Kibbutz Volunteer ‘Adopted’ By Shuli Katz Reads About Her Murder In ‘The Bulletin’

Last Wednesday, The Bulletin sadly reported that Shuli Katz, murdered by a missile fired from Gaza, was buried on her kibbutz, Gvaram, where she had worked as a nurse for more than 30 years. Ms. Katz was about to celebrate her 70th birthday with her four children and five grandchildren.

At the funeral, people spoke about how Ms. Katz had warmly “adopted” volunteers who came to help out on the kibbutz, and that Ms. Katz treated each of these volunteers like one of her own children.

Indeed, on the day after the funeral, an e-mail was received from a Bulletin reader who had been a volunteer on Kibbutz Gvaram after the 1973 Yom Kippur war and who had been “adopted” by Ms. Katz. The distraught reader learned about Ms. Katz’s murder in The Bulletin and wanted to know how she could get in touch with Ms. Katz’s family to express her condolences. The Bulletin promptly put the reader in touch with Ms. Katz’s family, who are now observing the Jewish tradition of one week of mourning.

Since Ms. Katz “adopted” at least one or two foreign volunteers each year, there may be between 35 and 50 people somewhere who remember Ms. Katz as their “kibbutz mother.” The Bulletin has sent out a query to more than 100 newspapers around the world to try to locate volunteers who came to and helped out at Kibbutz Gvaram over the past 35 years, to find others who were “adopted” by Ms. Katz and to ask them to write a few words about her so that Shuli Katz will not be just another media statistic.

David Bedein can be reached at Media@actcom.co.il. His Web site is www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com

©The Bulletin 2008