22 Friday,' 06iber 30:19131

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Israeli Settlement Pioneer Rivka Guber Is Mourned

COHEN
For

By DVORA WAYSMAN

Oak Park Council

World Zionist Press Service

Paid for by Citizens
for Cohen

JERUSALEM — Her
name was Rivka Guber and

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it was a name known to
most Israelis. It stood for
many things: loss and
tragedy, nobility and

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heroism, generosity and
service. At 79, on the third
anniversary of her hus-
band's death, she threw
herself from the 12th floor
of the Home for the Aged
where she resided in Ramat
Aviv.
The whole nation
mourned her and she was
given a state funeral.
President. Yitzhak Navon
and Chief Rabbi Shlomo
Goren were among the
thousands of mourners.
This remarkable woman
was born in Russia in 1920
on one of the rare Jewish
agricultural settlements
under the Czarist regime.
With her husband, Mor-
decai, she came to Israel in
1925 and was a founder of
Kfar Warburg, a moshav in
the southern coastal plain.
In World War II, she served
with distinction in the
Palestinian unit of the
British Army.

Then came the War of
Liberation, and the Gub-
ers lost both their sons,
Ephraim and Zvi. Rivka
became known as "The
Mother of the Sons." At
her own funeral, Rabbi
Goren compared her to
Hanna, who sacrificed
her seven sons for the
sanctification of God's
name and then took her
own life.

But Rivka did not let her
terrible double loss over-
whelm her at that time. In
1955, when David Ben-

The Minister of Education Aharon Yadlin pre-
sented the Jerusalem Prize to Rivka Guber. In the
background is Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek.

Gurion appealed to veteran
farmers to settle in the new
moshavim and development
towns to help the new im-
migrants, Rivka and her
husband were among the
first to volunteer. They do-
nated their Kfar Warburg
property to the Israel De-
fense Forces Fund and
moved to Nehora, where her
husband became the head of
the newly-established
Lachish Regional Council
until 1967. Then they
moved to Kfar Achim (the
Village of the Sons) named
after Ephraim and Zvi
Guber:
During the time that they
lived in the Lachish area,
Rivka worked tirelessly to
set up cultural and educa-
tional facilities for the new
immigrants. Together with

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her husband she organized
schools, libraries and com-
munal centers.
She worked without rest,
without pay and without
any thought of her own
needs, becoming in turn
school principal, teacher,
librarian and social worker.

Everyone was welcome
in her home — immig-
rants from Kurdistan,
Morocco, Hungary,
Czechoslovakia, Iran and
Yemen; and her
neighbors turned to her
for advice on every sub-
ject under the sun, sure of
a sympathetic ear and a
wise counsel.

In 1961, Rivka Guber,
who had lost her children,
was named "Mother of the
Year." A year later, she won
the Chaim Greenberg prize
for her book "The Signal
Fires of Lachish," which
was translated into several
languages including
English and Japanese. Its
theme was the welding of
different cultural groups
into a community that was
unified and yet at the same
time retained its diverse
ethnic cultures.
Two other books followed:
"Lachish" and "Only a
Path."
Her selfless career re-
sulted in the prestigious
award of the Israel Prize in
1976 for her work with new
immigrants. Symbolically,
in 1979 Prime Minister
Menahem Begin invited her
to accompany his party to
Washington for the signing
of the Israel-Egypt peace
treaty.

Many moving tributes
were paid to her, espe-
cially by President
Navon who said at her
graveside: "Everything
we can say about Rivka
Guber will fail to express
the depth of our feelings
and the extent of our debt
to her.

Self-pity was never a trait
of Rivka Guber and it is
thought that she felt her life
of service was over: she was
too old to give, to which her
life had been devoted, and
unable to bear the thought
that she might become a
burden.
What she was, in fact, was
also expressed poignantly.
by President Navon: "Rivka
Guber was a living example
of Israel's destiny — a de-
stiny of suffering and
heroism. The guiding motif
of her life was to give, to
radiate, never asking a
thing for herself."