At the main gathering in 2006 to mark the 11th anniversary of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, author David Grossman delivered an impassioned speech. “Our leadership is hollow,” he declared, shaking up an entire nation. He gave that speech just a few months after the Second Lebanon War, in which he lost his son Uri. In the years that have passed, however, the voices of Israel’s intellectuals have gone silent. It's hard to remember any statement evoking such a spirited discussion as what Grossman then expressed. His “hollow speech” is considered by many, a posteriori, to have been the swan song of an effective Israeli intellectualism that has publicly expressed itself little of late.
“We grew up on professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who foresaw what is about to happen here as far back as 47 years ago. There is no one in Israel of his stature today with the spiritual and moral authority to say a firm 'no,' and have the public swept up behind him,” actor Menashe Noy told Al-Monitor.
