Attended by public figures and Minister of Settlement Tzahi Hanegbi, with remarks by the president of the state, the ceremony was held at Oz veGaon to lay the cornerstone for the building to commemorate winner of Israel Prize Geula Cohen, obm.
With the blessings of several public figures, led by President Reuven Rivlin, and in the presence of Minister of Settlement Tzahi Hanegbi, the cornerstone for the memorial and commemorative project, Geula’s Cabin, was laid yesterday (Thursday, Dec. 24th) in memory of Israel Prize Winner Geula Cohen, obm, one of the most ideological leaders of the right camp in Israel.
The Geula’s Cabin initiative will include a visitors’ center, dedicated to the memory of Geula Cohen, which will have an exhibition of displays telling the story of Geula Cohen’s life, from her days in the Lehi underground to when she became a politician, a woman of spirit and culture and a leader of the Israeli public.
There will be a library with her books and literature about her life, a hall for screening documentary films related to Geula Cohen’s life story and a special room replicating the broadcast room from which Geula Cohen transmitted broadcasts from the Lehi underground.
In his pre-recorded remarks, President Reuven Rivlin mentioned the words of Natan Yellin Moore, when he chose Geula to be the announcer for the underground radio station, stating that her voice raises a spirit that has the power to prepare a fighter for any action.
“Geula dreamed of a Jewish state, of aliyah and of artists who would turn the dream into a song of redemption”, said Rivlin, adding that he still remembers her voice on the radio and that this voice continued to accompany the People in her articles and her books “which instilled within us optimism and wonder at the presence of this special woman who was never tired”.
The president mentioned Geula Cohen’s political activism, as initiator of the Jerusalem Law, and promoter of the Golan Law and as someone who established the Knesset’s Absorption Committee and worked to bring our people to the Land from all parts of the globe.
Rivlin mentioned the words of Geula Cohen herself, when she said that she still feels like she wears a khaki garment under her clothes, “and even after her term in Knesset she continued to serve the People in the fields of culture and poetry. Geula won appreciation in her life and now the time has come to commemorate her”.
Retiring minister Ze’ev Elkin, who also sent his remarks, stated that “There is no more symbolic place than the Oz veGaon preserve” to commemorate Geula Cohen, who “would have participated in the events of Oz veGaon today”, expressing the hope and faith “that visitors to the preserve will visit the cabin and learn about her life as someone who taught us what it is to love the Land of Israel”.
Geula Cohen’s son, Minister of Settlement Tzahi Hanegbi, also stated that “There is nothing more natural than building Geula’s Cabin in the community of Gush Etzion. All of the enthusiasm, the longing and dedication, all of the struggles that she led were located here, in the beating heart of the Jewish People, the Land of our forefathers and mothers, the cradle of the civilization, history and the roots of our People”.
Minister Hanegbi also added that “There is nothing more natural than the fact that the ones who led the initiative to commemorate my mother are the two women that she so loved, Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar. I did not always understand how a woman that is admired by the whole world would find in herself the strength to admire other women, and she did admire Yehudit and Nadia beyond love. She saw them as a symbol of continuing in her path and even more than that, because they realized what she, for various reasons did not do, to settle and build, not only with speeches in the Knesset and with articles, but also in everyday life, on the ground”.
Hanegbi also reminded us of his mother’s contribution in establishing the Sovereignty Movement: “If there was anything that was important to my mother, it was that we would also achieve sovereignty. She was, actually, one of the founders of the Sovereignty Movement, while others viewed the territory as a bargaining chip on the road to the longed-for peace. She knew that we returned here because this is where the soul of the Jewish People is”.
Relating to the Oz veGaon preserve, where Geula’s Cabin will be located, Hanegbi said: “There is nothing more natural than that this building should be right here at the Oz veGaon preserve. Eyal, Gil-Ad and Naftali were killed on behalf of the Land of Israel at a young age. My mother also could have paid a similar price at a young age. At 16, she left everything and went to the underground, to the threat of the gallows where her friends had gone, singing, and to British bullets, which wounded her as well. Her commemoration connects very well to the commemoration of the youths”.
Yair Stern, Director of the Lehi Heritage Association, son of Lehi head Yair Stern, also spoke words of blessing. “Geula was a turbo engine that works on the highest speed”, he said, mentioning the words of Geula Cohen herself, that since she went to the underground at age 16, she never went back home.
“Geula was a fighter in every organ of her body, in her speeches, in her writings, in street demonstrations and in the Knesset, she fulfilled Yair’s command: ‘We are all mobilized for our entire lives and only death will free us’. She fled twice from the British prison and was always fighting for the People of Israel and its revitalization. I salute her”.
The head of the hosting Council of Gush Etzion, Shlomo Ne’eman, told of the personal connection with the image of Geula Cohen from the first days of his aliyah to Israel from the former Soviet Union. “I am one of the results of her activities”, said Ne’eman with a smile, referring to her public, constant activism to bring Jews from the former Soviet Union to Israel.
In this context, he spoke of the reception for Dov Begun. “Geula, as a member of Knesset, was among the reception committee at the airport. He came to her and she said that she also was in the underground and sat in prison for nine months. He told her disdainfully, that although she was in prison for nine months, he sat in prison for ten years and in exile and concentration camps. Geula answered him ‘When you sat in prison you didn’t think of me; when I sat in prison, I did think of you’.
Turning to the organizers of the event, Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar, Ne’eman said: “Nadia and Yehudit, with what you are doing, you are thinking of us and of the future of the People and the Land. This mindfulness, that we have not yet completed the redemption of the place and Geula’s tent, becomes the tent of sovereignty”.
The head of Kiryat Arba-Hevron Council, Eliahu Libman, chose not to be politically correct, as he defined it, as he drew a connection between Geula Cohen’s image and activities and the events of recent days: “Geula left us a legacy. It’s nice to be pleasant and she indeed was pleasant and smiling, as I knew her from childhood in Kiryat Arba-Hevron, but she and her friends were called ‘the Stern Gang’. She went against the current. She went with a different spirit with great heroism and without her personal ego. She didn’t write “talkbacks” and didn’t engage in “shaming”, but acted with pride and courage against all odds and thanks to her, this spirit lives, the spirit of the Hilltop Youth, the Land of Israel youth, who are ready to lay down their lives and not stay in their homes with smartphones; they conquer one more hill, and another hill, and do not take it in stride when Jews are murdered, or when confronted with an abnormal reality. They demand to live as a free people in its Land and destroy the enemy”.
“The well-known sentence says that ‘it is good to die for our Land’, but Geula taught us that it is good for our enemies to be killed for our Land and that we must live with Jewish pride. Geula connected us with Uri Tzvi Greenberg, who wrote that there is one truth and that a land that is conquered with blood, and only a land that is conquered with blood, belongs to us”.
Later during the event, two panels were held, moderated by journalist Moriah Kor. In the first panel, researchers Dr. Yitzhak Pass and Yoav Fulber told of Geula Cohen’s life as it arises from the research that they have been conducting recently. Dr. Pass noted the launching of her book as a landmark that led the Mapai leaders to change their approach to the people of the undergrounds; to understand that they have leadership and that there is, behind them, a story that must be learned.
Fulber presented her image as a leader who, even if she took issue with the feminist movements, she saw the character of a woman as having the power to take decisions without hesitation.
In the second panel, Herzl Makov – director of the Begin Heritage Center, Gen. (res.) Yossi ben Hanan and intellectual Yehuda Etzion spoke of Geula Cohen’s character from their personal knowledge of her.
Etzion spoke of the years of renewed settlement in Judea and Samaria and of Geula Cohen being ”a sort of supporter and helper, not a member of a nucleus, but a member of all the nuclei, always at every meeting and in the field”.
With sharp words, Etzion claimed that Geula Cohen held a constant ideological line that advocated aliyah and settlement even during the Mandate years, and when she saw weakness in the sovereign government of Israel in these two parameters, she confronted the Israeli leadership, “just as we battled before the state was established, we must battle so that the state will fulfill its role”, said Etzion, and his words upset Herzl Makov, who claimed that indeed, “there is no doubt that Geula had a constant line from the forties until the latest century, but it was totally different from the battle between a foreign government and the battle with an Israeli government.
The comparison between them is an offense to what Geula believed in”, he stated, and Etzion responded, noting that indeed, “there is a significant difference between a war with weapons against the British and a war of internal criticism”.
During the event, a film was shown with a short interview showing Geula Cohen telling about her initiative to propose the Jerusalem Law in the Knesset plenum, and expressing her sweeping support of the public advocacy and activity of the Sovereignty Movement, under the leadership of Katsover and Matar.
In her closing remarks of the event, Yehudit Katsover told of establishing the Sovereignty Movement and meetings of preparation and brain storming on the direction of the movement in Geula Cohen’s house, loaded with books, pictures and souvenirs, reminders of various points along the way in her life. She also told of how Geula raised their spirit during difficult times.
“She stated that NGOs have a lot of power. We were thought of as totally delusional at the time when we founded the Soveteignty Movement in 2011, and Geula raised our morale when our spirits fell. She had authoritative and regal, sovereign power. She radiated it with every step. Everyone loved her and praised her. Her enthusiasm entered people’s hearts. It was impossible to keep up with her”.
The event, which was moderated by the director of the Besheva Group, Dudu Sa’ada, concluded with a ceremony revealing the foundational principles of Geula’s Cabin, laying the cornerstone and singing Hatikvah and Lehi songs.
“We are in the midst of a severe crisis of leadership, and in such a difficult period, we must shine a spotlight on exemplary figures such as Geula Cohen, obm, who expressed with every public step, the story of the State of Israel and her love and devotion to the Land of Israel”, say Katsover and Matar.
“For us, Geula was exemplary for her faith in the future of the People and the Land, with her love for the Land of Israel, with her dedicated heart and her understanding of the right way to promote historic steps in public and political arenas. Her advice and her vision were for us a beacon of leadership, which is so lacking these days”.
The entire People of Israel owes Geula a tremendous debt of honor, appreciation, esteem and commemoration, but not only for the sake of Geula’s honor; also for the sake of future generations, the next link in the chain of Zionist vision, to become familiar with her work and cling to her spirit and her uncompromising love for the homeland”, say the two women.