Bar-Ze’ev, Avraham (Avi)
Son of Sara and Mordechai, was born on October 10, 1962, in Metula. In 1950 the parents immigrated from Egypt and settled in Tivon. As part of the movement from city to village, the family moved to Metula in 1959. My father was born three years later. He studied at the “Hanadiv” religious public school in Metula, and continued his high school studies in the joint school for the Hahula Valley in Kibbutz Kfar Blum. During his adolescence, Avi worked with his parents and his brothers in the agricultural farm, and for three years he was a model farmer. When he was 15 years old, he visited Europe as part of a youth exchange. When he finished high school, Avi joined the “Org” Nahal group, which was established at Kibbutz Gan Shmuel, but after four months in the kibbutz, Avi decided to move to an artillery unit in the IDF. He was assigned to an artillery battalion and was sent to a commanders’ course. After successfully completing the course, he asked to return to the battalion where he had served before. His request was accepted, and he was assigned as the commander of a team of artillery batteries. In this position, Avi was superior to all the other team commanders on the battery, so he was chosen to be the commander of Team 3, the lead crew on the battery. During his second year of service in the IDF, Avi went to New York to attend his sister Rachel’s wedding in February, where he stayed for a month and returned to his unit in June 1982. His commander noted that Avi was quiet, very responsible, disciplined and professional. His father had served in the battalion as a team commander, and he had been integrated into the battery of the battery at his request and the pride of his commanders, and was even recommended To be a guide in the commanders’ course. When the war broke out, Avi was called off from vacation. He rushed back to his unit and entered with his soldiers in Lebanon to hit the terrorists. He was among our first forces in Lebanon. My father fell in the battles that took place on the outskirts of the city of Tzur on the coastal plain, on the 16th of Sivan 5762 (6.6.1982). He was brought to rest in the cemetery in Metula. He left behind his parents, a brother and three sisters. His parents, whose balcony on the edge of the village overlooks southern Lebanon, feel that Avi’s death was not in vain: “He fought for his house near the border and for our right to live here.”
