This time, we tell the story of a Chizik. Not Baruch Chizik, who was among the founders of the Kinneret settlement, nor Sarah Chizik, who fell defending Tel-Hai, nor their brother Ephraim Chizik, who was killed defending Hulda, but their sister

Rivka Chizik.

From Childhood in Ukraine to the Return to Kinneret

Rivka Chizik, the fourth of the ten Chizik children, was born in 1894 in the city of Tomashpol, Ukraine. In 1905, her older siblings immigrated to the Land of Israel: Baruch, who was among the founders of the Kinneret settlement, and Hannah, one of the first students at the Young Women's Farm, run by Hannah Meisel at Kinneret. Later, their sister Haya married Haim Dov Blinkov, a guard at the settlement. In 1907, Rivka immigrated with her parents, Shmuel Zanevil and Breina, and her other siblings, including Ephraim, and they settled in Sejera. In 1908, they joined Baruch in the Kinneret settlement, where they lived in a wooden hut, received a farm, and began working the land. Rivka was considered the prettiest of the Chizik girls. That same year, when she was only 14, Rivka left her family and moved to Jaffa, where she studied and worked making lace and embroidery at the Lace-Making School, run by Sarah Thon. Rivka also sold her work and earned a meager living.

There in Jaffa, Rivka met Yosef Haim Brenner one day, and a warm relationship developed between them. Rivka wanted to attend gymnasium and saved from her meager wages to do so. Brenner saw this and realized she would not be able to fulfill her wish, so he offered her some of his money (at the time, he was editing the newspaper HaPoel HaTzair) so she could give up embroidery and go to school. But Rivka refused his offer, insisting on being independent and achieving her ambitions on her own. Rivka and her sister Hannah celebrated the Passover Seder of 1910 with Brenner in his room in Jaffa. They set the holiday table, and the actress Liza Varon joined them. Rivka sat beside Brenner and asked the Four Questions. Brenner loved Rivka, but because of his shyness and reserved nature, he never revealed his feelings to her.

Several months later, Rivka learned that her family's financial situation in the Kinneret settlement was extremely difficult. She left Jaffa and returned (on foot!) to her parents' home in the settlement to help them.

Rivka's Death and Commemoration

In early 1911, Rivka joined the workers at Kinneret Farm as a day laborer, doing the hard work of draining the marshes where the Jordan River flows out of Lake Kinneret, near Karkh (Tel Beit Yerah). One day, she injured her leg on a piece of rusty iron. Rivka ignored the injury, continued working, and eventually contracted severe blood poisoning. She was rushed to the Mission Hospital in Tiberias, but it was already too late. After three days, Rivka died in the hospital, just 17 years old.

Her family was not with her in her final days, and the location of her grave is unknown.

Later, her older sister Sarah Chizik wrote of Rivka:

"Oh, how I long to see life, but life bright and clear. But if the spring sun grows dim for me, and my life is dark and gloomy, I shall want none of it... There, around God's throne, among the pure souls, I shall find my sister's soul! We will embrace and kiss one another! Who could compare with us then? Day and night we will sit and pour out our hearts to each other. Then I shall be happy..."

In those days, Brenner himself was hospitalized there, and it is said that when he heard of Rivka's death, he beat his head against the walls in grief. Hannah Chizik, Rivka's sister, writes that when she and her father met Brenner: "He did not console us or try to comfort us; he only wept with us. His outburst was so intense that Father had to quiet him. Yet his weeping, his grief and pain, comforted us."

That same year (1911), her family moved to Menahmia.

In 1911, Brenner's book From Here and There was published. He dedicated it to two people dear to him, and the title page read: "The most heartfelt and pure of these few pages I lay in tears upon the graves of my dear and pure ones, Henikh Paslov and Rivka Chizik."

The writer Yosef Haim Brenner, who was close to and friends with the sisters Rivka, Hannah, and Sarah Chizik, published Sarah Chizik's writings and letters, with the family's support, after she fell in the battle for Tel-Hai.

In his book Bereavement and Failure (1920), Brenner modeled the literary character Miriam on Rivka's personality. Like Rivka, Miriam also dies of blood poisoning.

In March 1920, Rivka's sister Sarah Chizik was killed in the battle for Tel-Hai, alongside Trumpeldor. The city of Kiryat Shmona was named in memory of Sarah and the other seven who fell, and several years later the Roaring Lion statue was erected between Kfar Giladi and Tel-Hai. Ephraim Chizik, Sarah's brother, wrote: "...With a steadfast and certain heart, our sister Sarah sacrificed herself. We too shall do the same when the need arises."

On 2.5.1921, Brenner was murdered in Jaffa during the 1921 riots.

Ephraim Chizik, brother to Rivka and Sarah (the seventh of the ten siblings), fell at Hulda during the 1929 riots.

The late singer and songwriter Shmulik Chizik was the son of Yitzhak Chizik, the youngest of Rivka's brothers. You surely know his song "If You Remember Me, Sivan"

Ehud Yaari, journalist and Middle East affairs analyst, is the grandson of Manya, Rivka Chizik's eldest sister.