Lea Rabin, widow of slain Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, will speak at UNLV on May 22 as part of the Barbara Greenspun Lecture Series.

Her talk, "Our Life, His Legacy," is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in Artemus W. Ham Concert Hall.

The event is free, but tickets are required. Tickets should be picked up in advance at the box office at the Performing Arts Center at Ham Concert Hall. Tickets will be available beginning May 3. To check on ticket availability, call (702) 895-3801.

Following her husband's assassination in November 1995, Lea Rabin was thrust into the forefront of the contentious and often controversial search for peace in the Middle East. In the days following his death, she took a strong position of leadership, urging Israel - and the world - not to give up on the peace process in which Yitzhak Rabin believed strongly.

Author of Rabin: Our Life, His Legacy, Lea Rabin stood by her husband's side at the center of the major events in their country's history throughout their 47-year marriage. During her husband's 27 years in the military and then in government service - which included serving as Israel's ambassador to the United States, as the Israeli defense force chief of staff during 1967's Six Day War, and later as minister of defense - Lea Rabin worked in charity, raising money for cultural and charitable institutions, and working with autistic children. Since 1974 she has been president of the Association for Autistic Children in Israel.

She was born Lea Schlossberg in Konigsberg, Germany, in 1928. She immigrated to Palestine with her family in 1933 shortly after Adolf Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany.

As a teenager she became a member of Palmach, an underground Jewish fighting force engaged in the struggle for independence. Yitzhak Rabin was a young commander in the organization. They married shortly after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and went on to have two children.

The Rabins moved to America in 1968 when Yitzhak Rabin was appointed ambassador to the United States. They returned to Israel in 1973 when he accepted a post in then-Prime Minister Golda Meir's cabinet. In 1974 he was elected leader of the Labor Party, which went on to win the national elections, installing him as prime minister. Rabin left office in 1977, served in the Knesset and became minister of defense in the National Unity government in 1984, and subsequently was voted into a second term as prime minister in 1992.

The Barbara Greenspun Lecture Series is sponsored by UNLV's Hank Greenspun School of Communication in honor of Las Vegas Sun publisher Barbara Greenspun. The school is named in honor of her late husband, Sun founder Hank Greenspun.

Past lecturers in the series have been First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, veteran journalist Linda Ellerbee, former White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers, Associated Press correspondent Linda Deutsch, and National Public Radio correspondent Susan Stamberg.

For additional information, call (702) 895-3801.