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Saint Rachel
Rachel and Jacob by William Dyce
Holy Matriarch
Born	Paddan-aram
Died	Canaan
Honored in	Judaism Islam Christianity
Major shrine	Rachel's Tomb
Feast	Roman Catholicism: 1 November[1] Orthodox Church: Sunday before Christmas

Rachel (Hebrew: רחל, Modern Raḥel Tiberian Rāḫēl, Rāḥēl ISO 259-3 Raḥel ; meaning "ewe"^[2]) as described in the Bible, is a prophet and the favorite wife of Jacob, one of the three Biblical Patriarchs, and mother of Joseph and Benjamin. She was the daughter of Laban and the younger sister of Leah, Jacob's first wife. Jacob was her first cousin, and she was the youngest niece of Rebecca.

Marriage to Jacob[link]

Rachel is first mentioned in the Bible in Genesis 29 when Jacob happens upon her as she is watering her lamb. He had traveled a great distance to find his mother's brother, Laban. Rebekah had sent him there to be safe from his furious twin brother, Esau.

During Jacob's stay, he fell in love with Rachel and agreed to work seven years for Laban in return for her hand in marriage. On the night of the wedding, the bride was veiled and Jacob did not notice that Leah, Rachel's older sister, had been substituted for Rachel. Whereas "Rachel was lovely in form and beautiful," "Leah had tender eyes"^[3]. Later Jacob confronted Laban, who excused his own deception by insisting that the older sister should marry first. He assured Jacob that after his wedding week was finished, he could take Rachel as a wife as well, and work another seven years as payment for her.

After Leah had given birth to four sons, Rachel remained unable to conceive. She became jealous of Leah and gave Jacob her maidservant, Bilhah, to be a surrogate mother for her. Bilhah gave birth to two sons that Rachel named and raised (Dan and Naphtali). Leah responds by offering her handmaid Zilpah to Jacob, and names and raises the two sons (Gad and Asher) that Zilpah bears. According to some commentaries, Bilhah and Zilpah, are actually half-sisters of Leah and Rachel.^[4]

After Leah conceived again, Rachel was finally blessed with a son, Joseph, who would become Jacob's favorite child.

Death and burial[link]

Fresco by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo of Rachel sitting on the idols.

After Joseph's birth, Jacob decided to return to the land of Canaan with his family. Fearing that Laban would deter him, he fled with his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and twelve children without informing his father-in-law. Laban chased him and accused him of stealing his idols. Indeed, Rachel had taken her father's idols, hidden them inside her camel's seat cushion, and sat upon them. Not knowing that the idols were in his wife's possession, Jacob pronounced a curse on whoever had them: "With whoever you will find your gods, he will not live" (Genesis 31:32). Laban proceeded to search the tents of Jacob and his wives, but when he came to Rachel's tent, she told her father, "Let not my lord be angered that I cannot rise up before you, for the way of women is upon me" (Genesis 31:35). Laban left her alone, but the curse Jacob had pronounced came true shortly thereafter.

Near Ephrath, Rachel went into a difficult labor with her second son, Benjamin. The midwife tells her in the middle of the birth that her child is a boy.^[5] Before she died, Rachel named her son Ben Oni ("son of my mourning"), but Jacob called him Ben Yamin (Benjamin). Rashi explains that Ben Yamin either means "son of the right" (i.e., "south"), since Benjamin was the only one of Jacob's sons born in Canaan, which is to the south of Paddan Aram; or it could mean "son of my days," as Benjamin was born in Jacob's old age.

Rachel's Tomb, near Bethlehem, 1891

Rachel was buried by Jacob on the road to Efrat, just outside Bethlehem.^[6] Today a site claimed to be Rachel's Tomb, located between Bethlehem and the Israeli settlement of Gilo, is visited by tens of thousands of visitors each year.^[7]

Rachel and Jacob by James Tissot.

Rachel's children[link]

Rachel's son, Joseph, is destined to be the leader of Israel's tribes between exile and nationhood. This role is exemplified in the Biblical story of Joseph, who prepared the way in Egypt for his family's exile there,^[8] and in the future figure of Mashiach ben Yosef (Messiah, son of Joseph), who will fight the apocalyptic Wars of Gog and Magog, preparing the way for the kingship of Mashiach ben David (Messiah, son of David) and the messianic age.^[9][10] She also had a second son named Benjamin; she died during labor with him.

Additional references in the Bible[link]

• In Jeremiah 31:15, the prophet speaks of 'Rachel weeping for her children' (KJV). This is interpreted in Judaism as Rachel crying for an end to her descendants' sufferings and exiles following the destruction by the Babylonians of the First Temple in ancient Jerusalem. According to the Midrash, Rachel spoke before God: "If I, a mere mortal, was prepared not to humiliate my sister and was willing to take a rival into my home, how could You, the eternal, compassionate God, be jealous of idols, which have no true existence, that were brought into Your home (the Temple in Jerusalem)? Will You cause my children to be exiled on this account?" God accepted her plea and promised that, eventually, the exile would end and the Jews would return to their land.^[11]

• In the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew (part of the New Testament), this reference from Jeremiah is interpreted as a prediction of the Massacre of the Innocents by Herod the Great in his attempt to kill the young Jesus. The Jeremaic prophecy is the inspiration behind the medieval dramatic cycle Ordo Rachelis, concerned with the infancy of Jesus.

• Mordechai, the hero of the Book of Esther, and Queen Esther herself, were descendants of Rachel through her son Benjamin. The Book of Esther details Mordechai's lineage as "Mordechai the son of Yair, the son of Shimi, the son of Kish, a man of the right (ish yemini)" (Esther 2:5). The designation of ish yemini refers to his membership in the Tribe of Benjamin (ben yamin, son of the right). The rabbis comment that Esther's ability to remain silent in the palace of Ahasuerus, resisting the king's pressure to reveal her ancestry, was inherited from her ancestor Rachel, who remained silent even when Laban brought out Leah to marry Jacob.

Islamic view of Rachel[link]

Rachel is revered in Islam, and while not specifically referred to in the Quran, she is known by references to her in the collection of stories known as Qisas Al-Anbiya (Tales of the Prophets or Lives of the Prophets).^[12] The story of how Jacob fell in love with Rachel is told in the Qisas Al-Anbiya, and her beauty is described. Her role as mother to Joseph and Benjamin is the central theme of these narratives on her life.^[13]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jacob and Rachel

Look up Rachel or רחל in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References[link]

Rachel Traets (born 16 August 1998) is a singer from the Netherlands. Traets lives in Wouw, a small village in the south-west of the Netherlands.^[1]

In October 2011 she won Junior Songfestival 2011 with the song "Ik ben een Teenager" (English: I'm a Teenager).^[2] She has been selected to represent her country in the 2011 Junior Eurovision Song Contest held on 3 December 2011 in Yerevan, Armenia.^[3][4] A few weeks later the title "Ik ben een Teenager" was shrunk to "Teenager", which will be the official title for the Dutch entry.^[5]

Rachel is preceded by Anna and Senna who represented the Netherlands in the 2010 Junior Eurovision Song Contest.

Discography[link]

Albums

• Teenager

Singles

• Ik Ben een teenager^[6]
• Never Nooit^[7]

References[link]

This article about a Dutch singer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Dame Rachel Eleanor Crowdy, DBE (3 March 1884, Paddington - 10 October 1964, Outwood, Surrey) was an English nurse and social reformer.^[1] She was Principal Commandant of Voluntary Aid Detachments in France and Belgium from 1914 to 1919 and Chief of the Department of Opium Traffic and Social Issues Section of the League of Nations from 1919 to 1931.^[2] She was also an active member of the British National Committee for the Suppression of the White Slave Trade.^[3]

Life[link]

The daughter of James Crowdy, Rachel Crowdy was educated at Hyde Park New College before training as a nurse at Guy's Hospital. She met Katharine Furse in 1911, volunteering to serve as a Red Cross nurse in case of invasion. At the outset of World War I Furse and Crowdy travelled abroad to discover what was being done for the wounded, their investigation resulting in the establishment of rest stations. Crowdy was appointed Principal Commandant of V.A.D.s in 1914. She was named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1919.^[2]

From 1919 to 1931 Crowdy was Head of the Social Questions and Opium Traffic Section of the League of Nations, making her the only woman to be head of an administrative section of the League.^[2] In 1920-21 she accompanied the International Typhus Commission to Poland at the height of the post-war epidemic there. On her retirement from the League, she was guest of honour at a dinner for six hundred women at the Café Royal.^[2]

in 1931 Crowdy was a member of the British delegation to the Institute of Pacific Relations conference at Shanghai.^[1] She sat on the 1935-36 Royal Commission on the Private Manufacture of Armaments, visited the Spanish Civil War in 1937 with the Parliamentary Commission in 1937, and sat on the 1938-39 Royal Commission on the West Indies.^[2] In 1939 Rachel Crowdy married Colonel Cudbert John Massy Thornhill, CMG, DSO (4 October 1883 - 1952),^[4] a British Officer of the Indian Army and of The Secret Intelligence Service (MI-6).^[5] In World War II she acted as Regions Advisor to the Ministry of Information, reporting on bomb damage in British cities.

Dame Rachel Crowdy died at her home in Outwood, Surrey on 10 October 1964.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Crowdy-Thornhill papers
• University of Michigan archives
• Info re work at League of Nations

Rachel McAdams
McAdams at the Berlin premiere of Sherlock Holmes in 2010
Born	Rachel Anne McAdams (1978-11-17) November 17, 1978 (age 33) London, Ontario, Canada
Occupation	Actress
Years active	2001–present
Partner	Michael Sheen (2010–present)

Rachel Anne McAdams (born November 17, 1978) is a Canadian actress. After graduating from a four-year theatre program at York University in 2001, McAdams initially worked in Canadian television and film productions such as My Name is Tanino, Perfect Pie (for which she received a Genie Award nomination) and Slings and Arrows (for which she won a Gemini Award). Her first Hollywood movie was the 2002 comedy The Hot Chick. McAdams found fame in 2004 with starring roles in the teen comedy Mean Girls and the romantic drama The Notebook. In 2005, she appeared in the romantic comedy Wedding Crashers, the psychological thriller Red Eye and the family drama The Family Stone. She was hailed by the media as "the new Hollywood it girl"^[1][2] and received a BAFTA nomination for Best Rising Star.

However, McAdams withdrew from public life in 2006 and 2007. During this time, she turned down leading roles in high-profile films such as The Devil Wears Prada. She made a low-key return to work in 2008, starring in two limited release films: the film noir Married Life and the road trip movie The Lucky Ones. She returned to prominence in 2009 with appearances in the political thriller State of Play, the science-fiction romance Time Traveler's Wife, TheThe Time Traveler's Wife and the action-adventure film Sherlock Holmes. McAdams's first star vehicle was the 2010 comedy Morning Glory. In 2011, she starred in Woody Allen's romantic comedy Midnight in Paris and made a cameo appearance in the action-adventure sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. McAdams starred in 2012's romantic drama The Vow, and will next appear in Terrence Malick's To the Wonder and Brian De Palma's Passion.

McAdams lives in the Harbord Village neighborhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She has dated both Ryan Gosling and Josh Lucas and is in a relationship with Michael Sheen. She is an environmentalist.

Early life[link]

Rachel Anne McAdams was born in London, Ontario^[3][4][1][5] and grew up in nearby St. Thomas.^[6] Her mother, Sandra (née Gale), is a nurse, and her father, Lance, is a retired truck driver and furniture mover.^[7] McAdams has two younger siblings: Kayleen, a celebrity make-up artist, and Daniel.^[8] McAdams began figure skating at the age of four^[8][9] but turned down an opportunity to move to Toronto at the age of nine for pairs training.^[8] Skating then became merely "a hobby".^[10] She competed in the sport until the age of 18, winning regional awards.^[6][11][12] She has since said that skating prepared her for physical acting, because it trained her to be "in tune" with her body.^[13]

McAdams was educated at Myrtle Street Public School and, later, Central Elgin Collegiate Institute.^[6][14] She did not enjoy school and, to avoid attending, she often pretended to be sick.^[15] Nonetheless, she played an active role in student life. In addition to playing sports, McAdams served on the student council, participated in the Crimestoppers program and was a member of the Peer Helping Team.^[6] She worked at a McDonalds restaurant during the summer holidays for three years.^[9][16]

McAdams first developed an interest in performing when she was seven and, while her parents didn't discourage her, they didn't "go out and find [her] an agent".^[17] She attended both Disney and Shakespeare summer camps as a child.^[17] From the age of twelve, McAdams appeared in Original Kids Theatre Company, London productions.^[7][18] In her late teens, she directed children's theatre productions.^[9] She was also involved in school stage productions, most notably winning a performance award at the Sears Ontario Drama Festival.^[6][19] She was inspired by a married couple who taught English and Drama respectively in Grades 11 and 12. They gave her a love for the works of Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell and encouraged her to lose her inhibitions when performing.^[19] McAdams intended to take Cultural Studies at university before being persuaded by her Drama teacher that a professional acting career was a viable option.^[6][19][20] She enrolled in York University's four-year theatre program and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts honours degree in 2001.^[18][21] While at university, McAdams worked with the Toronto-based Necessary Angel Theatre Company.^[22]