Rabin's assassin celebrates son's birth

RIMONIM PRISON, Israel — Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin celebrated the birth of his son with a circumcision ceremony inside his heavily guarded prison on Sunday, the 12th anniversary of the former leader’s death.

Yigal Amir, an Orthodox Jew, shot Rabin dead after a peace rally on Nov. 4, 1995, because he opposed the prime minister’s policy of ceding land for peace with the Palestinians.

Amir was sentenced to life in prison and has been held in isolation since. But over the past year, he has been permitted conjugal visits with his wife, Larissa Trimbobler, whom he married while in prison. The boy was born last week, and according to Jewish tradition, a healthy Jewish male is circumcised eight days after his birth. The ceremony, a ritual in which boys are named, capped a saga that has caused turmoil in Israel since the baby’s birth. Rabin’s family, and much of the public, opposed a court decision allowing Amir to attend the circumcision of his son, while a vocal group of Israeli ultranationalists voiced solidarity with the prisoner.

An Israeli court rejected a request by Amir to leave jail to attend the circumcision, but said the ceremony could take place inside his prison.

Outside Rimonim Prison, rival protesters screamed insults at each other. Several dozen dovish demonstrators, some holding posters of Rabin, gathered before the ceremony.

"He killed a prime minister — he is not like any other murderer,” said Matan Josefor-Berg, 25. "He tried to destroy our democracy by assassinating Rabin.”

About a dozen hawkish protesters supporting Amir exchanged insults with his opponents. While tempers flared, there was no violence.

"Yigal Amir is becoming a new Nelson Mandela,” said Avigdor Kishkin, 47. "We are so happy that Amir has a son and his son is becoming a full-fledged Jew today.”

When Amir’s wife and baby arrived in a gray van, protesters shouted. The baby’s face was concealed behind a white blanket as a crowd of photographers swarmed around, pushing each other to snap a picture of the child.

Israeli media said the boy was named Yinon Elia Shalom Amir. The names "Yinon” and "Elia” are references to the Messiah, while "Shalom,” the Hebrew word for peace, was the name of Amir’s grandfather, according to media.

The birth comes at a time of growing sympathy for Amir. Israeli extremists and Amir’s family have launched a campaign to have him released from prison, and a recent newspaper poll indicated that about a quarter of Israelis, including almost half of religiously observant Jews, think Amir should be pardoned in 2015 after serving 20 years.

The circumcision — a major ceremony in a Jewish boy’s life — came a day after more than 100,000 Israelis gathered to remember Rabin and condemn his killer at the square where Amir assassinated him.

Participants said they came to honor Rabin as well as protest the legitimacy recently granted to his killer.

"This is a memorial rally that is also a protest rally,” Rabin’s daughter, Dalia Rabin-Pelossof, said before the gathering.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged to keep the killer in prison.

"The entire people of Israel have to unite around the memory and declare — never again. That is the clear red line that no camp, hawk or dove, secular or religious, Jews and non-Jews, can ever cross,” he told his Cabinet.