Erlich, Menachem-Mendel

Menachem Mendel, son of Reizel and Chaim-Yosef-David Erlich, was born in May 1918 in Warsaw, the capital of Poland, and immigrated to Israel in 1935. As a child, he excelled in his studies and he became an activist of religious Zionism and a teacher of Hashomer Hadati. When Menachem-Mendel immigrated to Israel with his parents in 1935, he studied at the Hebron Yeshiva and later studied in the Humanities Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, but due to their poor economic situation he was forced to abandon his studies and become a camp counselor. After World War II he was sent to the Bergen-Belsen camp, and for a year and a half he was the spiritual guide of the camp and taught the survivors about Zionism and Eretz Yisrael. Upon his return to Eretz Israel, he enlisted in the army.
On the morning of the 25th of Iyar, May 3, 1948, he arrived in Rishon Letzion, where his unit was stationed and there he was killed in an air raid by the Egyptian enemy. Menachem-Mendel was laid to rest in the military cemetery at Nahalat Yitzhak. After he fell he was promoted to lieutenant. His students at the Balfour School planted dozens of trees in his memory.