Berkovits, David “Dudu”

Son of Emanuel and Rina. Was born on March 6, 1947 in Bucharest, Romania, and completed seven classes in his hometown. The spirit of the Communist youth prevailed in the school, but his parents’ house was steeped in Jewish cultural values ​​and traditions and a great longing for Zion. His father was a clerk and his mother was a high school chemistry and physics teacher. From which David inherited a tendency to education and teaching, and in the first grades of elementary school it was felt that weak students would be sent to him to help with their studies. In 1948, one year after his birth, the family’s attempt to immigrate to Israel failed. Ten years later, the family tried to apply for passports, and for three years had to wait for them. David’s parents were fired from their jobs and his older sister, who was in her fourth year at Polytechnic, was forced to stop her studies. At the beginning of 1961, the family immigrated to Israel, and David’s dream and dream came true. Although he did not arrive in Bucharest until the end of seven classes, David was accepted as a ninth grader at the Kugel High School in Holon, the parents’ temporary home. After they got a job in Jerusalem, they moved with his sister there – and David remained alone in Holon, connected to his school and to his studies. David spent months of difficult absorption and adjustment. He lived alone in the hut and had to take care of all his needs except to complete his knowledge of Hebrew. But this life saved him and ruined his soul. When he reached the 10th grade, David joined his family in Jerusalem and was accepted to the 10th grade in the social studies program at the Hebrew University High School. He excelled in perseverance and the desire to learn and fill in the gaps and in an intellectual and individual approach. He loved traveling in Israel and learned to know it from books and maps, and with his sense of orientation. He had a lot of tenderness and gentleness and did not talk much. Even though he was not religious in the accepted sense and did not attend a religious school, never refused to join the minyan in the synagogue of the housing project where his parents lived and to participate in prayer. On Saturdays and holidays, he would join his father, sit in his usual place and pray with great deliberation. When David was enrolled at the Hebrew University, he was accepted to the academic reserve, and for the first three years he studied in political science and French culture and studied for a teaching certificate. One year taught at the school for adults “Afakim”. He invested his spare time in reading books and set up a large library. During the Six Day War, he participated in the battle for Jerusalem and fought with one of the Jerusalem Brigade battalions in the battle for Abu Tor, and when he returned from the campaign, he did not say a word about his experiences. (In the framework of the reserve) and was awarded the rank of Acting Officer, and was awarded the rank of Officer, after completing his professional service, and served as a military training instructor for medical students who joined the academic reserve in 1969. In 1969, And passed all the B.A. degrees and for a teaching certificate. David enlisted in the IDF in August 1969, was assigned to the Artillery Corps and made a training course for artillery officers. He spent his holidays in Jerusalem. He refused to talk about his training, and spoke little about his actions in the army and his brother-in-law, who was a career army officer. He spent these vacations with his sister, a Defense Ministry employee, in trigonometry training, because he did not want to lag behind other students in a course in the real-world course. On the 17th of Tishrei 5769 (17.9.1969), he fell in the line of duty and was put to rest in the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.Who was going to be a teacher and engage in educational activity, because “his life was moving in the field of study and training towards teaching and education.” The commander of the unit wrote in a letter of condolence to his parents: “David came to us from school and was prepared to contribute his accumulated knowledge, maturity and blessed talents to serve the IDF with great loyalty. He took on his training to combat officers with understanding and diligence, and we saw him as a good apprentice. In the book “Nizkor”, edited by Yehuda Ha-Ezrahi and published by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and its student union, is included the story of his life and death.