Rebecca Sieff

Rebecca Doro Sieff (born February 23, 1890 in Leeds , † January 8, 1966 in Tel Aviv ) was a British Zionist .

Life and activity

Sieff came from a wealthy Jewish family. She was born under the name Rebecca Marks, the second of five children. Her father Michael Marks (1864–1907) had fled anti-Semitic pogroms from Russia in 1882 and came to Great Britain , where he worked his way up from a small trader to co-owner of a wholesaler now known as Marks & Spencer . His wife Hanna, b. Cohen (1865–1917), he married in 1886. Since 1894 the family lived in Manchester.

After graduating from Manchester High School for Girls , Marks studied English literature at Manchester University . At this time she began to be active in the British women's rights movement. Around 1910 Sieff also joined the Zionist movement in Great Britain, in which she was involved in the women's group B'not Zion in accordance with her interests in women's rights.

In 1910, Marks married Israel Sieff , one of Britain's leading Zionists. Through him she was in close contact with Chaim Weizmann .

During the First World War Sieff was active in charitable organizations that collected donations for the Jewish population of Poland ( Charity Fund for Polish Jewry ). In 1918 she was elected to the Council of the English Zionist Federation ( Council of the English Zionist Federation ), where she was one of only three women who were directly - and not as representatives of subordinate groups - elected to this body. In the same year she helped found the Federation of Women Zionists (FWZ).

In 1919 Sieff, together with Chaim Weizmann's wife and a few others, went on a trip to Palestine to study the living conditions there and work out recommendations on how the British government promised the establishment of an Israeli hometown in Palestine in the Balfour Declaration Should be implemented with a view to the interests of women. To this end, they formed a committee called the Women's Representative Committee .

During the International Zionist Congress in London in July 1920 Sieff was elected President of the Women's International Zionist Organization (WIZO). She held this position until her death in 1966 (since 1963 as honorary president for life). The focus of the work of this organization, which she led together with Vera Weizmann , soon turned to organizing the training of women who wanted to emigrate to Palestine in agricultural work in order to prepare them as settlers in what was then predominantly agricultural Country to be able to live.

In 1926 Sieff moved to London with her family .

1933 founded Sieff given the takeover of the Nazis in Germany, the Women's Appeal Committee of the Central British Fund for German Jewry , one established by the Jewish aid organization for refugee Jews from Germany committee specifically dedicated to the support of women. In 1938 she organized the relocation of 1,000 Jewish children from the German Reich to Great Britain .

In 1934 Sieff and her husband donated the funds to found the Daniel Sieff Research Institute in Rehovot , which was named after their deceased son. It was later developed into the Weizmann Institute of Science .

At the end of the 1930s, the National Socialist police officers classified Sieff as an important target: In the spring of 1940, the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin put her on the special wanted list GB , a directory of people who the Nazi surveillance apparatus considered particularly dangerous or important, which is why they should be in the case A successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht should be located and arrested by the occupying troops following special SS commandos with special priority.

After the Second World War , Sieff traveled to occupied Germany to visit displaced persons camps and to advise the inmates there and to help Jewish people emigrate to Palestine. The efforts of the British government to prevent the relocation of European Jews to Palestine prompted them at the same time to raise sharp public protests against this policy. In 1947 Sieff appeared before the UNSCOP (Special Committee of the United Nations on the Palestine Question) as an expert.

After the establishment of the State of Israel Sieff settled in Tel Mond . In 1957, Arab terrorists from Sinai carried out an attack on Sieff's house in Tel Mond, in which their gardener was killed.

After her death, Sieff was buried in the Tel Mond cemetery.

Honors

The Sieff Hospital in Safed is named after Sieff.

family

From her marriage to Israel Sieff, Rebecca Sieff had four children: Michael (1911–1988), Marcus (1913–2001), Daniel (1915–1932) and Judith (1921–1994).

literature

• Who's who in Wizo. 1966-1970. Pp. 1-3.

Web links

• Biography on the side of the Jewish Women's Archive (English)