Barzilai (Izn), Israel-Pinchas (Shonak)

Son of-Chaya and Levi (Yitzhak) was born on September 5, 1927, in the city of Lvov, in eastern Galicia (then Poland) and began his studies at the Hebrew Gymnasium in Lvov and immigrated to Israel with his parents in 1934, He studied at the “Ahad Ha’am” municipal school in Tel Aviv and later studied for four years at the “Balfour” Gymnasium with the help of a scholarship he received from the Education Department, was a member and instructor of the Masada Organization and a member of the Haganah, The work of students in the Jordan Valley farms tended to work with Zionist devotion and aspiration for human perfection, and after completing the Gymnasium, Two years as a colonel in Holon, his place of residence. Israel worked in construction with his father, the contractor, and reached the rank of builder and type-A scribe. In the second year he was already conducting his own work out of a constant desire to continue his studies, and in the evenings he studied and continued his service and guidance. His personal ambitions identified with the wishes of the nation for a life of dignity and happiness in a free homeland. In his article on the problem of developing the country he concluded that it is possible to arrive if the land will be entirely in trustworthy hands prepared to do for it the so-called impossible. “Hands that were forged with the blows of fate along an endless, bloody road,” hands “that acted in the power of the heroes of Masada, whose death commanded us to live forever.” In light of the great task of liberating the homeland, he saw the quarrel between the Hagana and the other underground organizations as unnecessary and damaging, and in a poem he wrote to himself, he demanded that they unite for the greater cause. Israel was a cheerful and life-loving guy, friend and musician, and at the youth meetings he was a “miracle worker” in a harmonica and his greatest passion was to get an accordion. At the beginning of 1948 he was accepted as a student in the Department of Building Engineers at the Technion in Haifa, but before he entered the circle of study came the UN General Assembly resolution, followed by the War of Independence. At the beginning of March 1948, at the request of his parents, he went to serve in the defense of Holon and Bat Yam. Where he contributed to the Hagana from his technical knowledge, photographed areas and enemy positions, prepared a sand map of the front, and conducted a course for excavation engineers and fortifications. Near the end of April he was joined as a squad commander with his company to the Givati ​​Brigade and transferred to the southern region. His unit clung to Hill 69 east of the coastal road to block the movement of the Egyptians. The hill was captured on June 8, 1948, and the force began to barricade itself. On Tuesday, June 10, 1948, the Egyptians shelled the site and then attacked it with armored vehicles, causing enemy casualties, collapsing positions, and damaging the weapons. On August 18, 1950, he was transferred to the Nahalat Yitzhak Military Cemetery.