Ben-Moshe, Amir

Amir, son of Ruth and Yehuda, was born on March 17, 1953 in Kibbutz Matzuva and studied at the kibbutz elementary school, from where he traveled with his parents, who were on an official mission to Germany, and attended a school in Frankfurt. He spent his three years in Germany maintaining constant contact with his teachers, his caregivers and his friends on the kibbutz, and at the time he wrote a week-long issue of a children’s newspaper with sections, stories, notes, and riddles, which were sent to his parents’ friends. When his family returned to the kibbutz, he was a great student and served as an address to help all the students in his class who had difficulty preparing their lessons, and devoted his work to the topic “Anti-Semitism in Our Time” and won the prize. During his high school years, Amir was involved in various activities: he was a youth counselor, edited the children’s magazine, gave lessons and was the initiator, organizer and performer of various parties and celebrations in the kibbutz. During his spare time he took care of the garden of the house, listened to the radio, played chess and solved puzzles. At the end of his studies he left for a year of training in Jerusalem, in the Scouts Movement His friends say that he was very fond of his students in the Katamon neighborhood. In that year he was able to visit as a free learner in lectures on Jewish studies at the Hebrew University, and published an article discussing the book by Professor Bruno Bettelheim on the education of children in the kibbutz. Amir was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces in early November 1972 and was assigned to an armored unit in the south, where he was well integrated into the army, and when he came home for vacations he was always full of experiences and was interested in what was going on in his kibbutz and in the country. He spoke extensively about the continuation of his studies and said that he wanted to study statistics or accountancy, and continued to publish lists and articles in the kibbutz leaflet expressing his opinion and criticizing various phenomena. Among the unit’s soldiers Amir was known as a dedicated and diligent soldier and his commanders note that he managed to reach a high level of proficiency in all tank subjects. During the Yom Kippur War Amir took part in the battles of containment and break-up at the Sinai front. In the battle that took place on October 20, 1973, in the area of ​​the bitter lake south of Fayyad, his tank was shelled and Amir was killed. He was laid to rest in the cemetery in Kibbutz Matzuva. Survived by his parents, two brothers and a sister. After his fall he was promoted to sergeant.