GEULAH COHEN
HER LIFE
Geulah Cohen was born in Tel Aviv on the 10th of Tevet (December 27, 1925). Her father, Yosef, had immigrated from Yemen in 1905 and was a founder and leader of the Yemenite Association. Her mother, Miriam, was born in the Old City of Jerusalem.
In 1943, she joined the Lechi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) and as a result, was expelled from the Levinsky Teachers' Seminar due to her membership in the dissident organization. Sought by the British, she left her parents' home and went underground in 1945.
She filled various positions in the resistance movement but was most widely known as the main broadcaster of the Lechi radio. She was captured in February 1946, during a live broadcast and sentenced, after a trial, to nine years imprisonment. She was interned in the Bethlehem Women's Prison. At the trial, she had declared upon pronouncement of sentence that the British rule would not last nine years and her mother stood up to sing the HaTikvah Anthem, thus disrupting the proceedings.
She attempted twice to make daring escapes from her jail. The first failed when, after scaling a barbed-wire fence, she was shot by the British guards and recaptured. The second was successful when she took advantage of a staged fight in the Jerusalem Prison Hospital, entered a lavatory where an Arab costume had been hidden and left the premises in her newly assumed identity.
She returned to the underground resistance struggle, carrying out additional tasks and married Immanuel HaNegbi, one of the senior battle commanders of Lechi.
Upon the establishment of the state of Israel, she was a candidate to the First Knesset on the "Fighters" List which returned but one representative.
She attended Hebrew University in Jerusalem and received an MA degree in Bible, Literature and Philosophy. She continued her ideological activity by establishing a student's group called SELA (Students for a Hebrew revolution), was a member of the editorial board of the political-cultural monthly, Sullam, edited by Dr. Israel Eldad and was a member of the editorial board of "Chronicles - News of the Past".
In 1960, she published her memoirs, "Lady of Valor" (original title: "Woman of Violence"), which has undergone several printings and has been translated in English, Russian, French and Dutch. David Ben-Gurion wrote her, after reading the book, that "I have no doubt that "Woman of Valor" will be a proud souvenir for those brave and courageous fighters who sacrificed all in their belief in the redemption of Israel. It is also a document of the aristocracy of the spirit of the author herself. Sacred is the pen that wrote this book". Portions of the book have been included in the school history curriculum and the subject of history writing projects.
She was appointed a member of the editorial board of the Ma'ariv daily and penned two weekly columns, "The Round Table" and "At Four Eyes With…".
Following the publication on the lack of knowledge amongst the youth on matters of Zionism and Judaism, she was invited to meet the then Education Minister, Zalman Aranne, and succeeded in influencing the reorganization of high school studies.
She has broadcast programs over the Army Radio, had a political column in Yedioth Ahronot and today broadcasts a weekly discussion program over Kol Yisrael and writes for Ma'ariv.
She was very active in the Russian Jewry liberation movement and spoke at a mass assembly in Madison Square Garden and later, in December 1969, crisscrossed the United States with Dov Sperling and Yasha Kazakov. She aided Kazakov's famous hunger strike outside the UN in March 1970. Nathan Sharansky kept a picture of her throughout his years of incarceration.
In 1970, she joined the Likud. In 1972, she founded the Academy of National Studies (Midrahsa Leumit), an independent educational institution. She took part in the Gush Emunim activities to settle the areas of Judea, Samaria and Gaza and, together with Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook and Ariel Sharon, planted the first tree in Samaria.
She served as a member of the Knesset for 19 successive years. She established the first Immigration & Absorption Committee in the Knesset. Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir once said of her: "two things mark Geula's public activity - her fiery enthusiasm and her ability to move things".
She was a founder of the Tehiya Party after leaving the Likud in 1978 in the wake of its decision to adopt the Camp David plan. She was in Yamit until its destruction and took part in other Land of Israel struggles, notably in Hebron and David's City.
Her most memorable Knesset victory was the adoption of the "Basic Law : Jerusalem" in 1980. She worked with MK Moshe Shamir to further legislation regarding the Golan as part of Israel.
Together with Labor MK Edna Solodar, she established the Jonathan Pollard Lobby and they were the first Israelis to visit him in his jail. In 1990, she raised the issue of granting him citizenship which was done only five years later.
She took a central part in the bringing to Israel of the Ethiopian community and in September 1990, which serving as Deputy Science Minister, she traveled to Addis Abba, met with government officials and made a significant contribution to the success of Operation Solomon which took place two months later.
As Deputy Science Minister she was able to extend crucial aid to Soviet Jewish scientists and their absorption as well as to Ethiopian pupils who benefited from extra counseling aid.
In 1994, in the face of increasing security difficulties in Hebron, she moved into a mobile home in Kiryat Arba, spending half the week there.
In 1998, she founded the Uri Tzvi Greenberg Heritage Center which commemorates the legacy of one of Jewry's greatest poets, an effort in which both Left and Right cooperate under her leadership. She has made the Center into an cultural project for students, soldiers, immigrants and others. She has organized poetry reading evenings with public personalities which have proven quite successful, learning seminars, illustration competition and musical concerts.
Her son, Tzachi Hanegbi, is currently Minister of the Environment and former Minister of Justice. She is grandmother to three grandsons.
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