When I was a child, my grandmother Shulamit Hearsch used to tell me stories of her childhood and family. We used to have many heart-to-hearts, my grandma and I. Sometimes she used to tell me, "Dana, when I die you'll get me out of the tomb". These words used to annoy me. Why would she ask such a thing of me? It wasn't even formulated as a request, rather as a fact, or even an imperative. After she died, these words repeatedly echoed in my mind, and I kept wondering why. For years I couldn't fathom the meaning of what she had said. Only in recent years could I manage to internalize her message and understand it. She hadn't meant it in the physical/material sense, but in the spiritual sense. I believe what she had tried to tell me was: "Dana, immortalize me, commemorate me, think about me and share my life story with the next generation".

Shulamit (Lipschitz) Hearsch was born in Russia in 1912 to Bracha and Aaron Lipschitz. In Russia, Aaron was a rich timber merchant owning many forests. He even had a special document which allowed him free access to the Czar's court, and was even invited to balls and celebrations of the Czar's family.

Aaron Lipschitz's family belonged to the Hassidic Movement, and he was even distantly related to Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who was later to become the famous Lubavitcher Rebbe .Bracha, on the other hand, was a scion or Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman Kremer, otherwise known as the Vilna Gaon, who led the struggle against the Hassidic Movement in Eastern Europe. Despite these diametrically opposed ideological backgrounds, Bracha and Aaron married and had six children: Benjamin, Abraham, Isaac, Susanne (Shoshana), Shulamit and Miriam.

Photograph: Bracha Lipschitz, grandma Shulamit's mother (free bus Identity document) 1958.

  

As a young man, Aaron traveled to Palestine and bought land here. In 1917, following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, having realized that his very life was in danger Aaron left Russia in haste and escaped to China, leaving Bracha and their six children behind. On his way there, he left letters for Bracha in synagogues and Jewish communities so that his family members would be able to follow in his footsteps on the way to Israel. The family wandered from Russia to China and thence to India, for four years, often suffering severe hunger on the way. In the end, the family managed to reunite in the Holy Land. 

Photograph: A 50-Ruble debenture from the days of the last Czar (redemption date – 1920).

Benjamin, the couple's eldest son immigrated to the United States, while the rest of their children immigrated to Palestine together with Bracha and Aaron. In fact, they had another daughter (their eldest daughter, who I believe was named Haya) who had died of scarlet fever in Russia at the age of five.

 

Photograph: Miriam, grandpa's youngest sister, who was tragically killed at a young age.

Photograph: Ora Raphaeli (momma Mickey's cousin) as a soldier next to Bracha Lipschitz.

 

Photograph: Shoshana and Shulamit in my grandparent's courtyard in Ramat Hasharon.

 

In 1922, Zvi Lotker was sent as a town representative to the Youth of Zion convention in Kiev. On account of his Zionist activism, the Soviet authorities arrested and sentenced him to one year in prison, and he was eventually deported from the Soviet Union. In 1925 he immigrated to Israel and started working as a clerk in the Strauss Medical Center in Tel Aviv. In 1926 he became a member of the Hagannah paramilitary organization and was active during the Arab insurgencies of 1929 and 1936-1929. Zvi was a very literate man, and a fanatic promoter of the Hebrew language; among other things, he translated military texts from Russian to Hebrew. In 1936, he underwent a self-defense instructor course and began training volunteers throughout the country. During the Israeli War of Independence (1948) he participated in defending strongholds although he was already past the draft age, and took part in the conquest of Jaffa, Lod and Ramla. Later on he was wounded by shrapnel in the bloody battles of Latrun against the Jordanian Arab Legion. On March 21, 1949, Zvi Lotker was killed in action.

Ra'ya, Oded Lotker's mother – daughter of Homma and Moshe Kaplinsky – was born in Poland and immigrated to Israel on her own when she was just 16. During the Holocaust, Homma, Moshe and six of their children jointly committed suicide using poison obtained by Moshe, who was a pharmacist. Ra'ya and her brother Isaac, who were in Israel at the time, were the only survivors.  

Photograph: Oded Lotker with prime minister Golda Meir - Tnuat Hamoshavim agriculture conference.