Bezalel, Shimon

Shimon, son of Rachel and Eliahu-Ya’akov Bezalel, was born in Jerusalem in April 1915. His parents were among the Jewish families who emigrated to Eretz Israel from the city of Mostar in Balkan Turkey (now Yugoslavia) and settled in Jerusalem. After his father’s death, he was accepted to the Spanish orphanage where he studied carpentry, and in his last few years he served in the Jerusalem police force. On the 26th of Adar 5748 (April 6, 1948), he fell in the defense of Jerusalem during the War of Independence and was brought to rest in the cemetery in Sanhedria in Jerusalem, leaving behind a wife and two daughters.