June 13 • 2019 51
jn

Nechama Rivlin Dead At 73

JTA- MARCY OSTER
N

echama Rivlin, 73, the wife 
of Israeli President Reuven 
Rivlin, died on June 4, 2019, 
in Petah Tikvah, Israel.
Rivlin, who had in recent years 
rarely been seen in public without 
being attached to a portable oxygen 
tank, suffered from pulmonary fibro-
sis. The condition causes scar tissue 
to fill the lungs and makes it difficult 
to breathe. Her transplant surgery was 
described as “complicated” by doctors 
and she required a second surgery.
In a statement, the Rivlin family 
thanked “citizens of Israel … who 
have continued to ask after Nechama’
s 
health, to send letters and wonderful 
children’
s drawings to the hospital 
and to Beit HaNasi (the president’
s 
residence), and to pray for her every 
day, every hour. Their love and 
concern gave the president and all 
members of the family strength and 

support that cannot be described in 
words.”
The Rivlins also thanked the 
Halabli family who donated their late 
son Yair’
s lung for the transplant.
Rivlin was born in Moshav Herut 
in the Sharon region to parents who 
immigrated from the Ukraine and 

were founders of the moshav. She 
earned a bachelor’
s degree from 
Hebrew University in botany and 
zoology and also studied the history 
of art.
She set up a community garden 
in the garden of the president’
s resi-
dence, where children from all over 

the country came to tend plants, 
spices and flowers.
She was buried at the national cem-
etery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
Reuven Rivlin, 79, was elected 
president of Israel in 2014 after a long 
career as a Likud Party politician 
who twice served as Speaker of the 
Knesset. ■

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Nechama Rivlin

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