- published: 25 Dec 2011
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Rachel (Hebrew: רָחֵל, Modern Rakhél, Tiberian Rāḥēl) (Arabic: راحيل) was the favorite of Biblical patriarch Jacob's two wives as well as the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, two of the twelve progenitors of the tribes of Israel. The name "Rachel" is from an unused root meaning: "to journey as a ewe that is a good traveller." Rachel was the daughter of Laban and the younger sister of Leah, Jacob's first wife. Rachel was a niece of Rebekah (Jacob's mother), Laban being Rebekah's brother, making Jacob her first cousin.
Rachel is first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible in Genesis 29 when Jacob happens upon her as she is about to water her father's flock. She was the second daughter of Laban, Rebekah’s brother. Jacob had traveled a great distance to find Laban. Rebekah had sent him there to be safe from his furious twin brother, Esau.
During Jacob's stay, Jacob 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". 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. When God “saw that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb”, (Gen 29:31) and she gave birth to four sons.
Rachel Aliene Corrie (April 10, 1979 – March 16, 2003) from Olympia, Washington, was an American activist and diarist. She was a member of the pro-Palestinian group called the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). She was killed by an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) armored bulldozer in a combat zone in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, under contested circumstances during the height of the second Palestinian intifada.
She had come to Gaza as part of her senior-year college assignment to connect her home town with Rafah in a sister cities project. While there, she had engaged with other International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activists in efforts to prevent the Israeli army's demolition of Palestinian houses in operations to eliminate weapons smuggling tunnels.
Less than two months after her arrival, on March 16, 2003, Corrie was killed during an Israeli military operation after a three-hour confrontation between Israeli soldiers operating two bulldozers and eight ISM activists.
You heard of Rachel Coorie?
The press won't tell her story
Caught between a house and bulldozer
She found out that Israel
Hates gardens and it will kill
Americans who help rebuild the Gaza Strip.
Let's pretend that everything will be OK
It's not our fault let's look the other way
And go to films or dance lessons or baseball
games at night
and trust elected leaders to choose right
I hurt for Rachel's father
To bury his young daughter
And her belief in human goodness
He taught her to fight violence
Now all that's left is silence
And the memory of her dignity
Let's pretend...
Rachel I hope you find justice or even a
Garden where anyone can grow some food in peace
No guns, no need to fight. No poor, no black no white,
Heaven, you deserve a break from misery