Beckman, Isaiah (Shaike)

Son of Binyamin and Zahava. He was born on June 3, 1962, in Gaza, where his father worked as a “Kupat Holim” doctor. The city was populated mostly by Arabs, and at the age of three, when the Arabs of Beer Sheva and the surrounding area attacked the small Jewish settlement in Gaza, the 14 families barricaded themselves into one house and with the help of the British they were rescued and brought to Tel Aviv. When the father was sent to serve as a doctor in Metula, the family moved there. He studied at the “Gan” school there and was then transferred to a boarding school in Ramat Gan. The last stop for family wandering was Netanya, where he regularly visited Bialik Elementary School. Afterward, he studied at the commercial school (“Pitman”) in Tel Aviv. For several years he worked in the ranks of Lehi. He participated in the War of Independence on the front of Lod and in the Negev and was even wounded twice. Was proud of his membership in the Yitzhak Sadeh Brigade. He found emotional satisfaction with his service in the IDF Armored Corps and was among the Shimshon Foxes. Afterward he went to the Negev as one of the conquerors of the wilderness and was one of the founders of Neve Ya’ir. Despite his modesty and shy smile, he was awake and ready for battle. When his father was cut off from his home in exile in Eritrea, the boy began to work as an accountant at one of the city’s diamond factories, caring for his mother, his family, and his family. He loved history and literature. One day he even started to work on income tax theory and added a new section devoted to economic problems to his library. Fell in the Sinai Campaign in a battle on the Gaza Strip on the 29th of Marcheshvan, 5727 (November 3, 1956), when he and his two comrades felt that they had to be removed from the battlefield. He was buried in the Military Emergency Cemetery in Bari and on the 18th of Elul 5707 (18.9.1957) was transferred to the eternal military cemetery in Netanya. In 1959, a book appeared in his memory, published by his circle of friends, entitled “The boy from Gaza (Shaike).” A reading room was established in his home in Netanya.