Bloch, Alfred Shalom (Eli)

Son of Paula and Chaim, was born on June 9, 1906, in Posen (then Germany). In 1919 he moved with his family to Berlin and acquired a high school education. He joined the Hechalutz movement in Berlin and in 1933 went on to agricultural training, first in Germany and then in Lithuania, where he immigrated to Israel in 1934. He settled in Kibbutz Givat Brenner. He was active in the ranks of the Hagana and held various positions during the years of the riots. In 1938 he left the kibbutz with his wife, moved to Jerusalem, began working as a clerk in the bakery, and here he continued to be an active and dedicated “Haganah” member. With the outbreak of the War of Independence, he joined the ranks of the defenders and served in the Jerusalem Brigade. In his diary he wrote the day after the declaration of the state: “We will live to see the blossoming of our country, but recognize us, and our country is alive and well!” Before he left for the last time, he said to his wife, “If something bad happens to me, I know that I want to rest in Givat Brenner, and I always thought this place was most Yaffa and very close to my Lev.” On the 9th of Tammuz 5708 (9.7.1948), he fell in the position of Beit Mandelbaum, one day after the end of the first truce, and was buried in Sheikh Bader A. On the 23rd of Adar I, 1951) was transferred, in accordance with his will, to eternal rest in the cemetery at Kibbutz Givat Brenner.