Arkard, Mordechai (Motke)

Son of-Israel-Aryeh and Reizel. He was born on May 15, 1928 in Olika, Poland. He immigrated to Israel in 1949. In his hometown Mordechai studied at the Tarbut Jewish elementary school. When he was 11, the family moved to Brazil and settled in Rio-Genaro, where he completed elementary school. Afterward he graduated with honors from the Hebrew Gymnasium in Brazil. He continued to study at the School of Practical Engineers, and he was also an outstanding student. At the end of his studies, he worked in his profession as a government employee. But here Mordechai decided not to remain in Brazil – his place in the country, and his power to build it. In 1949 he immigrated to Israel and settled in Be’er Sheva, where he took part in the construction of the power station. The contrast in the desert nature of the land of the Negev compared to the forests and dense vegetation of Brazil, the country of origin, was very exciting; Indeed, this enthusiasm for the possibilities of doing and building, which was further intensified by the Jewish-Zionist education that he received at his parents’ home and the Zionist youth movement in Brazil, never ceased. Mordechai was not only a man of action and creativity. He was a devoted family man – a son, husband and father – and a man with extensive general education and many fields of interest. He loved music, sports, photography and fishing, and was interested in politics and doing things in the immediate world, but most of all he loved his home. He devotedly nurtured the animal corner in the courtyard, and always found what to install, renovate, repair and change. In 1950, Mordechai was drafted into the IDF and assigned to the Engineering Corps, where he was sent to an officers’ course, and after completing his regular army service, he enlisted in the army. Mordecai served in the regular army from the day he was discharged from the regular army (he served in the army as a member of the army) With the exception of several years) and was promoted to the rank of Major, and was awarded the War of Independence, the Six-Day War and Mel During the last few years of his life, Mordechai worked on building shelters in the civilian sector, and he set his foot in the sand along the length and breadth of the country and saw every shelter built to protect his own family. Who, when necessary, stands by them with all his energy to remove, quickly, any delay in the construction of a public shelter, on the day of 30 Adar I 5738 (1978), during his service. He was brought to eternal rest in the cemetery in Kiryat Shaul. He left behind a wife, two daughters, a father and a brother. “With Motke, you could consult on any personal matter,” wrote one of his colleagues. “He always led you to the good road, and when he was speaking everyone was sitting alert and listening, because he had a special attitude toward society and people.” “The Yom Kippur War,” wrote a fellow officer, “urged him to step up the effort and increase the power, lest the State of Israel be attacked without sufficient warning.”