Rachel . . .a tragic woman, who sacrificed many dreams, and lived for years in the shadow of death. She never stopped living and loving - and her poetry, clearly expressing her feelings, is as full of beauty today as it was when she wrote it, 70 years ago.

She was a Jewish girl, born in 1890 in Russia, under the name Rachel Bluwstein. She started writing poetry when she was 15. At 19, she became a Zionist and immigrated to Israel, like many young Jewish people of the time who believed that Jews must return to their country and cultivate it, and establish a Jewish state.

Rachel fell in love with the country, the people, and the language. She started to write her poetry in Hebrew under her first name only, and joined "Kineret" group -- a group of young idealistic women who became farmers near Lake Kineret -- where she spent the best years of her life.

After a few years there, she went to France to study agriculture, but while she was there the first world war broke, and she was forced to stay away from her beloved Israel. As the world was torn by war, her body began its own battles. In Russia, where she spent the war, she became consumptive. Her pain and illness had an enormous influence on her remaining life.

She couldn't return to Kineret and be a farmer. She eventually returned to Israel,  but spent the rest of her days in hospitals. Each year she grew weaker, knowing she was going to die.

But only in her sickness did she start writing her really beautiful poems. In clear and lyrical words she expressed her lost hopes, her love for the country, her longing for a child, her despair. The beautiful moments of her life -- the happiness that she found in the spring, in memories, in evening at the hospital, and everywhere she could -- found verse in her poetry. Her poetry presents a touching character of a life-loving, idealistic, desperate young woman. After reading it, small things seem more beautiful, other people more cherished, and life more loved.

Rachel died in 1931, 41 years old.

 Rachel Bluwstein, (1890 - 1931)

 
Rahel is one of the most well known poets of the Second Aliya. She began writing poetry in Russian at the age of 15. In 1909 she came to Israel and joined the training farm in Kvutzat Kinn, In 1913 she went to France to study agriculture and drawing. She was unable to return to Israel during World War I and spent the war years in Russia, caring for Jewish refugee children. After the war she returned to Israel and settled in Kibbutz Deganiah. At that time, she was diagnosed as having tuberculosis and was forced to leave the kibbutz. She spent the rest of her life in Jerusalem, Safed and Tel Aviv. She was buried in the cemetery in Kibbutz Kinneret.

Rachel was one of the first modern poets. The language she used was influenced by the speech developing at the time, as well as by Biblical Hebrew. She also used characters from the Bible. Her poems are short and are outstanding in their clarity and range of emotion. Her poems are very popular and many of them have been set to music
 
Rahel was born in Vyatka in Russia in 1890 and arrived in Eretz-Israel at the age of 19. She first worked as a laborer in Rehovot and later joined a training farm near the Kinneret. In 1913 she went to France to study agriculture and from there to Russia where she contracted tuberculosis. In 1919 she returned to Eretz-Israel on board the ship "Ruslan," and for a while lived in Deganyah.

Her poetry is set in the pastoral countryside of Eretz-Israel although her personal struggles add a sad and nostalgic mood to their reading. Many of her poems were set to music both during her lifetime and thereafter. She is buried in the kibbutz Kinneret cemetery alongside many of the socialist ideologues and pioneers of the second and third waves of immigration to Eretz-Israel.