Ben Eliyahu (Babib), David
David, son of Nina and Eliyahu Son of Eliyahu, was born on January 27, 1905, in the city of Baku, in the Caucasus. His grandfather was a doctor and his father traded in carpets. David attended elementary school in town and then in high school, but at the age of 16 he was arrested because he refused to join the Soviet secret police – the GPU – who was interested in him because of his knowledge of languages. He managed to escape from prison (1922) and sailed from Baku on a ship bound for Turkey, barefoot and destitute. In Turkey he swam to the port, where he found a Jewish family that agreed to allow him to join them as a tenth son upon their immigration to Palestine. In Israel he first worked in various jobs and in 1927 he was hired as a laborer in the Israel Electric Corporation. In the days of the 1938 riots, the electricity supply to Be’er Tuvia, which was the most extreme Jewish community in the south of the country, was disrupted on the Sabbath, but David insisted that the repair be carried out immediately. He was attacked by hundreds of rioters at the Masmiya Bridge, killing two employees of the Israel Electric Corporation, David among them, on September 10, 1938. He was 34 years old at the time of his death, He was buried in Tel Aviv, and left a wife, a three-year-old boy, parents, sisters and brothers.
