Rabin's Granddaughter Talks of Peace

Following is the text of an interview with The Crimson by the Noa Ben-Artzi Pelossof after last night's book signing:

THC: I know a 91-year-old woman who left Germany in 1933 with her husband and son, moved to Israel, raised her children there and watched and in effect, helped it grow. Now she is worried that through the peace process, through compromises, Israel and Israelis will lose ground. What would you say to her?

Pelossof: [There are] differences in points of view. As I see it, you can't have peace unless you make some compromise. It's a question of if you are willing to compromise and negotiate...or continue to sacrifice the lives of all the people in Israel...I'm not talking about giving away all the land, but there should be some compromise.

THC: You spent a lot of time with your grandparents until you were six. How did that impact you?

Pelossof: This way my reality--that my family was very close...Now I sleep with my grandmother five nights a week...The character of [my grandfather] influenced me...the person, not the political figure...I can't say how I would be different [if I had not spent so much time with him], but I know I would be different.

THC: What kind of a world do you hope your children live in?

Pelossof: I still have hopes [for] my own life, [for] my own world...peace.

THC: How do you feel about your recent fame and how do you hope to use it?

Pelossof: It's very temporal. [I] earned it...in a very traumatic situation...I would never have written a book unless I were [Rabin's] granddaughter...I'm a regular teenager, a typical Israeli...I wrote the book for my grandfather. I sacrificed my privacy in order to promote his ideas, to keep them alive because he's dead.

THC: You mention in your book that you "turned to God" after you learned of your grandfather's assination. Do you pray often? What about the typical Israeli teenager?

Pelossof: No. You don't have to be religious in order to have a religion...[Typical Israeli teenagers] are more Western than it seems like.

THC: Who is your hero?

Pelossof: My grandfather is my hero

THC: What kind of a world do you hope your children live in?

Pelossof: I still have hopes [for] my own life, [for] my own world...peace.

THC: How do you feel about your recent fame and how do you hope to use it?

Pelossof: It's very temporal. [I] earned it...in a very traumatic situation...I would never have written a book unless I were [Rabin's] granddaughter...I'm a regular teenager, a typical Israeli...I wrote the book for my grandfather. I sacrificed my privacy in order to promote his ideas, to keep them alive because he's dead.

THC: You mention in your book that you "turned to God" after you learned of your grandfather's assination. Do you pray often? What about the typical Israeli teenager?

Pelossof: No. You don't have to be religious in order to have a religion...[Typical Israeli teenagers] are more Western than it seems like.

THC: Who is your hero?

Pelossof: My grandfather is my hero