Asudy, Mordechai

The only son of Miriam and Benjamin. He was born in 1891 in Debrecen, Hungary, to a wealthy family that specialized in food trade and was close to the Emperor Franz Joseph. Mordechai acquired a higher education and for a certain period was an adviser on food for the emperor. He was a Zionist in his outlook and knew the writer Chaim Yosef Brenner, and in his influence he immigrated to Eretz Israel at the beginning of 1921. Mordechai succeeded in transferring to Israel a large fortune and purchased the area on which Herzl Hill extends today. In addition to his economic activity, Mordechai joined the Haganah. At the outbreak of the 1921 riots, he stood on his watch to defend the immigrants’ home in Jaffa, which was one of the first targets of the rioters. On the 23rd of Nisan, (21.5.1921), he was killed by rioters and brought to rest in a mass grave in the Hagana section of the old cemetery in Tel Aviv near his friend the writer Chaim Yosef Brenner. He left a wife, three daughters and two sons and parents. One of his daughters perished in the Holocaust with her entire family.