Geulah Cohen


Geulah Cohen was an Israeli politician and activist who founded the Tehiya party. She won the Israel Prize in 2003. Between 1974 and 1992, she served as a member of Knesset, initially for Likud. She changed her political affiliation to Tehiya in 1979. In 1992, she lost her seat in the Knesset.

Life and career

Geulah Cohen was born in Tel Aviv to a Mizrahi Jewish family during the Mandate era. She was the daughter of Miriam and Yosef Cohen. She studied at the Levinsky Teachers Seminary, and earned a master's degree in Jewish Studies, Philosophy, Literature and Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
In 1942 she joined the Irgun, and moved to Stern gang the following year. A radio announcer for the group, she was arrested by the British military authorities in 1946 while broadcasting in Tel Aviv. She escaped in May, shortly before her trial, but was recaptured by a group of Arabs. On 6 June 1946, she was sentenced to seven years imprisonment after being charged with being in possession of a wireless transmitter, four pistols and revolvers and ammunition. During sentencing she sang "Hatikvah" and was accompanied by 30 members of her family. She was imprisoned in Bethlehem, but escaped from jail in 1947. She was also editor of the Lehi newspaper Youth Front. After Israeli independence in 1948, she contributed to Sulam, a monthly magazine published by former Lehi leader Israel Eldad.
Cohen married former Lehi comrade Emanuel Hanegbi. From 1961 to 1973, she wrote for the Israeli newspaper Maariv and served on its editorial board. While working as a journalist, she came to New York to visit the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Schneerson encouraged her to get involved with Israeli youth.
Cohen died on 18 December 2019, one week before her 94th birthday.

Political career

In 1972, Cohen joined Menachem Begin's Herut party, then part of the Gahal alliance, and was elected to the Knesset the following year, by which time Gahal had become Likud. She was re-elected in 1977.
As an opponent of the Camp David Accords and the return of Sinai to Egypt as a land-for-peace deal, even to the extent of being thrown out of the Knesset when Begin presented the deal to it, Cohen and Moshe Shamir left Likud in 1979 to found a new right-wing party Banai, later Tehiya-Bnai, and then Tehiya. The new party was a strong supporter of Gush Emunim and included prominent members of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza such as Hanan Porat and Elyakim Haetzni.
Cohen retained her seat in the 1981 elections, and despite their previous differences, Tehiya joined Begin's coalition. She retained her seat during the elections in 1984 and 1988, and in June 1990, following a coalition crisis, was appointed to the cabinet as Deputy Minister of Science and Technology.
Cohen lost her seat in the 1992 elections. That year, she rejoined Likud and remained active in right-wing politics. Her son, Tzachi Hanegbi, served as a Knesset member for Likud.

Views and opinions

Cohen opposed territorial concessions. She was a vocal critic of the Camp David Accords in 1978 and of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan from Gaza in 2005. She described herself as a "woman of violence" in the pursuit of political ends.

Awards and recognition