THE WIDOW : FAREWELL TO A PEACEMAKER : Leah Rabin ‘Larger Than Life’

As a younger woman and diplomat’s wife, Leah Rabin admired Jacqueline Kennedy and tried to emulate her elegant style.

She adopted the haircut and well-tailored suits. She had Kennedy’s knack for hospitality. But never did she imagine she would find herself in Kennedy’s shoes as the widow of a visionary head of state.

At her husband’s funeral Monday, Rabin greeted an unprecedented collection of world leaders who came to Israel to pay their last respects to slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. She seemed to have a warm word or a hug for nearly all of them.

“My mother is larger than life,” said Rabin’s daughter, Dalia Philosof. “I always admired her for her power, her strength.”

Crowds gathering outside the Rabin home on Sunday and Monday with lighted candles yelled words of encouragement to the widow, who came out to greet them both nights.

“We love you, Leah,” they shouted.

She thanked them for their massive show of support, but in her typical style also chastised them for not having come earlier when her husband was under attack by rightist extremists who stood outside their house calling the prime minister “traitor” and “murderer.”

“Your being here will bring a change, and we won’t hear anymore those horrible things that we heard here,” Rabin said. “Change is something you make happen with your love, with your stream of numbers, with these wonderful candles. . . . This touches us no end.”

The woman who collected herself in a moment of personal tragedy and national crisis spent 47 years as a housewife at Yitzhak Rabin’s side. He had grown up with activist parents who often left their children alone, and he wanted a warmer home.

The two were married during a cease-fire in the 1948 War of Independence. The rabbi sang too loudly for the shy Yitzhak Rabin who, embarrassed, told his new wife, “This is the last time I’m getting married.”

Leah Rabin, who had been a member of the Palmach underground that fought British rule in Palestine, abandoned her work as a teacher soon after their marriage. The prime minister once said proudly in an interview, “My children have a mother at home.”

Over the years, Leah Rabin has done much public charity work with autistic children and other causes and tried to engage her husband in her activities. She has been more public than the wives of other Israeli prime ministers, but not always popular.

In 1977, the Israeli press learned that Leah Rabin had a U.S. bank account left over from her husband’s days as ambassador to Washington. It was then illegal for Israelis to have foreign accounts, and the fund she used for shopping created a public scandal.

Yitzhak Rabin stood by her side, but when it was discovered that he also had a U.S. account where he deposited speaking honorariums, he was forced to resign from his first term as prime minister.

The marriage survived that crisis and others. Anybody who visited the Rabin home for Friday-night dinners understood the source of the prime minister’s strength and support. Friends said his home was a fortress and an oasis.

Researcher Pnina Ramati of The Times’ Jerusalem Bureau contributed to this report.