Cohen, Raphael

Son of Zehava and Dov, was born on March 10, 1918, in Warsaw, the capital of Poland, the descendant of a family of rabbis. He moved to Eretz Israel with his parents and studied at the Balfour Gymnasium in Tel Aviv, where he was a youth counselor and spent some time in the kibbutz and was active in the Haganah since 1935. Since 1936 he studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, . He was the manager of a tanning factory in Kfar Hasidim in the Zevulun Valley. At the beginning of the War of Independence, he volunteered for the Carmeli Brigade, took a course in the Alonim Brigade, took part in the battle for the defense of Ramat Yochanan, and was in the armored vehicle that participated in the liberation operations in Haifa, and wrote to one of his friends abroad: “Life gave us the choice: to die or conquer the mountain. Raphael fell during the capture of the Najada (the Arab youth movement) in Halisa – Wadi Rushmia in Haifa – and was the last of the fallen in the liberation of Haifa, on April 22, 1948, was brought to rest at home. Military cemetery in Haifa.