Barsky, Moshe (Mezy)

Son of Tova and Naftali Hertz. He was born in 1895 in a village near the town of Skvira in Russia, where he studied in a “cheder” and a Yeshiva, his father was a laborer, a flour mill worker, and his grandfather was a talmid chacham. In 1912 Moshe, 18, immigrated with his older sister Hannah to Eretz Israel and came straight to Degania. On 2 Cheshvan, 22.11.1913, eight months after his arrival in Degania, he volunteered to bring medicine for the patient Shmuel Dayan. He rode a mule to the settlement of Melhemia (Menhemia) at a distance of seven to eight kilometers from Degania, and on his way back he was attacked by a band of robbers who wanted to take his mule. He was found lying on the banks of the Jordan River in the olive grove planted by his hands, and two days later he died of his wounds. The Arab who was injured during the attack was killed by Yosef Salzman of the Kinneret group.