Epstein, Israel (Aviel)

Son of Gitel and Ze’ev. He was born on July 25, 1914 in Vilna, Poland, and was a member of the “HaShachar” organization, which later became Betar. After the outbreak of the Second World War, he went to Vilna, where he was active in organizing the Betar aliyah to Eretz Israel, and continued his cultural and educational work. . Upon his arrival in Israel, he served as a teacher in Petah Tikva and for a period of time with the Betar Youth Aliya in Rosh Pina, and later joined the Betar Commission in Eretz Israel, where he worked mainly in the field of education and training. At the end of 1946 he was sent to Europe to work in the training of the Irgun branches throughout the continent. During his stay in Italy an Irgun attack was carried out on the British legation building in Rome on 31 October 1946. In the search for the building after the bombing of the building, several suspects were arrested in Betar concentrations, which the authorities regarded as the bases of the Irgun, including Israel. His friends from the outside stole a sleeping drug to put the guards to sleep, and when he was halfway through the descent he was spotted by a guard who shot him and hit him in the stomach. On December 28, 1946 he died of his wounds in the hospital. He was first buried in Rome and then transferred to Milan, where he was buried in a mass grave of Jewish fighters. In 1953 his bones were brought to Eretz Israel and he was buried in the cemetery of Nahalat Yitzhak near Tel Aviv.