Levayah of Veteran MK Geulah Cohen Set for Thursday

The levayah for former Knesset member and minister Geulah Cohen, a”h, will take place in Yerushalayim Thursday afternoon on Har Hazeisim, family members said. Cohen passed away Wednesday night after a short illness at age 93.

Cohen is considered one of the parents of the modern ideological right, having fought before the establishment of the state with both Menachem Begin in Etzel and Yitzchak Shamir in the Lehi. She started her political career by joining the Likud party in 1973 and eventually entering the Knesset, but breaking with the party after the Camp David Accords saw Israel surrender the Sinai – and the Yamit bloc – to Egypt. She established the rightwing Tehiya party, serving in several governments. She was an MK for 18 years, leaving the Knesset in 1992. Needless to say, she was a vociferous opponent of the Oslo Accords. In 2003, she received the Israel Prize for her life’s work.

Cohen is the mother of Minister for Regional Cooperation Tzachi Hanegbi, who said that “my mother was a fighter for freedom, although she wore no uniform. Until her last day she fought for the fulfillment of the promise of our complete homeland, the unity of the nation, and the ingathering of exiles – but all that did not get in the way of her being a loving mother and grandmother. She will be missed not just by her family, but by the entire nation she fought for and loved.”

Eulogies have poured in from all shades of the political spectrum. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in a social media post that “the voice of Geulah will not be silenced. We will always remember her dedication and sacrifice for the Land of Israel.” Blue and White head Benny Gantz said that Cohen was “a trailblazer who loved the land and the people.” Shas chairman Rabbi Aryeh Deri said that Cohen was “a brave woman who gave dozens of years of her life to the country and the people, among other things fighting to enable Jews to immigrate to Israel from the Soviet Union.” And Meretz head Tamar Zandberg said “even from the other side of the political map we must acknowledge how dedicated she was to her ideology, her faith in her path, and her determination to lead on that path.”