Shula Cohen-Kishik

Shulamit Arazi Cohen

To me, a hero is someone who gives up everything that they have for someone else. Shula Cohen is a hero to me because she risked her comfortable, social lifestyle to become a spy to help save the Jews from being attacked.

Shulamit Arazi Cohen was born in Argentina in 1920. She grew up with an older brother named David, a mother, and a father who were traders by profession. A few years later, Shula's father, and her brother David were killed by separate actions by the Palestinian Guerillas and her mother died a year after. At the age of fifteen, the respective rabbis had arranged Shula to marry a wealthy Jewish trader named Josef Kishik who traveled all the way from Beirut to marry her. Another few years later, Shula over heard that the Arabs were going to attack and kill the Jews in Jerusalem. She knew that this was serious business and that's why she became a spy for Jerusalem and started sending them secret messages to them. A few years later in 1961, after being a spy for fourteen years, she was arrested and sent to prison. After interrogating her for hours, the police would torture and abuse her until she would tell them who she was sending the secret messages to. But she never told them and she was sentenced to death, but was then later commuted to twenty years in jail. In 1967, Shula was released in a secret prisoner exchange after the Six Day War and was allowed to return home to Jerusalem. Shula now lives a quiet life in Jerusalem's oldest neighborhood called Mea Shearim.

Shulamit Cohen being honored (www.hadassahinternational.org)

Shula Cohen is a very brave and intelligent woman and spy. She was honored by Yitzhak Navon's wife at the President's house for her services to the Jewish people. Shula is very respected by everyone in Jerusalem and in America for what she has done for her people and how she treats them with kindness and respect.

Shula Cohen inspires me and a lot of other people to do the right thing. She has helped a lot of people and she inspires me to help other people that are in trouble. I look up to her because she does a lot for people and risked everything that she had to do the right thing. After millions of other people reading her story, they have also made Shula Cohen their hero as well.