Nechama Rivlin: Scientist, Art Lover, President’s Wife

Stand for Israel  |  June 10, 2019

While Nechama Rivlin was the wife of Israel’s president, and a lifelong resident of the Holy Land, she was a great many more things during her life. The Jerusalem Post’s Greer Fay Cashman reports on this Israeli Renaissance woman who passed away at the age of 73 while recovering from a lung transplant:

Nechama Rivlin, the wife of Israel’s tenth president Reuven Rivlin, has died at the age of 73.  She passed away on Tuesday, June 4 at Beilinson Hospital, where she was recuperating from a lung transplant.

She had been hospitalized for almost four months after waiting for a suitable donor.

She had suffered for several years from pulmonary fibrosis, a condition in which scar tissue accumulates in the lungs and impedes normal breathing. Rivlin was seldom seen without her portable oxygen tank. Yet despite her illness, she accompanied her husband on most of his state visits abroad including to India and Spain…

Nechama Rivlin was born in 1945 on Moshav Herut in the Sharon to Drora (Kayle) and Mendy Shulman who had migrated to the Land of Israel from Ukraine and were among the pioneers of the moshav…

In 1964, she began her studies in natural sciences and biology at the Hebrew University Jerusalem, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Botany and Zoology.

In 1967, she became a zoological researcher at the university and later switched to the genetics division in the Department of Ecology.

Deeply interested in art, she also studied art history from the ancient classics to modern art.

She married Reuven Rivlin in 1971 and together they had three children – Rivka, Anat and Ran…

Nechama Rivlin was also a devoted grandmother to Matan, Ziv, Shai, Karni, Maya, Daniella and Yahav…

Pray for God’s love to comfort Ms. Rivlin’s loved ones. May her memory be a blessing.