(RNS) — It has been 30 years on Tuesday (Nov. 4) since the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and the echo of the gunshots still reverberates through Israel’s public square and the Jewish soul.

On that night in Tel Aviv, bullets did not only pierce his body — they shattered Israel’s sense of itself. They tore through the fragile fabric of a nation trying to hold together its identity as both Jewish and democratic, both secure and compassionate.

In the days after Rabin’s murder, someone scrawled graffiti at what would come to be called Rabin Square. The words, translated into English, read, “Murdered by a man who wore a kippah.”

Like many Jewish texts, it is possible to read it in several different ways.

The first possibility is that it was a taunt — “See what those observant Jews will do!” Or maybe it was a lament — “Oh, see what observant Jews can do. How have we fallen so far?”

I opt for the second — a cry of grief, mixed with disbelief that such hatred could emerge from within the folds of our own tradition, that it would come from a hand attached to a head that wore a symbol of reverence, humility and identity.

That moment still haunts me because it tells us that Rabin wasn’t just murdered by Yigal Amir, the right-wing extremist who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison plus 14 years. Rabin was killed by a conspiracy of ideas — that faith tolerates no doubts or nuances and gives license to hatred; that God demands vengeance; that righteousness belongs to those who scream the loudest and compromise the least.

Those ideas did not die with Amir. They have grown, mutated and metastasized. They wear suits and sit in the Israeli Cabinet.

Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, national security minister, are the heirs of the worldview that killed Rabin — the belief that Israel has no space for those who would compromise. Their far-right ideology is the grotesque byproduct of the same theology that led Amir to believe that shooting the prime minister was a mitzvah. They turn faith into a blunt instrument, and nationalism into idolatry.

What we see now is the normalization of what once lived on the margins — the sanctification of rage and worship of raw power.

Rabin represented the opposite of that sickness. He was a soldier who became a peacemaker because he had seen the price of war. Recall the image of him on the White House lawn in 1993. When Yasser Arafat, then-Palestine Liberation Organization chairman, extended his hand, Rabin hesitated. He knew that the hand reaching toward him was stained with the blood of Jews, yet he reciprocated. He knew that peace cannot exist without risk, and that leadership sometimes means crossing a line that was once forbidden.

That trembling handshake was the declaration that Israel could defend itself without losing its soul. And for that, a Jew who believed that God preferred bullets to bridges murdered him.

At Rabin’s funeral, President Bill Clinton said “shalom, haver,” meaning “farewell, friend.” But shalom was the essence of Rabin’s cause, as it also translates to “peace.” It became his life’s mission and, ultimately, the reason for his death.

We can only wonder what Rabin would think of the current Israel-Hamas “peace plan.” He likely would have applauded the impulse — the risk — to move the conversation forward, looking toward a horizon where Israelis and Palestinians might finally live without fear. 

But he also understood that true peace is not only about borders on a map of land and people, but about the borders between human hearts and spirits. I believe he would have wanted a peace that was not about managing conflict but transforming a relationship — Israelis and Palestinians both learning to see the other as human.

At a memorial concert for Rabin, Israeli musician Shlomo Artzi sang “Ha-Ish Ha-Hu” (“That Man”). The chorus is poignant: “Where else are there people like that man?”

Thirty years later, we still ask that question. Since the day he died, Israel has not raised up a prime minister quite like him. But the same poisonous mixture of religion, nationalism and fear that inspired his killing now animates government policy. The messianic right-wing movement has made racism a virtue and hatred a badge of honor. They seem to dream of the Israel of Amir’s fevered imagination.

For the sake of Rabin’s memory, Israel, the Jewish people and the world, that cannot happen. His murder still matters because democracy depends on courage, and peace is the ultimate expression of strength. However, religion that worships land can easily become idolatry.

The meaning of Rabin’s death reaches beyond the borders of the Jewish state. It asks every society: What happens when our sacred symbols become excuses for cruelty? What happens when faith becomes fanaticism, when patriotism becomes purity, when the righteous forget how to doubt themselves?

Rabin’s hesitation before that handshake is the model of moral seriousness the world so desperately lacks. He did not romanticize peace; he understood it would come with the same kind of hesitations that momentarily paralyzed his hand. His courage lay in knowing the danger and pressing forward anyway.

The graffiti at Rabin Square — “Murdered by a man who wore a kippah” — remains both accusation and elegy. It reminds us what happens when those who worship power hijack religious language, and wear the garb that accompanies it.

And it invites us, still, to reclaim the vision that hatred stole that night.

Clinton’s “shalom, haver” was not only a goodbye. It was a charge to all of us to continue the work for which Rabin lived and died — the sacred, stubborn work of peace. If a man can be murdered for shaking a hand, then we must shake hands all the more. Peace is the dream that got him killed, but hope for it must persist.