Rachel was born to Samuel and Talia Hirsch in the ancient city of Ein Gedi, located on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. She is the cousin of Nava Meir. The Hirsch family relocated to Jerusalem soon after Nava’s family moved there. Rachel has one younger brother, Jakob. Nava is two years older than Rachel and five years older than Jakob. They grew up in the same neighborhood and attended the same schools.

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Samuel was an airline pilot for El Al Airways, and Talia worked for the Combat Intelligence Collection Corps, serving in the Search and Rescue Division of the Israeli Defense Force. As their jobs kept them away from home for long periods, Rachel grew up very self-reliant. Nava’s parents became her and Jakob’s surrogate family. It was Nava’s parents who influenced Rachel to become a Messianic Jew. At first her parents objected, then relented as they saw how important her faith had become.

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Rachel stood out in appearance from her brother and other family members in that she had curly blond hair. As a child, he disliked the curls and tried to have them straightened. Her hair would not cooperate. Eventually she grew to embrace them. She thought they made her unique. And while being unique as a child can have its drawbacks, she embraced it.

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She was a rambunctious child, climbing every tree she could find, hiking every trail she came upon. She reveled in the Old City, especially crawling among the fallen stones of the ancient Western Wall, strewn there by the Romans when conquering Jerusalem 2000 years earlier. She enjoyed exploring the remnants of the Acra fortress, a structure dating to the time of Antiochus IV, king of the Seleucid Empire in the first century BC. She delighted in exploring the ancient Siloam Channel, which preceded the famed Hezekiah’s Tunnel by several centuries. It was here, as a child, that she first developed a love for archaeology. It would set the course for her career, as well as her younger brother Jakob. He fell in love with the past because Rachel made exploring it so much fun. Nava fell in love with the past because Rachel made it so exciting. Little did they know that the three of them would one day become an archaeological force to be reckoned with.

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While Rachel was not particularly gifted as an athlete, she had one feature that set her apart: Endurance. She could seemingly run forever. Jakob tried to keep up for a year or so but was no match. She ran mostly for recreation, but occasionally ran competitively. Her favorite race was the grueling Tiberias Marathon, a 26-mile course along the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. She completed it in three hours, fifty-seven minutes. All told, an excellent time for an amateur. She often said that “When I pray, I talk to God. When I run, God talks to me.” It was a mantra she maintained her entire life. And while she enjoyed annoying her young brother Jakob, in all honesty, she considered him one of the finest men she had ever known.

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She dated many boys in high school, but none seriously. She was more interested in running and maintaining a small collection of artifacts she collected from nearby digs. According to the Antiquities Law of 1978, any artifact, coin, or biological remains created after 1700 CE belonged automatically to the State of Israel. In fact, anyone who stumbles upon such an item has 15 days to report it to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). At age 16, with help from Nava’s father, who was a major general in the military, she established a private company she called “Rachel’s Relics.” The government agreed to extend the mandatory 15-day reporting requirement to 90 days. She soon became one of the city’s most respected Avocational Archeologists, contributing many relics, primarily from the City of David, just south of the Old City walls, and from the Ophel, near the Temple Mount. This site served as a royal acropolis and pilgrimage route throughout antiquity, making it rife with interesting finds.

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 While serving her mandatory two-year stint in the Israeli military, she joined the Caracal Company, as her mother and cousin Nava had done. While actual combat duty is rare for female soldiers in Israel, she signed up as a combat instructor. She was assigned to the K-9 unit, and twice called up to accompany her dogs not only to the sites of disaster zones, but in actual rescue missions in the enemy territories in Gaza and Lebanon, where they helped extract terrorists from fortified hideouts. She found that marching with the same weight and pace as some of the strongest men in the IDF was extremely empowering.

 

The only man Rachel dated seriously was Raphael Weissman. He was a soldier in the Israeli military, a decorated hero of several skirmishes on the Israeli-Lebanese border. He was fatally wounded by a barrage of militant rockets fired into the city of Ashdod. Rachel went into a period of mourning for her fallen love, but reconciled herself to the fact that death was a constant companion in Israel.

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      At age 20, following in her cousin Nava's footsteps, Rachel entered Hebrew University and graduated with honors in Anthropology, with a concentration in archeology. By this time, Nava was employed at Bruder Antiquities. Bruder himself was well aware of Rachel’s enterprising background and welcomed her on board. She distinguished herself quickly as one of Bruder’s most capable employees. She was recognized nationally for her role in recovering more than 200 historical artifacts that thieves and unlicensed antiquities dealers in Judea and Samaria had illegally obtained. A joint operation between Bruder Antiquities and the Israeli Civil Administration was conducted. This bust became known as the Judean Desert Raids. In it, they recovered artifacts from the Davidian era, including the purported crown of Israel’s first king, Saul. For their assistance, David Bruder and Rachel received Honorary Membership in the Zionist Council of Jerusalem and were presented with organizational medals. David was elated.

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Along with her brother Jakob and cousin Nava, Rachel Hirsch was destined for great things. Great things indeed.