Braha Habas (1900–1968)

Braha Habas was one of seven children born to a Jewish family in Alytus, Lithuania. Her father, Rabbi Israel Habas, was a passionate Zionist and raised his children to be fluent in both spoken and written Hebrew -- a rare occurrence in that era. In 1908, the family immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine. There Braha completed elementary school and in 1921 graduated from the Women Teachers’ Seminary. In 1924-1925, she taught in the moshav of Kinneret and for a short while at the Women’s Farm at Nahalat Yehuda, where she also worked at the chicken coop. In 1926, seeking to further her education, Habas went to the University of Leipzig, Germany. In 1927, she returned to Palestine and joined the staff of Beit Sefer le-Dugmah, the model elementary school attached to the Women Teachers' Seminary. She worked there for six years, while also writing essays and short stories. In 1931, she co-founded a children’s newspaper in Tel Aviv, which she worked on for more than 25 years, editing, writing editorials, stories, and reports. In 1933, she took a leave from teaching and journalism in order to go to Vienna for further training in childhood education and psychology. In 1935, she was named the only woman member of the editorial board of the Hebrew newspaper Davar, and is today considered Israel's first professional female journalist. At the paper, Habas created and wrote the "Column for New Immigrants." She also served on the editorial board of the Am Oved publishing house. She wrote or edited scores of books, pamphlets and anthologies telling the story of British Palestine, World War II, the Holocaust, illegal immigration, the War of Independence, and the struggling new young nation of Israel. In 1948, together with her husband David Hacohen, a politician and diplomat, she published a book on the Israeli delegation to the Congress of Asian nations held in New Delhi, in which both participated. Habas spent time in Burma while her husband served as the Israeli ambassador, which led her to write several books, including Distant Worlds: Impressions of a Journey to the Far East (1969).