Yaakov (Kobi), son of Rivka and Moshe, was born on November 3, 1953, in Haifa. The eldest son was a Yaffa, comfortable baby. It is an exaggeration to attribute personality to a person since his infancy, but it can be said that he had, in Kobi, many qualities that accompanied him from his early childhood through all stages of his adolescence to his last day. A Yaffa boy-and a handsome boy. You could always see the same smile on his lips, good and bad-when he was relaxed and embarrassed. He was quiet and shy, very closed and restrained; But the sensitivity he felt about the situation surrounding him and his relatives – his friends, the family – and his being very comfortable with people, made him an accepted figure in society. Friends always look for his closeness. During all the stages of his education, he was a very ordinary child: he was a year and a half old when he began to go to kindergarten. Like every child, he liked to be told stories and sang songs to him, played with the children in the neighborhood, and traveled. At the age of 6 he began to attend elementary school. What marked his eight years of elementary school was the long periods he lay in the house with a sore throat (a disease he had had in his infancy). Due to this illness, when he was about 11 years old, he contracted severe hepatitis and was forced to stay at home for several months. Before a year had passed and he had just recovered from jaundice, he had to have an operation in his throat. But that was the end of his long illness. From here on he became a healthy child, who grew up and became a broad-shouldered man. Despite long absences from school, he did not lag behind in his studies or sever ties with his friends. On the contrary. At that time he was one of the best students in the class and when he lay in his sickbed, the house became a kind of social center for his classmates, after the movement. From the middle of the elementary school to the middle of the high school period, Kobi was a member of the Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed youth movement in the Kinneret in Kiryat Eliezer. He went to camps and trips as an apprentice, and eventually went to a training seminar in Ma’ayan Harod and was a counselor in the kibbutz in the neighborhood. At that time he went with his own group to work in the kibbutzim, in order to collect money for trips around the country. Before graduating from elementary school, he faced the difficult problem of choosing the direction to continue his high school studies. Ironically, one of the teachers, a psychologist, tried to convince him that the psychotechnical tests and his personal data actually pointed to a military boarding school as the most suitable direction for him, and tried to persuade him to study at the boarding school near Reali. In time, Kobi was to regret that it was inappropriate to follow this advice. But then, at the end of elementary school, he was determined to learn a profession. He took part in a radio-loving class and decided that this was his way – and so he continued his post-high school studies at the “Semet” vocational school where he studied electro-mechanics for four and a half years and finished as an electrician. He played football with his friends at the Kirya, played basketball and finished several times in the first places, and once even as an outstanding trainee, and when he grew older he began to study Judo, moved to Karate, and only the military service he practiced in this area, Kobi was drafted into the IDF in early February 1972. When he reported for medical examinations at the induction center, he decided not to say anything about his illness Hugh past, because of the fear that drops him military profile and can not serve in combat soldier, as he wanted. When he enlisted, he volunteered for the paratroopers and began his military service in the paratroopers’ paratroopers. His family and friends advised him not to volunteer, but to go to where they would send him, but he was not even willing to hear. He claimed that evil and bitter would be our end if each of us behaved like that. Therefore, and also because he did not like the profession he studied, and decided not to deal with it in the future, he refused to engage in his profession in the army. The idea of being a “Jobnik” terrified him. For him service near the homeNano-military service in the full sense of the word, as he understood it and as he wanted to serve. In the middle of his training course, and after receiving the paratrooper’s wings, he was wounded in the leg. Then the troubles began, for in the meantime he had registered as a volunteer to the naval commando and it was clear to him that he could not carry out his plan because of his bruised leg. So he remained in the commando unit, and because his commanders showed distrust of his father, his physical condition deteriorated – and his mental state followed. Kobi was severely hurt by this attitude. Later on, he was able to take care of his leg, but it was too late – his medical profile fell and he had to leave the patrol. He was then sent to a course in communications and at the end of the course he was sent to the Southern Command and served as a liaison in Refidim. He was not satisfied and felt that he was not doing enough and then applied to move to positions on the Bar-Lev line. About six weeks before the outbreak of the war, he was sent to the “Hazion” outpost in the Suez Canal. There he was at the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, where he fought and there he died. On October 8, 1973, Kobi fell in battle and was brought to eternal rest in the Haifa cemetery. Survived by father, mother and sister. After his fall, he was promoted to corporal. In a letter of condolence to the bereaved family, his commander wrote: “Kobi was one of the best soldiers in the unit, he was an intelligent soldier and supervised, he performed his work with love and served as a model for the unit’s soldiers.
