Azulai, Vidal

Vidal, son of Hasiba and Abba, was born on July 6, 1948, in Morocco, where his father, a descendant of the Chida (Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai), sent him to be educated at the Alliance school in their hometown. In the evening Vidal studied in the “Em habanim” Jewish school. He immigrated to Israel with his parents in 1962 and studied electronics in Lod. His friends and family say that he was a pleasant, quiet man who never raised his voice to anyone. He devoted most of his time to training in his profession and hardly had time for entertainment. Vidal was drafted into the IDF in August 1966. After completing his army service, he was sent for a professional conversion and was trained as a tank driver, and when the Yom Kippur War broke out Vidal participated in the battles as a half-track driver in the Suez Canal area. On October 11, 1973, his force encountered a squad of Egyptian commandos, and during the battle that ensued, the half-track was hit by a bomb and Widal was killed on the spot, leaving behind his fiancée, he was about to get married a few months later. After his death, he was promoted to the rank of corporal, his commander wrote to the bereaved family: “Your son fell in an attack on a commando squad in the northern section of the canal in the Kantara region. An Egyptian commando company was wiped out by the dedication, heroism, and sacrifice of Vidal and his comrades, who had lost their lives and died for us. It is too short to describe Vidal, who was a soldier beloved to all of us and whose memory will always be with us … “Vidal’s parents commemorated his memory by setting a three-branched candelabra and marble plaques in the synagogue in Ramle