Naomi Frankel
Naomi FrankelIsrael news photo

Beloved Israeli author Naomi Frankel died Friday night at Sheba Medical Center. The 91-year-old writer is to be laid to rest Monday at 2:00 p.m. at the cemetery in Kibbutz Beit Alpha.

Frankel, born in Berlin in 1918, immigrated to Israel in 1934 and in 1956 received an international scholarship to study fascism in Germany.

A student of Jewish History and Kabala at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, she lived on Kibbutz Beit Alpha until 1979, when she began an eight-year stint in the Israeli Navy, serving as a Major in the SEALs (Squadron 13).

Her book "My Beloved Friend" has become a television movie. The trilogy "Saul and Johanna" and "Racheli and the Little Man" were broadcast on the radio. Her stories were published in newspapers and journals, and some of her stories were translated into German as well.

A writer of prose for children and adults, Frankel was awarded a number of prizes, including the 1956 Ruppin Prize, 1962 Ussishkin Award, the Press Award in 1971 and the Neumann Award in 2005. The books for which she is best known and loved include: My Beloved Friend, Wild Flower, A Boy Growing Up on the Banks of the Assi, Racheli and the Little Man, and Morning Star.

Frankel sent a greeting to the residents of Amona last year at the ceremony to lay a cornerstone for the community. "I belong to the people of Amona, I support their struggle and I see mself as one of them. I bless you in the laying of the cornerstone of your house. If they destroy it, build it anew."

In 1982, Frankel and her family moved to Kiryat Arba - Hevron.

After the murder of baby Shalhevet Pas in Hevron, Frankel wrote, "Despite the horrific murder, it did not extinguish the flame that was little Shalhevet. (Shalhevet means little flame in Hebrew -ed.) Immediately after the horrific murder, Yossi Sarid appeared on television and his words implied that the settlement of the Land of Israel is an illusion of Zionism. Sarid is not original. No one has ever heard anyone say after tragic murders that if there were no Jews, they would not be murdered. If so, one would have to say that if the Jews had not come to Israel, they would not be murdered there, and therefore would not have to fight for it at all.

"We have built our country, and we have lived here, in the city of our forefathers. We established beauty here once again. Three generations have already lived in the city of Avraham our patriarch. Little Shalhevet who was murdered, she was a granddaughter to us all. On this day we point a finger at those responsible for the Oslo Accords, and say: Shalhevet was a victim of Oslo, an agreement that placed the Jewish community into a death trap. We mourn the death of little Shalhevet, and we vow not to extinguish the flame in each of our hearts," wrote Naomi Frankel.