Among the tens of thousands of Israelis who gathered in Tel Aviv Saturday to honor the memory of the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was Shimon Sheves, who had been one of the slain leader’s closest confidants.

Standing in the square where Rabin was killed by an assassin 30 years earlier, Sheves, who was Rabin’s right-hand man for years, including as director general of the Prime Minister’s Office, felt something different.

The November 1 memorial rally at Rabin Square was the first large gathering there in the prime minister’s memory since 2019, after five years in which the public was first swept off the streets by the COVID pandemic, and then repeatedly called out en masse to protest the government’s judicial agenda and advocate for the return of hostages from Gaza.

“The biggest surprise for me was the number of young people, people who weren’t even born in 1995 when Rabin was murdered,” he told the Times of Israel in an interview.

The scene on Saturday night, he said, reminded him of the transformation of the square following the November 4, 1995, murder of Rabin by right-wing extremist Yigal Amir at the conclusion of a peace rally, when young people spontaneously congregated in the cobblestone plaza to hold vigils, light candles and cry.

“Here we are, 30 years later, and again young people flock to the square,” he said. “For 25 years, the rallies were mostly attended by older people. But on Saturday night, the square was full of young faces, with shining eyes, listening to the speeches and the songs, and realizing that once there was hope here and that we need to find our way back to it.”

Sheves’s long working relationship with Rabin, which he described as “true intimacy,” began in 1984, when he was the then-defense minister’s adviser on settlements.

Sheves gradually entered Rabin’s inner circle and, in 1992, engineered his return to the premiership for the Labor Party. Throughout the years, Sheves was by Rabin’s side, often around the clock.

They knew each other’s families well and after the murder Sheves remained close with Rabin’s family.

In the years since Rabin’s assassination, he has worked in the private sector and as a political consultant. In 2020, he published the book........

© The Times of Israel