him mostly
as a man of peace, the way he presented himself in his late years, which
coincided with the youngsters’ growing up.

GrafŽti Bridging between Contradictions on the Liminal Axis and Ascribing to Rabin
the Properties of a Warm Family Man
The following messages represent their creators’ attempts to create familial
intimacy with Rabin’s image, so it will not be perceived as remote. Furthermore,
they enhance the centrality of ‘familism’, which is one of the ultimate values of
Israeli society (Sylvie Fogiel-Bijaoui, 1999, p. 113).
He was a leader, a brother, a father and a husband—but most of all he
was a human being—why?!
Yitzhak the warrior leader, the father and the man of peace—I will
continue your way.
Brother, soldier, father, grandfather and friend.
 Youth GrafŽti as a Coping Device 361

These messages make reference to various familial–social roles, including ‘fa-

ther’, ‘grandfather’, ‘brother’. They represent an attempt to bridge between two
different role requirements. In the terms of the anthropologist, Radcliffe-Brown
(1952), it is a system of Avoidance Relationships compared to Joking Relation-
ships, i.e. the difference in the relations with the cold, authoritative Žgure
compared to the relations with the close, warm Žgure.
In addition, certain sentences show the obliteration of the time dimensions on
the liminal axis. For instance, the confusion of the chronology in the order of
generations within the family:
You were our grandfather, you were like our Žrst and last father.
The blurring of family roles in regard to Rabin’s image also brought about
confusion, as shown in a grafŽto written by IDF soldiers after hearing the
moving eulogy made by Noah, Rabin’s granddaughter, in which his familial
aspect was revealed:
To Noah, the Golani brigade grieves over the death of your father and
expresses its participation in your grief and the grief of your family.
The following examples enhance even further the child–parent relationship as
perceived by the youth:
I have parents, yet I am orphaned! Why?
We lost a father and a grandfather to all of Israel.
The use of terms of orphanhood, that attributes family kinship, from their
authors to their leader, is also a symptom of the feeling of anomie that
characterized the youths, also as the result of their natural parents’ inability to
assists them, and provide models for coping and support in time of grief. In fact,
instead of fulŽlling this role, in this case, some of the older generation tended to
imitate the grafŽti writings as a means of coping with anomie.

GrafŽti that Tries to Bridge the Two Time Axes

The phrase ‘Israel awaits Rabin’ was written as a paraphrase of the popular song
from the Six-Day War period, originally called ‘Nazer awaits Rabin’. This phrase
expresses, on the one hand, an attempt to cope with historic time and on the
other hand, with liminal time, from Rabin’s position as a military leader during
the Six-Day War to becoming the herald of peace in the period preceding his
death. The expectation ‘Israel awaits …’ also shows a paradoxical perception of
time with regard to a dead man.
When it comes to bridging the time axes, special attention should be given to
the use of language while conjugating words on the time axes in the Hebrew
language. A study of the sentence construction shows an interesting linkage of
two time dimensions: on the one hand, in relation to the roles Rabin fulŽlled
before his assassination, i.e. using the past tense, and, on the other hand, the use
of the present or future tense in the same sentence, or application of immortality
to the mythological Žgure. For example:
Soldier, leader, father—with you in Žre and water.
Rabin forever.
362 D. Luzzatto & Y. Jacobson

Rabin, peace will yet laugh [yitzhak]. [Yitzhak, Rabin’s Žrst name, in
Hebrew means ‘will laugh’ in the future tense.]
Other grafŽti try to cope with the conicts on the time axes and Rabin’s passing
into the eternal world, and show the attempt to diminish and blur the distance
between them, sometimes even in the radical means of a meeting after death—
for example:
Yitzhak! I know you feel well up there in the place intended for angels.
And I can’t wait to go to Heaven and meet you—Yours, Yael.
Clinton said ‘Shalom friend’ and we say ‘see you father’.
We want you back, father.
The same attempt is recognizable in the inscription quoting part of a song that
gained popularity in Israel after the assassination:
I am about to cry for you, be strong up there, I will remember you
forever my friend and we will meet in the end, you know.
Within the diminishing of the gaps in the time dimension in these grafŽti, one
can also discern the symbolic diminishing of gaps ascribed to the distance from
the image that lived in the past, and expectation to get closer to it after death—a
yearning to meet soon (in the future) after the writer, expressing himself in
physical–emotional terms, will end his life.
The need to avoid separation was radically expressed in the perpetuation of
his image and the will to endow it with superhuman holiness. Some addresses
include relating to Rabin as an ‘angel’, ‘immortal Žgure’, having supernatural
powers—for example, the writing ‘Rabin forever’ (written originally in Hebrew),
paraphrasing the well-known motto about Batman, the human–animal dual
creature, whose supernatural strength stands in that he is but a human being,
touched by tragedy, ‘doomed’ to Žght evil at the expense of his own happiness,
and the phrase, ‘Rabin, kings do not die’, including Rabin in the category of
monarchic dynasties that achieve immortality in public awareness.
Writings of this kind exemplify some of the ways in which adolescents, by
constructing Rabin’s image as that of a popular Žctional hero, objectify the myth,
making it more real in their eyes. In doing so, ‘popular Žction’ (Bennet, 1990)
helps to deŽne and shape imagined pasts and projected futures.

Cynical GrafŽti Uniting Polar Meanings

Some of the grafŽti observed also implied an attempt to unite contradictions
characterizing the aforementioned liminal situation. These writings, known from
the Vietnam War, and seemingly macabre or lacking respect, such as: ‘Fighting
4 peace is like fucking 4 virginity,’ or ‘Fucking dead’ (originally in English), can
be comprehended in light of Turner (1967, pp. 93–111, 1969, pp. 94–189, 1985,
pp. 159–161), who notes that the use of paradoxes is intended to mock, criticize,
and separate a group from the normative order. The liminal condition of
youths in modern society due to their marginal status (Jacobson, 1995; Jacobson
& Luzzatto, 2000) is intensiŽed in this case due to the overall liminal properties
of Israeli society following the assassination. Through writing grafŽti, the
youth are clearly trying to make themselves heard and some of the time they
 Youth GrafŽti as a Coping Device 363

do it through the use of paradoxical writings, thus expressing Turner’s claim

deŽning liminality as ‘what is not this and not that, but is both’. In relating to
Rabin’s symbolic image as a man of peace and a military leader, one might claim
that the idea of liminality derived from rites of passage and located here is
expressed in what Turner calls ‘symbolic types’, whose undeŽned, ambiguous
properties serve as raw material for shaping social behaviour, according to the
needs of the group.

Summary: The Rise of a Temporary Subculture

Analysis of the grafŽti messages mostly showed Yitzhak Rabin’s liminal image
characterized by diverse components on various levels that achieve uniŽcation.
This phenomenon represents a triangle of liminality symbolically processed
through the grafŽti. In this triangle, the centre of which deals with Rabin’s
assassination, Isreali teenagers already immersed in a liminal situation—both in
a natural–chronological manner and due to their future or present participation
in the army—are one facet. This facet meets the facet of the anomic condition of
Israeli society in the apex of a liminal period of passage from an existential state
of continued war toward extensive peace settlements. A third facet, expressed in
the liminal, conict-riddled, image of Yitzhak Rabin, is added to the Žrst two
facets.
The quick, spontaneous organizing to mourn and commemorate Rabin’s death
found its expression in a patchwork of symbols, of which grafŽti was the main
manifestation. Some of them were borrowed from foreign cultures (e.g. lighting
of candles, quotations from foreign songs and Vietnam War) and some belong
to the Israeli tradition (e.g. singing Israeli folk songs, analogies from the Bible).
Most of these symbols were innovative in the sense that they are not related to
Jewish and/or Israeli contemporary mourning rituals.
It might well be that Israeli youth, undergoing a double chaos as a result of
the precarious existential situation in which they live their everyday life, and as
the result of the changes characterizing their stage in life,. are equipped to
develop cultural apparatuses for dealing with unexpected and ever-changing
situations of powerlessness, loss and existential anxiety. The youth sub-culture
of mourning that arose after Rabin’s murder was a temporary one, and in time
it faded. But in the short time it existed, it served as a coping mechanism not
only for the mass of the young but also for those adults who imitated them.

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