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Opinion Zvi, Israel Israel today

2023-02-02T07:36:30.678Z


Like a girl who received a candy, I wandered around the world drunk, happy that Zvi Tzemeret invited me to talk to his students. He used to brag about them, knew their personal story


The top deer is gone.

The man, the values, the emotion, the education, the sayer and the doer - passed away this week.

He left behind him in this world a multitude of admirers and admirers.

A few years ago, by chance, I met him, the man who before was an almost mythical figure in my eyes.

I remembered him as the legendary head of the Pedagogical Secretariat in the Ministry of Education.

I remembered that the "Haaretz" newspaper ran a venomous campaign against him, probably because he was too Zionist for them.

He dared then, for heaven's sake, to interfere in the contents of the citizenship profession, which was saturated with anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish criticism.

And it scarred him, Zvi, that personal and venomous campaign, which also challenged the foundations of Zionism and Judaism that were so important to him, for a man who grew up in the working and learning youth movement.

Zvi did not grow up on Rabbi Kook's knees, nor did he grow up in a settlement in Judea and Samaria.

He was a forerunner of the labor movement.

He then wrote an article for "Haaretz" in which he explained his claims, ending it with the immortal sentence:

"I admit and am proud: I am a Zionist Jew, and want to strengthen national patriotism."

That's what he was.

A proud Jew, a proud Zionist, unusually knowledgeable and with a bigger than usual heart and soul.

"Hello, Sara," he said to me when he met me for the first time at some conference, "very pleasant, I'm a top deer. I follow your articles, and I would like to invite you to lecture to my students."

Like a girl who received a candy, I wandered around the world drunk, happy that Zvi Tzemeret invited me to talk to his students.

And so a cross-generational, cross-geographical friendship was born, full of mutual appreciation.

Every time I came to lecture to his students, who were so important to him, he used to brag about them, knew their personal story, and at the end of the lecture he sent me kind words.

Zvi was a great fighter for Zionism.

So in the Ministry of Education, so in the academy, so in his private and professional life.

He knew how to speak to people and with people, erasing from himself any mannerisms of respect or fashion and approached them, listening and speaking, at eye level.

He was a teacher and educator who went to the development towns, managed schools, established institutes for Jewish-Zionist education, fought for the preservation of the refugee camp at Atlit, worked for the prisoners of Zion in the Soviet Union, managed "Yad Ben Zvi" with a high hand and wisdom, and then He was also a participant in the attempt to forge consensus around issues of religion and state in Israeli society.

He was a man of vision and action.

Not a person who just says what is needed - but says and does.

And he was always on edge, dealing with every issue like a fire burning in his bones.

He was very troubled by the seepage of the hollow narrative about the "Nakba", he was very troubled by trends of historical and biblical ignorance, he was troubled by the gaps and fissures in Israeli society - and he bridged them with his body and heart by initiating dialogue and contact.

He wrote a historical work documenting the days of Israel - the last of which, "The Fifth Decade", was published very recently.

The next decades will have to be written in his place, and continue this amazing and important enterprise.

A few months ago he came to console us for the death of my grandfather, Eliakim Atzani.

We sat there, on my uncle's balcony, watching the valley.

We talked about Zionism, we talked about the periphery, we talked about him and the journey he went through and is still going through.

"Come to me with your son, I have a library full of Zionist history books."

And I promised to come with 10-year-old Jordan, the boy who drinks history, so that he could meet the books, but more importantly - the man.

My Jordan was enthusiastic about the idea, and I didn't find the time in the rush of life and the rush.

And now it's too late.

I wish we had more of him.

Zvi Zameret, an Israeli and Jewish role model, may his memory be blessed.

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Source: israelhayom

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