Arum, Mordechai

Mordechai, son of Chaya Rachel and Asher Arum, was born on November 2, 1909, in Osijek, Central Galicia, and grew up in Belziek (Lizhensk). His father was a ritual slaughterer. He studied in a cheder and yeshiva, completed a commercial school, and prepared for his matriculation exams in private lessons he received from the headmaster of the local school, who liked the diligent Jewish youth. He joined the Torah v’Avodah movement and established a training point in his city. In order to alleviate financial distress, he taught Talmud in the Talmud Torah and in the afternoon he studied shoemaking. In April 1939, he boarded the ship “Assimi” and went straight to the “Avraham Group” in the village of Pines, and later in Kfar Etzion, where he was for a time the secretary of the interior and tomber of the the cultural committee. Mordechai tried, unsuccessfully, to work in the beekeeping industry and he continued to work in shoemaking. With his witty sayings and optimistic jokes he succeeded in encouraging the spirit of the oppressed in times of material distress and even in the fire of war. Mordechai took courses in the Haganah’s weapons training course, which worked on the cleanliness and efficiency of the tools and he invented many clever inventions in “Slikim”.
At the beginning of the siege of Gush Etzion, he, like the other married members, separated from his wife and two small daughters, who were transferred to Jerusalem. On the day of the fall of the Gush, 4 Iyar 5708 (13.5.1948), he fell, and on the 25th of Cheshvan 5710 (17.11.1949) he was laid to rest with his friends in the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.