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[Page 577]
[Page 578]
by Baruch Katzenelbogen (Bar Tikva)
Translated by Sara Mages
Among the forty thousand Jewish families in Lutsk, the city on the banks of the Styr River in Poland before the destruction of Europe, stood one house, unique in its kind and character, that bore the name “A good Jewish home” (a gute Yidishe shtub).
Indeed, this house didn't earn such a title for nothing, because the family of Rabbi Katzenelbogen was a descendant of righteous men of name and deed - the grandchildren of Baal Shem Tov the creator of the Hasidut on one side, and the grandchildren of Baal HaTanya [Rebbe Shneur Zalman] the founder of Chabad on the other side. The forefathers of the Hasidic movement in the nation - were its forefathers.
Together with the genealogical line of this family, of the old Admor and his only son, the young Admor, which continues for generations upon generations, the same noble virtues with which their ancestors were blessed passed to them by “inheritance.” This family mainly excelled in the love of Israel, in the love of mankind, every human being created in the image…
When R' Yosef David zt”l, grandfather of the writer of these columns, came to Lutsk he built his own house and also a large synagogue next to it on Karaimska Street. Dozens of Hasidim, learners, “idlers” and simple Jews came to this house, ate his bread and slept on the synagogue's benches …
My grandfather and my father zt”l, also spent the days, including the nights, within the walls of Beit HaMidrash, sitting and studying the Torah, each in his own way. My father z”l invested the full sharpness of his mind in Nigleh[1], while my grandfather engaged in Nistar[2]… in the Zohar and Kabala books. They said about him that the Nistar was Nigleh to him…
In 1914, with the outbreak of the First World War, the members of the Katzenelbogen family left Lutsk against their will and fled to Russia as war refugees. My grandfather z”l - to Odessa while my father z”l, with the family, wandered to Northern Russia and from there, several years later, they also came to Odessa.
However, as fate would have it, the name of my grandfather and honored father z”l remains closely associated with the memory of the city of Lutsk to this day. In all their wanderings, they “didn't change their name” - wherever they appeared, their reputation preceded them: “the Rabbi of Lutsk!” as abroad so also in Israel.
In 5688, my grandfather z”l emigrated from Odessa to Eretz Yisrael and settled in Tel Aviv. He built his house on 9 HaAri Street and inside it a synagogue where many of the former residents of Lutsk belonging to these circles were concentrated.
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His Hasidim-admirers know to tell, that many of the “great Sages of Odessa,” residents of the city from which he immigrated to Israel, helped him to build his house. They marveled at his courage and the spirit of pioneering that pulsed in him, since he left his only son, whom he loved, him and his home, and immigrated to Israel for the sanctification of God's name! Therefore, they helped him in whatever he asked for.
It is being told, that once my grandfather z”l came to Hayim Nahman Bialik z”l and told him that R' Meir Dizengoff[3] gave an order to allocate bricks for the building of his house, but the question is, how to transport the material to the construction site when he doesn't have his own transportation. To this the great national poet told him: “don't worry, my master and teacher, it will be fine!” And indeed, the next day a large convoy of student from the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium arrived and each carried a quota of bricks on his shoulder…
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And again, the same Hasidim say that at the ceremony of laying the cornerstone for this house, prominent figures from the population were present, among them: Ahad Ha'am[4], Bialik, Dizengoff and others. My grandfather z”l was asked by them to say Divrei Torah[5], so he quoted from parashat haShavua: “As for your infants, of whom you said that they will be as spoils, they will come and inherit the earth” and added: “The young generation, despite the great grace that is in it, will have the privilege of building the country.”
The words were very pleasing to those present because they enjoyed hearing Zionist words from the old Admor. And this had a wide echo also among the entire population. The Chief Rabbi, Maran Kook zt”l, brought my grandfather closer and respected him. In 5695, according to the demand of HaRav Kook zt”l, my parents also came to Eretz Yisrael.
The love of Zion was also great to my parents. I remember that before they left for Israel, one of my father's Hasidim, of the elders of the community, said: “after all, we believe in the coming of the Messiah, and what is the point of immigrating to Israel before the coming of the Redeemer?” My father answered him wisely: “Instead of accompanying the Messiah to Israel, it is preferable to go out to meet him”…
In 5695, my grandfather zt”l passed away old and full of days and was granted that his only son will accompany him in his last journey. A large crowd of Hasidim accompanied him to eternal rest on Mount of Olives, Jerusalem.
My father z”l, who was raised and educated by my grandfather, followed in the ways of his ancestors. Many gathered around him, all of them, as one, respected him and even loved him for his great wisdom and his good heart which had in it from the measure of kindness of Avraham Avinu…
My honored mother z”l, the Rebbetzin of the house of the Rabbi of Lutsk, Mrs. Ester-Feiga may she rest in peace, was also endowed with many exalted virtues and, above all, the virtue of hospitality. The house was always wide open, in the sense of “anyone who is hungry is welcome to come to my home.” The yeshivot students in Jerusalem, who still come to this house to this day, tell about the days when a yeshiva student had to go to Tel Aviv he didn't have to worry about where he would sleep. He knew that there is an address… 9 HaAri Street, with the Rabbi and the Rebbetzin of Lutsk where he would find food, lodging and above all - a parental warm and cordial attitude…
In the years 5703-5704, one by one, my parents passed away, the Rabbi and the Rebbetzin (20 Second Adar, 17 Tishrei) - the last in the family tree of the Admor of Lutsk. A large crowd of Hasidim, admirers and friend came to accompany them to eternal rest on Mount of Olives, Jerusalem, next to the graves of my grandfather and grandmother z”l.
HaRav Levi HaLevi Grossman, the loyal friend of my honored father z”l, said among others in his obituary: “There are two types of chalutzim in Jewish tradition and both are completely different according to their content and essence: There is a chalutz who refuses to perpetuate his brother's name in Israel. Therefore, he extricates himself from the camp and is called in the biblical language: Beit chalutz hana'al [he who had the shoe removed]. And there is a chalutz “who arrives first to pave the way for those who come after him,” who gives his soul and all that he has for the sanctification of God's name, the nation and the country, like the sons of Gad and Reuven. Even though they have established themselves in their place of residence, in the East Bank of the Jordan River, had a lot of livestock and property, they abandoned their wives and children and left at the head of the camp to fight God's war and conquer the land for their brothers. The deceased was of the second type of chalutz, as was the way of his ancestors, he left his sons and his only daughter, whose souls were bound in his soul, in foreign country, in the Diaspora, and ascended to the Holy Land!”
Details about my honored father z”l, accompanied by his photo, were published in the book, Anshei Shem (world religious lexicon) published in Israel in 5007.
After the passing of the Rabbi of Lutsk, Rabbi Avraham zt”l, a group of his friends-admirers, of the trustees of house of the Rabbi of Lutsk, headed by HaRav HaGaon R' Levi HaLevi Grossman and HaRav HaGaon R' Mordechai Shreibman - took it upon themselves to guard the “Lutsker” ember from going out.
And indeed, the house named after the Rabbi of Lutsk zt”l continued to be a place of prayer and Torah throughout the years.
In 1947, the young son of the Admor of Lutsk, the writes these columns, managed to arrive in Israel, as his road to Zion passed through detention camps, the steppes of Siberia and the deserts of Kazakhstan for over ten years - as a prisoner of Zion.
To his great sorrow, he didn't find his ancestors alive, but he still had the time to prostrate on their graves on Mount of Olives, Jerusalem.
The son settled in his parents' house and he is keeping the spiritual inheritance left to him by his ancestors - the synagogue named after the Rabbi of Lutsk zt'l.
And so, in the State of Israel, in the city of Tel Aviv, on 9 HaAri Street, there is a living monument in memory of the city of Lutsk.
Translator's footnotes:
by Shalom Rosenfeld, Israel
Translated by Sara Mages
Lutsk, a Jewish metropolis, was privileged that among its sons was the first Jew who was hanged by the British in Eretz Yisrael and thereby became a symbol of a warrior generation
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Lutsk, a Jewish metropolis, was privileged that one of its sons - a man of toil who from the dawn of his youth worked hard to support his poor family, a man of dreams who even in his dire poverty never stopped believing in a bright future for his people, a man of action who with great love went through all the torments of a young Zionist in the Diaspora, ma'apil[1] to Eretz Yisrael and a halutz [pioneer] in Upper Galilee - Lutsk was privileged that one of its sons was the first harbinger of the rebellion on a foreign kingdom.
Twenty years have passed since the executioner tightened the rope around Shalom Tabacznik's (Shlomo Ben-Yosef) neck in Acre Prison.
In those days the nation was divided - sometimes to the point of intense mutual hatred - in assessing the political and security events on whose background the affair of Shlomo Ben-Yosef took place, starting with the daring romantic “adventure” in the mountains of Rosh Pina and ending with the epic heroism in the shadow of the gallows.
Today, when we all stand above and beyond the real and imaginary hatreds of those days, today, when we all have the correct historical perspective for seeing the events of the past, harsh arguments and petty quarrels are forgotten from the heart, and through the curtain of the past stands out the radiant figure of the Jewish youth from Lutsk who went to die for his ideals with great heroism and a song on his lips.
Do you still remember Pilsudski Street in Lutsk, the Jewish poverty Street? Do you remember the meager shacks, the shabby and crooked old wooden houses?
There, in one of these houses, on 54 Pilsudski Street, Shalom was born on 7 May 1913 to his father Yakov Yosef and his mother Rachel Tabachnik. In vain, we will look for special adventures, or unusual events, in Shalom's short life. In this respect he was a typical representative of Jewish poverty. One of tens of thousands of and humble young Jews, whose life of poverty didn't distort their souls and didn't lower their national stature.
Shalom Tabacznik's father, R' Yakov Yosef, barely made a living from his hard work as a night watchman at the flour mill. He was a God-fearing and humble Jew who accepted his suffering with love. His wife, Rachel, a smart and hard working woman - a member of the generation that saw the horrors of war and pogroms, was bound by enthusiasm and faith to Jewish tradition and the Jewish people, and the yiddishkeyt[2] was the supreme goal of her life.
Shall we tell the biography of Shlomo Ben-Yosef?
No. Until that daring act in Rosh Pina - when he left together with two other young men from the Betar[3] recruitment company, Avraham Shein and Shalom Zurabin, to attack an Arabic bus as a response to the barbaric murder of six Jews on the Acre-Safed road - Shlomo had no “biography” that would distinguish him, for better or for worse, from many young Zionists in Lutsk or other cities in Wolyn. Heder Metukan[4], poor secular education, Zionist youth movement (member of Betar), hakhshara[5], years of waiting for a “certificate[6],” nights of daydreams about Eretz Yisrael in the ken[7], and finally, ha'apala[8] to Eretz Yisrael.
But, even if he was no different from thousands of others, it is still impossible not to mention the fundamental character trait that distinguished Shalom Tabacznik: his loyalty and integrity that left no possibility, no opening, for something unreal, to something fake in his belief.
I said: even in this he was no different from many thousands in his movement, and in other Zionist youth movements - in this wonderful greenhouse of dreamers, fighters, pioneers, ma'apilim and rebels against the Polish Diaspora of those days. Nevertheless, character traits stood out in him to such an extent that they were an inseparable part of his personality. With the same “obvious” naturalness he swept every evening the floor of ken Betar in his city. He drew water or chopped wood in the Hakhshara in Shumsk, worked a hard physical labor in Rozhyshche, Kozyn and Lachowicze. He abandoned his elderly mother in order to immigrate to Israel, volunteered for the grueling quarry work in Rosh Pina - as he later walked to the gallows in Acre.
Never, he never got out of any duty, any action, any work - even the unpleasant, even the most difficult.
I saw him that way in ken Betar in Lutsk - although other townspeople are surely more qualified than me to bring evidence of this period in the life
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of Shalom Tabacznik: I saw him that way in the Betar company in Rosh Pina in which I had the unforgettable privilege to be his commander, and in this loyalty, loyalty that knows no bounds, loyalty that gives the man the power to defeat death, the last time I saw him in the death row cell in Acre Prison on my last visit to him.
If so, the great biography of Shalom (when he arrived in to Rosh Pina he called himself, for reasons of conspiracy, Shlomo Ya'akovi and later Shlomo Ben-Yosef) actually starts on Thursday 21 April 1938, when he, and two of his friends, leave to attack the Arabic bus in the mountains of Rosh Pina. They are captured by the British police, and at the very moment of their capture they proudly and firmly announce “we did what we did because we wanted to be hanged, to shock the Israeli youth and encourage them to go to the mountains.”
Shalom Tabacznik Ben-Yosef that his Zionism - is the Zionism which was supposedly embedded in his blood from the dawn of his childhood - was understood by him as rebellion against existing, a rebellion on the Diaspora, a rebellion on the degrading conditions of the ghetto, a rebellion against the tradition of reconciliation with pogroms - was shocked to the depths of his soul by the bloody events that took place in the country in those days, and especially by the brutal pogrom that Arab rioters inflicted on the six bus passengers on the road Acre-Safed road. About a month before his desperate and daring act, he wrote to a friend: “I have no patience to write, I am now under the impression of the mass murder of Safed, and we?… for now just reading the newspaper…”
Shlomo Ben-Yosef, and his two friends, who didn't know that in those very days several attempts had already been made by their friends in the Betar company to respond to the act of murder, attempts that ended in failure - refused to be satisfied with “reading the newspaper” and embarked on a partisan operation that also ended in failure.
They were caught and brought before a military court. One (Shalom Zurabin) managed to escape from hanging by pretending to be insane. The second (Avraham Shein) was sentenced to death, but due of his young age the gallows was replaced with life imprisonment, while Shlomo Ben-Yosef, the tall and robust, big and wide, was condemned to be hanged “until his soul departs” (according to the traditional wording of the British judgment). From the moment Shlomo Ben-Yosef was dressed in the crimson clothes of the condemned to death and was placed in the gallows cell in Acre Prison - he reconciled with the idea that the Providence supposedly chose him to be the first Jew to be hanged in the Eretz Yisrael.
Stormy demonstrations were held throughout the country, the Jewish Diaspora raged, personalities, and Jewish and non-Jewish institutions, all over the world “moved heaven and earth” so that the death sentence would be changed to the young Jew in prison - but the only one who wasn't moved, wasn't sad, and didn't protest was prisoner number 3118 - Shlomo Ben-Yosef.
Didn't he fear death? Was he tired of life?
Nonsense.
How a strong young man, imbued with lofty ideals and lust for life is not afraid of death? For sure Ben-Yosef wanted to live. The will to live throbbed in him with the same intensity it throbs in each and every person.
But Shlomo Ben-Yosef overcame his fear of death, and defeated death itself by the power of his deep belief in his ideal.
As mentioned, Shalom Tabacznik didn't have a broad education. He didn't have enough time in his life to read many books. But, he had an unusual inner intelligence and historical sense or, at least, the sense of destiny involved in his viewpoint.
Take the notes he wrote on torn pages that he tore from the library books in Acre, take the inscriptions he engraved on the wall in his death cell, take the many sayings he sounded in the ears of his visitors in the last days of his life.
How much innocent faith is in them? How much wisdom of life! How much loyalty to the ideal and its topics.
And how much heroism.
In primitive Hebrew, in poor style he gives expression to his most hidden feelings and thoughts: “Death against a homeland - is zero”; “What is a homeland? - it is something for which it is worth living, fighting and also dying”; “Tomorrow I am going to die. Despite that, I am happy. Why? Because I worked ten years for the sublime idea whose name is home.” “I believe that after my death they wouldn't hold back.” Or, in his letter to his mother (from Acre, June 1938): “I advise you to try as much as possible not to be sorry and to try to forget me. And if you remember me, be proud of me, because other Jewish children ended their lives in a much more disgraceful and tragic way. For my part, I am very proud and accept everything with pride and a happy heart… I tell you one more time, don't worry about me, because I don't worry at all either and I am very, very happy… A special greeting to ken Betar in Lutsk, I am very sorry that I cannot write them separately. I am sure that they will work harder and harder in favor of our lofty idea called: Medinat Ha'Yehudim [The Jewish State].
In his simple, straightforward and instinctive perception, this young man from Lutsk understood that a nation's liberation war demands sacrifices, that a political plan is not just a literary work, but a life imperative that require fulfillment, and that sometimes life itself is the price that must be paid for fulfillment.
And how he, Shalom Tabacznik, stood in the face of death! I visited him several times in the last days of his life, and I can never forget his peace of mind, the genuine smile that constantly hovered on his face, and the fire of faith that burnt within him.
I no longer remember how another Lutsker, Buki Ganziuk, happened to be in Acre on my last visit to Ben-Yosef. He knew Ben-Yosef well from ken Betar in Lutsk. It is possible that we came on that day together, in Buki's taxi.
We both stood, Buki and I, by the iron door and the words choked in our throats. We knew that this is the last-last visit - that we would never see Shlomo Ben-Yosef again.
Buki, the strong man, struggled with the tears that choked him and only uttered two words: “Well, Shalom…” He couldn't say more than that. Ben-Yosef saw us in our embarrassment. “What does it have to do with?” He laughed. “I am very happy. Believe me. All my life I dreamed of Eretz Yisrael and for action for Eretz Yisrael…”
The cruel clock is advancing at breakneck speed. Every minute that passes shortens Shlomo Ben-Yosef's life by one minute.
And now the British sergeant is looking at his watch. The time allotted for this last interview has passed.
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Shalom Tabechnik continues to calm us: “Don't worry about me. Everything will be fine. I will not embarrass the firm, I will do it better than that sheikh “ (I no longer remember sheikh's name, but in those days an Arabic sheikh aroused admiration for his heroism before he was hanged to death)…
And all the time he is smiling, shalom.
We are moving. Suddenly Buki Ganziuk jumps to the iron gate, grabs Ben-Yosef's hand and starts kissing it. A kiss, another kiss, and one more, with devotion, love and admiration and warm tears flow. The bony hand, Bucky's strong hands and one of Shlomo Ben-Yosef - this is the hand in which blood will not flow tomorrow.
There was something shocking, horrifying, in this picture. Even the British sergeant can no longer hide his excitement and tears.
We stayed fifteen minutes in this last visit to Shlomo Ben-Yosef. Twenty one hours less fifteen minutes left for him to live.
The miracle that we had hoped for on that night of horrors, the last night of our dear friend, didn't happen. The angry protests of the masses - in Tel Aviv, Warsaw, New York and other Jewish centers - didn't help. Appeals by important personalities to the British Minister of Colonies were of no avail. The last-minute measures taken by educated lawyers in Jerusalem and London didn't help.
The sentence was not commuted and on the next day, when we came, six members of Betar from Rosh Pina, Dr. Shimshon Unichman (the commander of the recruiting companies in the Galilee) and I, we already found the routine confirmation of the execution on the prison door:
“Certificate of execution of a judgment on Shlomo Yakov
Ben-Yosef from Rosh Pina in the Central Prison in Acre,
at eight o'clock in our presence -The district officer, prison inspector, medical
officer, police officer, police inspector.”
And next to it also the doctor's confirmation:
“I, Dr. Shihda, a government doctor in Acre, confirm hereby
that today I examined the body of prisoner number 3118,
Shlomo Yakov Ben-Yosef from Rosh Pina, and found that the
aforementioned was dead and the cause of his death, in my
opinion, was death by hanging. The hanged was healthy.”
June 29, 1938.
We took the body of our friend wrapped in a sheet, and through a heavy guard of British soldiers and policemen, who blocked all the entrances to Acre and Rosh Pina, we brought Shlomo Ben-Yosef' to a Jewish grave in Rosh Pina.
A heavy mourning descended on the masses of Jews. But - according to what eyewitnesses tell - great was the grief and rage in Jewish Lutsk, the city of Shlomo Ben-Yosef. In her small house, on Pilsudski Street, an old mother sobbed in tears…
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From all over the country of Poland Shlomo Ben-Yosef''s friends to the idea came to comforted and encouraged her. “My son, my dear son, Shlomke…why did they steal you from me” - cries the mother.
Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the leader of Betar, whom Shlomo Ben-Yosef admired so much that he carried his name on his lips in his walk to the gallows, sent the following letter to the bereaved mother (I am quoting in Yiddish, the original language of the letter):
Dear Mrs. Tabachnik,I didn't deserve that such a noble soul as your son will die with
my name on his lips.But as long as it is still destined to live in me, his name will live
in my country. And his students, more than mine, will be the
guides of a generation .With deep respect,
Ze'ev Jabotinsky
And the wonderful Jewish mother- so tells the emissary who brought Jabotinsky's letter to the mother - wiped her tears and said with a heavy sigh: “If I had known that my Shlomke is the last sacrifice for the sake of redemption, it would have been easier for me to bear my sorrow.”
“Her Shlomke” was not the last sacrifice for the sake of redemption. The Jewish people sacrificed - after the Ben-Yosef affair - thousands of heroes and millions of martyrs for the sake of redemption.
But, the name of the young man from Lutsk will forever be preserved in Israel's national pantheon, as the first to go to the gallows in his homeland with unparalleled courage and dedication.
Translator's footnotes:
Translated by Sara Mages
From his biography
Yitzhak Nul z”l was born on 17 Tevet 5667 (3 January 1907) in a small town in Wolyn named Bormel, to his father Yekutiel and his mother Shifra.
In 1915, the Nul family moved to Lutsk, and Yitzhak, who was about ten year old, entered to the fourth class of the Russian Gymnasia in the city. The gymnasium principal praised the boy highly for his diligence in his studies. At the same time, he studied at “Tarbut” school and also there excelled in his studies. At the age of sixteen and a half he graduated from the gymnasia with honors.
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At that time he joined his father in his travels to the forests, but he didn't persevere in that because he was already drawn to the group of halutzim [pioneers] in the city with the decision in his heart to make an aliya to Eretz Yisrael. In 5684 (1924), he made an aliya to Israel.
His first job was in Ben Shemen. From Ben Shemen he moved to Gedera and joined Havurat HaDarom [Company of the South]. He worked with them for about six months and returned to Ben Shemen to work in Herzl Forest. In 1927, he came to Kibbutz Degania. In 1929 returned to Ben Shemen. Due to the need to help his parents, who were still in the Diaspora, he left Ben Shemen, moved to Jerusalem and worked in construction at the university. In 1931, returned to Degania and remained there to his last day.
In 1939, when the aviation movement began, Yitzhak attended a flight course held by the Aviron[1] Company and was among its best students.
He was among those who carried the burden of the farm and the society in Degania. He was also active in the Haganah and more than once volunteered for missions outside the kibbutz.
On 18 May 1948, he left at the head of a platoon for a battle in Zemach. A bullet hit him and in his retreat he managed to get close to Degania. He was found dead not far from the kibbutz fence and in his hand a bandage with which he had bandaged his wounded leg. He left a wife and four children.
To his image
- - - with a pickaxe and a hoe he worked from early morning until evening. He dug among the rocks of the mountains and was always proud of the amount of work he accomplished during the day. On rainy days he worked for the farmers in the nearby settlements and everyone wanted to win him, because they knew that Yitzchak will fulfill the task given to him. He was in Ben Shemen for several years, and one day took a backpack and left for a trip to the Galilee and the Jordan Valley. When he returned he immediately said: I will no longer stay in Judea - I will go to work in Dagenia. In 1947, he left for to Dagenia and worked there for a year and a half. He immediately started to work with vigor and earned a name for himself and respect from the veteran and young kibbutz members.
- - - although he was a young kibbutz member, he fulfilled all the tasks assigned to him and helped in all branches of the farm. After the hard day's work he was always interested in books and music and was active in the areas of defense - - -
He was one of the first pilots and looked forward to be useful to the people and the country in this field. On 18 May he fell on the defence of his Degania.
Aliza Nul
I see him before me as I used to see him in his life. Always focused and the worry etched in his face that something important might have been neglected in this corner or another in the yard. I remember him a lot in his work and how he hurried to get to the place where he was needed the most. - - - In many cases his devotion and loyalty stood out the most, and it was good for you to see it and feel how soft and merciful his heart was, although he covered all this, as if on purpose, with a hard shell. How easy was it for me to approach him and ask for something, because I knew how willingly he would do what I asked - - - more than once he revealed himself in all his generosity and loyalty, with his respect and devotion to his parents, in his special relationship to his family in particular and to a friend in general. When I review the character of the man, as I knew him, it occurs to me that the title, faithful, suits him the best. - - -
Yael Gordon
He was the best halutz among the halutzim. He volunteered every day anew - since he was a teenager, studying in a Jewish-Zionist environment, receiving a Hebrew education in the Diaspora, thinking about aliya and pioneering, until the day he fell on the battlefront of his Degania. Every day of his life he responded to every call, to every responsible job, to every position that no one else could fill, to every enterprise that required special effort, to every command related to sacrifice to the end, to every act that demanded unreserved devotion from a person.
His responsibility, devotion, and his faithful concern were abundant and in everything. He didn't neglect any light duty towards his family and his relatives. He was a loyal son to his parents, a husband and friend to his wife, a father and friend to his children, a devoted and caring brother to his sisters - - - He greeted everyone with a warm blessing, because Yitzchak was full of blessings and brotherhood for each of them. - - -
Yitzchak Ben-Yosef
Translator's footnote:
Translated by Sara Mages
I think, that to the end of my life I will never forget the day when I was called to the Rothschild Hospital in Haifa to identify Sonik z”l.
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A bloody war raged then time throughout the country, and not a day passed without black frames in the newspapers and long lists of the murder victims.
The bloody wave reached its peak with the massacre in the Haifa Oil Refinery when thirty nine Jewish workers were murdered in the most barbaric manner by an Arab mob.
That evening we went to look for Sonik, we asked friends and acquaintances, and deluded ourselves, maybe, after all, he remained alive. And behold, on the next day I was called to identify him. He was among the last victims who had not been identified.
Even today, after twelve years, I cannot forget his destroyed face that was so was difficult to recognize, not once I ask myself: why was fate so cruel to him, specifically to him.
The sole survivor of a well known and respectable family in Lutsk, and who in Lutsk did not know Yosel Zhitin?
Sonik z”l arrived in Israel in 1938 as a student at the Hebrew Technion in Haifa and spent the first year studying. With the outbreak of the war, the contact with the family ceased, but he did not despair and continued his studies. I remember the years in which we lived together in the student residence in Hair HaTachtit [downtown] in Haifa, when it was necessary to save half a grush for the bus ride from the city to Hadar HaCarmel, because, with this half a grush it was possible to eat a meager breakfast. Sonic has done everything not to stop his studies. The difficult housing conditions, lack of minimal means of subsistence, poor nutrition - all this did not deter him. Only rarely he found a day's work here and there. A certain relief came to him when he enlisted in the Notrim[1], he guarded at night and studied during the day.
The first news, which began to arrive about the slaughter of the European Jewry, had a negative effect on him and broke his spirit. He began to understand that he remained the sole survivor of the whole family and never stopped talking about it.
With the establishment of the Jewish Brigade, he hurried to enlist without having the time to finish his studies.
Upon his return from Europe, he continued his studies, took the exams and received a civil engineer degree. He worked for a short time for Israel Railways and other places, and later got a job as a supervising engineer at the Haifa Oil Refinery, a place where he found his death - and he was only 29 years old.
He was a dear and good friend. Quiet and kind to people, noble in his ways, loved by all his friends, knew how to share his free time among his many friends and to give everyone a kind word, a pleasant smile, and wise advice.
Despite being single, he always found a way into the children's hearts. And they loved him without exception, because in their childish sense they felt his kindhearted and affection for them.
Indeed, the heart aches as I am writing these lines in memory of a dear friend, as Sonik z”l was to us all.
Translator's footnote:
Translated by Sara Mages
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Moshe, son of Eliyahu and Perl, was born on 15 November 1911 in Lutsk, the Wolyn District, Russia. During the First World War he fled with his father from the German occupier to Rivne where he studied at “Tarbut” school. After the Polish occupation, at the end of the war, he returned to Lutsk. When his father died and his eldest sister immigrated to Israel, he took on the burden of providing for the family. In 1930, he joined Kibbutz Klesów of HeHalutz Movement and his duty was to help each new company in finding places of work. When he made aliya to Israel in 1934, he joined the Haganah[1] and Kibbutz Givat HaShlosha. On behalf of the Haganah he attended a commanders' course in various fields. In the kibbutz he worked as a yardman and at night guarded the kibbutz land in Nazla. One night he was injured in his resistance to the Arabs who came to set fire to the granary, and lay in the hospital for several weeks. For family reasons he moved at the end of 1936 to work as a mechanic at the “Sheman Factory” in Haifa, and when the Arabs attacks increased he was appointed corporal of the Notrim at the factory. In 1943, he enlisted under the order of the National Institutions to the British army, and served in the transportation department of the Corps of Engineers in Egypt, the Western Desert and Italy where he also participated in the missions of the Israeli soldiers to help the survivors and the Ha'apala[2]. In 1946, after being released from the army he returned to work at the “Sheman Factory.” During the arrests on the “Black Sabbath”[3] (29 June 1946), he managed to escape for a month to Kibbutz Tel-Yosef and was saved from imprisonment. At the beginning of the War of Independence he was recruited into the mobile company of the Notrim to guard the transportation between parts of the city. His appearance and composure inspired a feeling of security and calmness among the passengers. On one of the trips to the city he placed the armored vehicle in the port area next the buildings of “Solel Boneh.” Suddenly a call was heard: “A car bomb was brought to the area!” Moshe, together with the Notrim of “Solel Boneh,” moved the suspected car away from the buildings and took cover position behind the Spinney's building. He, as a mine expert from his time serving in the British Army, ran, despite his friends' warning, to the car to cut off the burning fuse, but before he reached the car the mine exploded and he was killed. It happened on 10 Adar 5708 (21 March 1948), six weeks after the birth of his son. He was laid to rest at the Haifa Cemetery. His memory was brought in the booklet, “A tribute to our fallen friends” published by “Sheman” and its workers.
Translator's footnotes:
Translated by Sara Mages
David, a Holocaust survivor, was born in 1925 in the city of Lutsk, Poland, to his father Yakov. In 1944, he immigrated to Israel at the age of nineteen. He received a high school education and worked as a clerk in a diamond-polishing factory in Netanya. He was a member of Lehi[1] and his alias in the underground was: Ariav. He participated in most of the operations of his organization. During War of Independence he was among the escorts of the convoys to Jerusalem and with the conquerors of the Negev.
On 27 December1948, he fell in the Negev in “Operation Horev[2]” and was buried in Kibbutz Hulda. On 20 July 1949, he was transferred for eternal rest at Nahalat Yitzhak Cemetery.
Asher Yisraeli[3] (Becker)
Asher, son of Yisrael and Yona, was born in 1925 in Lutsk, Poland. There, he studied at the Hebrew school “Tarbut” until the occupation of Poland by the Germans. He lived in the ghetto with his family but searched for the way to the partisans. He lived with his family, who managed to escape the ghetto, for about eight months in a pigsty of gentile acquaintances. At the risk to his life, he went out at night to find a loaf of bread for his family in the hostile surrounding villages. Finally, he got up and joined the partisans. He participated in sabotage missions and attacks on the enemy. Once, he fell into the hands of the Ukrainians who condemned him to death, but managed to escape and rejoin the partisans. After liberation he spent a long time in Italy trying to get to Eretz Yisrael. Finally, he made is way on the Ha'apala[4] ship “Palmach” and reached the shores of Eretz Yisrael on 15 May 1946. But their ship was attacked by the British and under a shower of bullets he jumped into the sea and reached the shore, but was captured and exiled to Cyprus. When he returned to Israel his path was not easy. At first he worked as a photographer and then at a citrus juice factory in Kfar Saba. He also supported his mother and grandmother who lived in Kfar Saba. He joined the Lehi underground, but with the foundation of the Israel Defense Forces he joined its ranks. He fought in the battles for Yehudiya, Lod, Ramla, and later in the Negev. Asher fell on duty as a machine gunner in the battle for Iraq al-Menashiya on 16 October 1948. At first he was buried in Kibbutz Gat. On 29 September 1949, he was transferred for eternal rest at Nahalat Yitzhak Cemetery.
Shlomo Kachova
Shlomo, son of Haim and Gitel, was born in 1928 in the city of Lutsk in Poland. He studied in an elementary school. When the Germans entered the city and established a ghetto for the Jews, he escaped from the confinement at the age of 12 and joined the Jewish partisans. He held on until the arrival of the Russians, joined the Red Army and studied in an officers' school. After the liberation he joined Kibbutz “Hashomer Hatzair” of Aliyat Hano'ar[5] in Buchenwald. Together with some of his friends he immigrated on the Ha'apala ship “Wedgwood” and joined Kibbutz Gat. He was drafted at the beginning of the War of Independence and transferred to Jerusalem. After graduating a commander's course with honors he joined the “Moriah” battalion. On 1 June 1948, he was in the Schneller camp, climbed to the tower to prepare the attack plan on Sheikh Jarrah and was hit by a shell fired from there. On 1 Adar he was buried in Sheikh Jarrah. On 10 September 1950, his bones were transferred to Mount Herzl National Cemetery in Jerusalem. p>
Haim Applebaum
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Haim, son of Asher and Henya Appelbaum, was born in Lutsk on 26 Iyar 5685. On 21 Tishrei 5686 he immigrated to Israel with his parents. He was an active member of the Lehi underground in the struggle with the British.
On 17 Sivan 5706, during the attack on the Haifa Railway workshop, he was captured by the British and sentence to death by hanging along with 17 other comrades. Several weeks later the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. On 4 Iyar 5707 (4 May 1947), he fell in the battle during Acre prison breakout and left behind a four-month old daughter.
May his memory be blessed.
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Fell in the shelling of Tel Aviv in 1948 |
Translator's footnotes:
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