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Frenkel, Michael

Frenkel, Michael


Son of Martha and Siegfried (Samuel), was born on February 21, 1928, in the city of Boiten, Upper Silesia, Germany as the youngest son of his father, a well-known lawyer and active Zionist who returned from his first trip to Palestine that year. The father participated in the establishment of a citrus orchard company in the “Maggad” settlement near Pardes Hannah, in order to prepare the family’s settlement and transfer it to Israel, and lived in the first decade of his life under very favorable conditions in his father’s villa. Until his immigration, he attended the Jewish elementary school in his hometown, and immediately upon his arrival in Israel, he was admitted to the “Herzliya” elementary school in Haifa, with the family settling in the ” He moved to the Kadouri Agricultural School in 1944. He completed his agricultural studies in 1946. He joined the Scout movement, invested great energy in it, and became a guide to it. His parents and the citrus grove Michael also had artistic talents and used them to diversify life in the Scout movement (including a puppet theater) and found time to help his father work for the foundation. At the time he organized the youth in the moshava in an agricultural department and lectured regularly on agricultural problems. In addition, he prepared a plan for rehabilitating the agricultural farm in the moshavah and expanding it, and what he demanded of others was to realize his parents’ exemplary quality. From the age of 18 he was a member of the Haganah. He completed many courses and became a squad commander. He trained in the cruisers and excelled at it. On the day after the United Nations General Assembly decided on November 29, 1947, to divide the country into two states and the outbreak of the War of Independence, a full mobilization was enlisted to the Alexandroni Brigade, which excelled in the Mishmar HaYarden and in one of its daring tours reached Nablus. In the first weeks of the second truce, he conducted a course for scouts in Shfeya, and later became a frontal intelligence officer, during which he participated in acts of harassment against the Iraqi soldiers who camped in the Ephraim hills on the Tul- On the 3rd of Cheshvan 5708 (November 3, 1948) he volunteered with eight male soldiers for such a mission behind the enemy lines in the vicinity of Tulkarm. They were discovered on the wide plain that operated there, and although they reached their target, the enemy position, and even took two of its members captive, surrounded six of the group members and fell in a desperate battle of heroism. Their bodies remained on the battlefield in enemy territory and were later brought to rest in the military cemetery in Netanya. After his fall, he was promoted to lieutenant. His father, Dr. Shmuel Frankel, wrote the biography of his son Michael in German and produced a special pamphlet for relatives and acquaintances.

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