Friedman, Ze’ev

He was born in 1910 in Russia and immigrated to Eretz Israel in 1925. He began his studies at the Mikveh Israel Agricultural School in 1925. From 1929 to 1932 he was a policeman in the south of Judea and during the 1936-1939 riots he was a guard in the village of Yavetz. He was an excellent rider who spent many hours galloping on his mare in the vast areas of his watchtower. He knew the Arabs well, for a year and a half he had been in Gaza as the only Jewish policeman among the Arab population. He knew how to appease them and how to maintain peace and good neighborly relations with them, was a warrior by nature, and being very honest and pursuing justice was his war on the matter. He replied, “In my life, I do this.” Half a year before his fall he was transferred to guard duty in Ben Shemen, where he met Zalman Rosenbaum and a brave friendship developed between them. On 22 Tevet, January 16, 1939, in the early morning hours of their vigil in the Ben Shemen Forest, Ze’ev fell in an ambush of an armed gang, and in the ensuing battle he was killed after hitting one of the attackers and killing him. He was brought to rest in Shikh-Abrik. His name was immortalized in a memoir, “This is how friends fell”, published by the Association of Guardians.