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Ben-Zvi, Ali

Ben-Zvi, Ali


Son of-Rachel-Yanait and Yitzhak Son of-Zvi, the second president of the State of Israel after its establishment, one of the founders of the Second Aliyah, Hashomer, the Haganah and the founders of socialist Zionism. He was born in Jerusalem on February 10, 1924, and was the first child in the Rehavia neighborhood, already in his sixth year, during the riots of 1929, when both his parents were busy with Hagana activities, His mother, Shoshana Lishansky, put a stick on his shoulder, like a rifle, and went out to stand in front of the door. He replied, “I’m going to protect you, I’m the only man in the house.” In this spirit of responsibility, heroism and fulfilling duty to the end, grew. From the age of twelve onwards, he served in the Haganah in liaison services, transferring arms and hiding him, etc. In his agricultural work, too, he sent a hand from his childhood, in the nursery of the workers that his mother founded and managed. He was one of the best students in the elementary school and gymnasium. During his studies, he trained himself – in the idea and in action – as a member and later as a guide and took upon himself the most difficult tasks, so that they would not suspect him of relying on the “right of the forefathers.” During the summer vacation he would go to labor camps in the kibbutzim and already chose his future as a pioneer in agriculture, and it was necessary to convince him that graduating from the Gymnasium was not in contradiction to the pioneering duty he had taken upon himself. After seven grades of the Gymnasium, where he excelled in his studies, he moved to the Kadouri Agricultural School and to his fellow students, where he joined the Palmach and fought all the hard work, hardships and dangers of training and travels. To the army in the wake of his older brother, but in his internal struggle he won the recognition that he must remain in the Palmach, “the nucleus of an independent Jewish army.” After completing his studies at the Kadouri School, he immigrated to Israel with his core group in the Palmach to settle and defend Kibbutz Beit Keshet, adjacent to Sejera, the cradle of Hashomer and the Haganah, where his parents dreamed and fought in their thinking about the new type of Jew who lives his whole life in his homeland To the land of Israel, in the form of an agricultural collective, and he became the dreamer of the war against Hitler, but the sense of duty and discipline grew in him, and he remained in his post in Israel, and was friendly with the Arabs of the villages and the Bedouin tribe In the kibbutz, became a leader and a guide and a member of the ranks, both at work and in defense, with the outbreak of the War of Independence And Arab attacks on his spot, managed wisely, and the strength of the place and environment protection. On Thursday, Adar II Independence (16.3.1948), a few days before the scheduled wedding, went with seven members of the Rainbow tour of the area. They were attacked from ambush by a gang of hundreds of Arab tribesmen who surrounded them. One managed to escape to the kibbutz and call for reinforcements. The seven remaining young men fought heroically to the last bullet and all fell. After three days of tedious negotiations, their bodies were returned. Ali was brought to rest in the Beit Keshet cemetery. Survived by his parents and brother Amram.

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