Public lifeרחה פריאר

Recha Freier

Recha Freier was a teacher, poet and activist who founded the Youth Aliyah organization, which helped Jewish children leave Nazi Germany for Mandatory Palestine.

1892 to 1984Founding Youth AliyahRescuing Jewish youth from Nazi GermanyThe Testimonium music festival

Born: 29 October 1892, Norden
Died: 2 April 1984, Jerusalem
Occupation: teacher, educator, poet, writer
Founded: Mifʻal le-hakhsharat yalde Yiśraʼel (1943), Youth Aliyah (1933)

Recha Freier was born in 1892 in Norden

Recha Schweitzer was born in 1892 in Norden, Germany, to an Orthodox Jewish family. Her father taught at a Jewish school and her mother taught French and English. In 1897 the family moved to Silesia, where she faced antisemitism at school.

She finished her secondary studies in Breslau and qualified as a teacher. She also studied philology in Breslau and Munich.

In 1919 she married Rabbi Moritz Freier and moved with him to Eschwege, Sofia and Berlin. They had three sons and a daughter. In Sofia she taught and founded a local WIZO branch.

In 1932 she began sending Jewish teenagers from Berlin to train in Jewish workers' settlements in Palestine, which became Youth Aliyah. In 1938 she used 100 permits without approval to free Jewish prisoners from camps and was removed from her post. In 1940 she crossed illegally into Yugoslavia and reached Palestine in 1941.

In 1943 she founded a center that placed children from poor families in kibbutzim and workers' settlements. She later founded the Israel Composers' Fund and the Testimonium festival and wrote libretti. She received the Israel Prize in 1981 and died in Jerusalem in 1984.