Roni was one of the founders of MachsomWatch, joining Roni Jeger and Yehudit Keshet right after they held their first vigil at the Bethlehem Checkpoint. During the First Intifada (1987), along with other Jerusalem friends she organized vigils outside the Russian Compound (detention center and court). These vigils were held in support of children from East Jerusalem, arrested for throwing stones and sentenced to long periods in jail. In recent years, Roni was a member of the Military Court MW team, present at ‘trials’ in the Russian Compound, and reporting from there together with our good friend Tova Scheintuch. Tova was also Roni’s sister-in-law through Zvi, Roni’s partner for nearly 50 years Zvi and father of her children.
Roni was a loved and much appreciated member of the Jerusalem MW group. Her integrity and wisdom commanded attention whenever she spoke. She was also very loyal and committed to our work and she participated in vigils at the Qalandiya Checkpoint and the Military Courts even when she had difficulty standing for long periods of time because of her back problems.
In addition to her activity in MachsomWatch, Roni edited the weekly Occupation Magazine (founded by our friend Victoria Buch) for over 12 years, and often traveled to Germany and Austria to lecture about the Occupation and the Occupied Palestinian Territories to anyone willing to listen. Thanks to her lectures, many people in Europe learned about MachsomWatch. In 2008 Roni was awarded the Aachen Peace Prize on behalf of MachsomWatch.
Roni said that her life reflected the words of her late grandfather, murdered in the Holocaust. He had asked a young man he met at the death camp – a neighbor from his own town – to do everything he could to stay alive, and then go back and tell everyone what had happened. The young man did survive and he upon his return, told the family about their grandfather’s legacy. Roni accepted this legacy and acted upon it all her life – witnessing injustice and wrongdoings and reporting them without looking away.
Roni was born in Tel Aviv in 1940, but in 1946 her communist parents decided to return to post-war Vienna and create a new world order, socialist and just. She said she couldn’t understand why she was taken from Tel Aviv’s sun and sea to dark Vienna that lay in ruins. She thought her parents had absolutely lost it… She returned to Israel in 1969, having completed her Ph.D. in Russian literature in Moscow and, until retiring, directed the literature wing of the Hebrew University Library on Mount Scopus.
Roni was impressive. She weighed her words carefully so they were extremely significant. We, her close friends, who had the privilege of knowing her will remember her always. She will be sorely missed.
Yvonne Mansbach