Ben Aryeh, Jacob

Son of Chaya and Abraham, was born on November 21, 1930 in the town of Druzhkopel, Poland. At the age of two, Polish-haters of Israel accused him of a blood libel. The two-year trial drained all the family’s financial resources and eventually the father was sentenced to two years in prison. With the efforts of the heads of the Jewish community and the Jewish Agency, the father received an immigration permit and in December 1934 immigrated to Eretz Israel. A year later, in 1935, the wife and son arrived in Israel, and the family settled in Kiryat Haim, where he began studying at the Geula Elementary School in Haifa and completed his studies as an outstanding student. His dream of continuing to study at the Reali School in Haifa was accepted to the vocational school for boys in Haifa without payment of tuition, and at the age of 16 he joined the Hashomer Hatzair movement. Jacob was a tall, cheerful boy, with a broad smile on his face, and his sense of humor buying hearts In addition to his activities in the youth movement, Yaakov was a member of the Haganah and together with his classmates, who studied with him together in the afternoon, he engaged in various security functions in the afternoon as he was assigned by the Haganah On January 15, 1948, the bus traveling from Kiryat Haim to Haifa was attacked by Arab rioters. Yaakov was killed as a result of the shooting and was brought to rest in the portion of the saints in the Haifa cemetery. Left parents and two brothers. His life history and lines to his figure appear in the book “Kiryat Haim in the War of Independence” and in book 215 “Days that changed the face of our homeland”.