Rachel Nattiv

December 18,1926 – May 1, 2022 Rachel Nattiv is a beautiful soul who has an amazing legacy of love, compassion, and service. She was born in Jerusalem, Israel in 1926 to her parents Reuven and Tova Greenberg. From her mother’s side, she is tenth generation Israeli, while her father was born in Romania.  Rachel had two brothers with whom she was very close, an older brother David, and younger brother Yitzhak. They lived in the center of Jerusalem. Rachel received her early education in Israel, partly at a French-speaking school. She became a freedom fighter in the Israeli army, along with her two brothers. Her fiancée, Avshalom Haviv, was one of three freedom fighters who was captured and executed by the British in 1947. The love letters between them, under her code name of Gila, are prominent at the Underground Prisoners Museums in Acre, Israel, as well as in Jerusalem. After Israel achieved independence, Rachel became executive assistant to the Minister of Education, where she met Elisha Nattiv, who also worked there. They fell in love, married and flew to India where Elisha had won a Ph.D. scholarship to study comparative religions. Their first daughter, Amalya, was conceived then, and Rachel flew back to Jerusalem to give birth. Elisha subsequently studied for the rabbinate at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. Rachel took the courses with him, though this was before women could be ordained. Their first congregation was back in Mumbai, India, where daughter Aurelia was born. Then in 1963 they came to Temple Shalom in West Covina, California until retiring in 1994. Rachel Nattiv’s remarkable life spanning 95 years was centered around her work for over thirty years as a rebbetzin at Temple Shalom, West Covina, alongside her husband Rabbi Elisha Nattiv, as well as being a dedicated and loving mother to her two daughters, Amalya and Aurelia. Rachel was principal of the religious school at Temple Shalom. She earned many awards from the Jewish Federation and other Jewish organizations for innovative educational approaches and was beloved over the years by thousands of students. She was a leader in Jewish Marriage Encounter with her husband. Spirituality, family and creativity were central to her. Rachel took charge of the educational aspects for the children and adults of the congregations. She earned her Master’s degree in Education in order to be more effective, implementing avant-garde methodologies to infuse studies with spirituality, fun, and active learning strategies. Many children of the congregation called Mrs. Nattiv their second mother. She had strong, loving maternal instincts.  Rachel and Rabbi Elisha Nattiv led the Jewish Marriage Encounter for many years. For the last thirty years Rachel was a member of the GraceLight meditation community and after her husband’s passing she became active locally at Temple Ami Shalom where she especially loved the musical leadership of Cantor Mike Sirota. Rachel was an accomplished artist in Chinese brush painting, in oils, and in watercolor, and also received many art awards, and her paintings were featured in local art museums. She loved her art teacher for over 20 years, Kelly Conte, and her artist community, as well as in her later years her loving caregivers.  Upon retiring, Rachel became more involved in multiple, ongoing weekly art classes, which she continued until a few weeks before her passing. She meditated daily, attended weekly Zoom GraceLight meditations as well as several meditation retreats every year. She loved music, dancing and singing. She played the accordion and the keyboard. She led singing at various venues throughout her life, and taught and participated in Israeli dancing. She was a sportswoman, a vegetarian, and remained limber all her life from a lifetime of yoga. She had a delightful sense of humor. She was loving, kind, generous and humble. As life became more difficult toward the end, Rachel wanted to stay on Earth to be a light, an instrument for the Divine, and to pray for goodness in the world. Rachel is survived by her daughter, Dr. Amalya Nattiv Pomerantz, retired educator and university administrator, by her daughter, Dr. Aurelia Nattiv, Professor at UCLA in the areas of sports medicine and osteoporosis, by her sons-in-law, David Pomerantz, spiritual teacher, and Joel S. Oiknine, attorney, and by her sister-in-law, Dr. Aharona Strahilevitz, retired psychiatrist, and her husband Meir and children Lior (law professor) and his family (Joanna, Eli and Iris) and Michal (marketing professor), and by her grandchildren Franchesca S. Oiknine, student at the University of Arizona, grandchildren Aaron Pomerantz (corporate real estate executive, and wife Irina Dline), and Eva Pomerantz (academic director and professor, and husband Duane Kimme); great grandchildren Anika and Ross Kimme, as well as by children of her brothers, Shimshon, Dalia, Nurit, Doron and Edna, (33 members of the Greenberg side of the family) The funeral service will be held at Mount Sinai Memorial Park, 5950 Forest Lawn Drive, North Hollywood, CA, 90068 (mountsinaiparks.org) on Monday, May 9 at 11:30 am with a livestream link available. Subsequently a memorial service will be held the following Sunday, May 15 at 9 am with Zoom link, both available through request at Nattiv33@gmail.com. In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to GraceLight Meditation through Nattiv33@gmail.com or planting trees in Rachel’s memory through www.alivingtribute.org or www.shiva.com/trees-in-Israel/jnf