uri avnery on the death of his wife rachel

8/6/2019 Uri Avnery on the death of his wife Rachel

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ACHEL - Gush Shalom - Israeli Peace Bloc

Uri Avnery's Column RACHEL

Bibi and the Yo

Rubber Man

Rejoice Not

One Word

Tahrir Square,

Aviv

The Settler StaThe Gold and t

Stone

Napoleons Dic

A Dirty Word

The Dwarfs

Wrong Side

A Crazy Proph

The Genie is o

the Bottle

Tsunami in Eg

A Villa in the

Jungle?

The Aljazeera

Scandal

The World is n

Golem

The Crown and

Coals

Hi, Joe!

M

RACHEL

04/06/11

I HAD the unqualified blessing of living withRachel Avnery for 58 years. Last Saturday I tookleave of her body. She was as beautiful in deathas she was in life. I could not take my eyes offher face.

I am writing this to help myself accept theunacceptable. I beg your indulgence.

IF A HUMAN BEING can be summed up in one word, hers was:empathy.

She had an uncanny ability to sense the emotions of others. A

blessing and a curse. If someone was unhappy, so was she. Noone could hide their innermost feelings from her.

Her empathy touched everyone she met. Even in her last months,her nurses were soon telling her their life stories.

Once we went to see a film set in a small Slovak town during theHolocaust. A solitary old woman did not understand what washappening when the Jews were summoned for deportation to thedeath camps; neighbors had to help her to the assembly point.

We arrived late and found seats in the dark. When the lights came

on at the end, Menachem Begin got up in front of us. His eyes, redfrom weeping, locked with Rachel's. Oblivious to everybodyaround, Begin walked straight up to her, took her head in his handsand kissed her on the brow.

IN MANY respects we complemented each other. I tend to abstractthought, she to emotional intelligence. Her wisdom came from life.I am withdrawn, she reached out to people, though she valued herprivacy. I am an optimist, she was a pessimist. In every situation, Isense the opportunities, she saw the dangers. I rise in the morninghappy, ready for another days adventures, she got up late,

knowing the day would be bad.

Our backgrounds were very similar - born in Germany to Jewishbourgeois intellectual families, who believed in justice, freedomand equality, coupled with a profound sense of duty. Rachel had allthese in abundance, and more. She had an almost fanatical senseof justice.

The first words Rachel ever spoke, when her family had fled theGestapo to Capri, were mare schn, Italian for sea, German forbeautiful.

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She never read nor wrote German, but learned the languageperfectly from speaking with her parents - she even corrected myGerman grammar.

Rachel, alas, lacked Prussian punctuality. It was a constant sourceof friction between us. I feel physically ill if I am not on time, Rachelwas always, but always, late.

THREE TIMES I met her for the first time.

In 1945, I founded a group to propagate the idea of a new Hebrewnation, integral to the Semitic region like the Arabs. Too poor torent an office, we met at members' homes.

At one such meeting, a 14-year-old girl, the daughter of thelandlord, came in to listen. I noticed fleetingly that she wasbeautiful.

Five years later I met her again when I was running a popularmagazine aimed at revolutionizing everything, includingadvertising: girls instead of the usual dull text.

We needed a pretty girl for an ad, but there were no professionalmodels in the new state. One of our editors ran a theater group. Heintroduced me to a member called Rachel.

We took some pictures by the sea, and I took her home on mymotorcycle. We fell off in the sand and just laughed.

The third time was at the same experimental theater. There sheappeared again, and at some point she tried to guess my age,pledging a kiss for every year she was wrong. She guessed I wasfive years younger than I was, and we made a date for settling the

account.

We continued to date on and off. Once I was to meet her atmidnight in a cafe. When I did not arrive, she went to look for me.She found a crowd outside my office, and was told I was inhospital. Some soldiers had attacked me and broken all my fingers.

I was helpless. Rachel offered to help me out for a few days. Theylasted 58 years.

We found that living together suited us. Since we despisedreligious weddings (there being no civil marriage), we lived happily

in sin for five years. Then her father fell seriously ill. To set hismind at rest, we married in a hurry, in the private apartment of arabbi. We borrowed the witnesses and the congregation fromanother wedding, and the ring from the rabbis wife.

That was the last time either of us wore a ring.

FOR 58 YEARS, she inspected every word I published. That wasnot easy. Rachel had strict principles, and stuck to them. Shecovered some of my pages in red ink. Sometimes we had bitterarguments, but in the end, one of us usually conceded generally



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me. On the rare occasions we could not agree, I wrote what I feltlike (and more than once regretted it).

She struck out all personal attacks she considered unjust.Exaggerations. Every weakness of logic - she would spotcontradictions that had escaped me. She improved my Hebrew.But mostly she added the magic word almost.

I tend to generalize. All Israelis know, Politicians are cynical

she would change that to Almost all Israelis , Mostpoliticians We joked that she was sprinkling almosts on myarticles as a cook sprinkles salt on food.

She never wrote an article herself. Nor gave interviews. To suchrequests she would respond: What did I marry a spokesman for?

BUT HER real talents lay elsewhere. She was the ultimate teacher,a calling she pursued for 28 long years.

This happened quite unplanned, after she was sent on an armycourse for teachers.

Before the course finished, she was practically kidnapped by anelementary school principal. Long before she received herteachers certificate, she was a legend. Parents with connectionspulled strings to get their children into her class. There was a jokethat mothers planned their pregnancies so that the child would be6 years old when Rachel taught the first grade. (She agreed toteach only the first and second grade, as the last chance ofshaping a childs character.)

Her pupils included the children of illustrious artists and men ofletters. Recently, a middle aged man called to us in the streetTeacher Rachel, I was your pupil in first grade! I owe youeverything!

How did she do it? By treating children as human beings andnurturing their self-respect. If a boy couldnt read, she put him incharge of tidiness in the classroom. If a girl was rejected by prettierclassmates, she would be the good fairy in a play. She drewsatisfaction from seeing them open up like flowers in the sun. Shespent hours explaining to backward parents their children's needs.

During the school holidays, her children were raring to get back to

class.

SHE HAD a purpose: to instill human values.

There was the story about Abraham and the burial site for Sarah.Ephron the Hittite refuses money. Abraham insists on paying. Aftera long and beautiful exchange, Ephron winds it up: The land isworth four hundred shekels of silver. What is that betwixt me andthee? (Genesis 23). Rachel told the children that this is still theBedouin way of doing business, leading up to the deal in a civilizedmanner.



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After the lesson, Rachel asked the teacher of the parallel classhow she explained this episode to her pupils. I told them that thisis typical Arab hypocrisy! They are all born liars! If he wantedmoney, why didnt he say so directly?

I like to think that all of Rachels children or almost all of them have turned out as better human beings.

I followed her experiments in education closely, and she my

journalistic and political exploits. Basically we were attempting thesame: she to educate individuals, I the public at large.

AFTER 28 YEARS, Rachel felt that she had lost her edge. She didnot believe a teacher should continue after their eagerness hasbeen blunted.

The final push came when I crossed the lines in Beirut in 1982 andmet Yasser Arafat. It was a world sensation. With me were twoyoung women on my editorial staff: a correspondent and aphotographer. Rachel felt left out of one of the most exciting eventsin my life, and decided to change direction.

Without telling me, she took a course in photography. Weeks later,pictures of an event were laid before me. I chose the best which

just happened to be hers. The secret was out. She became anenthusiastic photographer, with a remarkable creative talent always focused on people.

IN EARLY 1993, when Yitzhak Rabin deported 215 Islamicactivists across the Lebanese border, protest tents were erectedopposite his office. We camped out for 45 wintry days and nights.Rachel, the only woman who was there the whole time, struck up a

beautiful friendship with the most extreme Islamic sheikh, RaedSalah. He really respected her. They joked together.

In these tents, we founded Gush Shalom. For her, the injusticedone to the Palestinians was intolerable.

She was the photographer at all our events. She took pictures ofhundreds of demonstrations, rushing around, taking shots in frontand behind, sometimes in clouds of tear gas despite her doctor'swarnings. Twice she collapsed in the burning sun, crossing harshterrain to protest against the Wall.

When the Gush needed a financial manager, she volunteered.Although it was completely against her nature, she became ameticulous administrator, with a Prussian sense of duty, workingon the kitchen table late into the night. She much preferred herunofficial function maintaining human contact with activists,listening to their problems. She was the soul of the movement.

SHE COULD be very abrasive, too. Far from being a starry-eyeddo-gooder, she detested liars, hypocrites and people who didwrong.



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She never liked Ariel Sharon, even during the years when wevisited each other's homes to talk about the 1973 War.

Lili Sharon loved her, Arik liked her too. There is a photo of himspoon-feeding her with his favorite dish (food was unimportant forher). Rachel did not let me show anyone the picture. After the 1982Lebanon invasion, we broke contact.

Once, Sharons confidant, Dov Weisglas, whom she could not

forgive his nasty remarks about the Palestinians, spotted me in arestaurant, came over and shook my hand. But Rachel left hishand dangling in the air. Embarrassing.

When she liked people, she showed it. She liked Yasser Arafat,and he liked her. We went to see him many times in Tunis andlater in Palestine, and he treated her with utmost courtesy, allowingher to take pictures of him at any time, showering her withpresents. Once he gave her a necklace and insisted on putting iton her himself. With his poor eyesight, he fumbled for a long time.It was a wonderful sight, but his official photographer did not react.

Rachel was furious.When we served as a human shield for the besieged PalestinianPresident, Arafat kissed her on the brow and led her by the hand tothe entrance.

FEW PEOPLE knew that she carried an incurable disease Hepatitis C. It lay like a sleeping leopard at her doorstep. Sheknew that it could wake up any minute and devour her.

The unexplained infection was discovered more than 20 years ago.Every doctor's appointment could have meant a death sentence.

She collapsed five months ago. There were many signs of thisapproaching, which I ignored but she clearly saw.

During these five months, I spent every minute with her. Every newday was like a precious gift for me, though she was inexorablysinking. We both knew, but pretended that everything was going tobe alright.

She had no pains, but increasing difficulty eating, remembering,and, towards the end, speaking. It was heart-rending to see herstruggling for words. For two days she was in a coma, and thenshe slipped away unconsciously and painlessly.

She had insisted that nothing be done to prolong her life artificially.It was a terrible moment when I asked the doctors to stop theirefforts and let her die.

In accordance with her wishes, her body was cremated, againstJewish tradition. Her ashes were scattered on the Tel Avivseashore, opposite the window where she had spent so much timegazing out. So the words of William Wordsworth, which she lovedand often repeated, do not strictly apply:



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But she is in her grave, and oh, The difference to me.

ONCE, in a moment of weakness exploited by a film-maker, shecomplained that I had never said I love you. True enough: I findthese three words incurably banal, devalued by Hollywood kitsch.They certainly are not adequate for my feelings towards her shehad become a part of me.

When she was fading, I whispered I love you. I dont know if she

heard.After she died, I sat for an hour with my eyes fixed on her face.She was beautiful.

A GERMAN friend sent me a saying which I find strangelycomforting. It translates as:

Dont be sad that she left you, Be glad that she was with you forso many years.

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uri avnery on the death of his wife rachel

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