Miri Tzachi - She saw beyond her lens

• Author: GREER FAY CASHMAN
• Published date: 29 December 2020
• Date: 29 December 2020
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Unlike most other female photojournalists, she didn't wear jeans and a tank top. The head of the mother of five was always covered with a kerchief and she wore long flowing skirts and dresses which hovered just above her ankles.

Tzachi covered many major news events, but what she was best known for was photographing scenes from Judea and Samaria. Everything interested her and caught her eye – people, flora and fauna, sunsets and moonlight. Nothing eluded her attention and she often saw things that somehow had escaped the line of vision of other photographers.

Her intensive focus on Gush Katif before, during and after the evacuation in August 2005, resulted in a book titled Katif, which has become a heart-rending memoir for those who used to live there.

Although they saw her in other places, both President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were most aware of her when they visited the West Bank. She was always there to capture images of their visits for posterity, and for the many newspapers and magazines which published her photographs.

On learning of her death, Rivlin said that she was beloved and would be sorely missed.

"No visit to the settlements was complete without you," he recalled as if he was speaking to her directly. "I deferred to you every time you would say: 'Hold on a second, Ruvi, there's one more beautiful frame, don't go.' I'm hurting over your loss. You will always be in my heart," said Rivlin.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in sending his condolences to Tzachi's family, lauded "her extraordinary talent for capturing moments and people on camera that many others did not document before her. "

Yamina leader Naftali Bennett tweeted: "Miri was a special soul, a photo-journalist, idealistic, with a huge...