I bore you alone, I raised you alone, and I buried you alone!
So cried Sarah Avigur over her son’s fresh grave.
And were it not for this Sarah, and were it not for this cry, we might never have had Naomi Shemer as we know her today.
A personal story that sheds light on an entire era.
Act One:
Gur Meirov of Kvutzat Kinneret was only seventeen when he decided to volunteer in the War of Independence. He demanded to be on the front line, as did his friend, close as a brother, from the kibbutz — eighteen-year-old Dan Kinarti. When Dan Kinarti fell in the great battle at Tzemach and Degania, it was a heavy blow for young Gur. After the battle, during the first truce, quiet descended on the valley. But Gur, aching and feverish with the death of his beloved friend, decided he could not sit still. He volunteered, on his own initiative and without his commanders’ approval, for a daring operation with an elite Golani unit, fought in the fierce battles against Kaukji’s army in the Sejera area, and fell in combat. At seventeen and eighteen, the two best friends from Kvutzat Kinneret fell and were buried side by side. Right next to Rachel the Poetess. On their grave was written: “Beloved and pleasant, in their lives and in their deaths they were not parted.” Years later, their story would be one of the stories that inspired Naomi Shemer’s song ‘We Are Both from the Same Village.’
Act Two:
When Gur was killed, his father was in Czechoslovakia — trying to sign the arms deal that would save the tiny State of Israel. Meir Sapir, Naomi Shemer’s father, traveled to him from Paris all through the night to break the news. When Meir knocked on the door, Shaul looked at his friend from Kinneret appearing before him in the heart of Czechoslovakia and immediately asked:
Wounded or killed?…
Meir lowered his eyes.
Shaul Meirov, Gur’s father, was one of the heads of the Haganah and commander of the Mossad LeAliyah Bet, responsible for the clandestine immigration. In the War of Independence he was the central figure closing the Czech arms deal that would quite literally save the State of Israel.
Stunned and grieving, he called Ben-Gurion to ask to return for his son’s funeral — a son he had barely seen because of the national missions he had been engaged in all those years. Ben-Gurion answered him: I salute your son’s heroism. I am not telling you what to do. Only take into account that the Egyptians are in Ashdod, the Jordanians in Ramle and the Syrians in Tzemach. The decision is yours. Shaul stayed to close the arms deal. Over her son’s fresh grave, Sarah, Gur’s mother and Shaul’s wife, cried out: I bore you alone, I raised you alone, and I buried you alone.
When Shaul returned to Israel, he changed his family name from Meirov to Avigur. The father of Gur.
Act Three:
A few months later, at the end of the War of Independence, a small vote was held at Kibbutz Kinneret. Whether to allow their member Naomi to be excused from farm work and go study music. This was not the done thing in those days — to defer military service and leave the farm to study music? Who ever heard of such a thing?!
After two assemblies, most of the members leaned toward not allowing Naomi to leave for music studies despite her outstanding talent in the field. At the third assembly the kibbutz secretary was persuading the members not to let Naomi go. It seemed he had the upper hand. Suddenly, a moment before the vote, Sarah Avigur entered the assembly — the bereaved mother of Gur, who had fallen only a few months earlier.
She looked at those present and said with blazing eyes:
“Friends, let each of you place your hand on your heart and tell yourselves the truth, which we all know in the depths of our hearts — that this is the true calling of our Naomi. Let us not take upon ourselves the responsibility of tearing away a piece of the reborn Land of Israel. By your behavior you are murdering the girl and her talent.”
Silence gripped the members.
In the face of the bereaved mother’s piercing words, they immediately decided that Naomi — who would one day become Naomi Shemer — would go off to study music.
Today, Sarah Avigur and Naomi Shemer are buried side by side.
