George Holmes, Meir

The son of Ahuva (Farah) and Abraham, of the Hanbal family known in Baghdad, was born on July 16, 1922 in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq. As a child, he immigrated with his parents to Jerusalem. He attended the boys’ school, and although his teachers praised his talents, he was forced to stop his studies and go out to work and help his father support the family. At first he worked as an apprentice in a grocery store, continued to work as a simple laborer in the bakery, as a night watchman, in clerks and in various jobs, and prepared for the matriculation exams. He fought hard for his existence and with all the hardships of life he remained cheerful, modest and good-looking and peace to others. When he was 18 years old, he married and had three daughters joyfully filled his Lev and his home. In 1940 he joined the Haganah and in the same year volunteered for the British Army and served until 1945 as a driver and other positions in Tobruk, North Africa and Italy. From there he wrote to his brother: “The world is Yaffa, very Yaffa, but more Yaffa than all the land of Israel, and our Jerusalem is superior to all of us.” When he returned from the army, he worked as a private judge of the Supreme Court, without complaining about the hardships of life and the burden of supporting five people on a meager salary, but the inner beauty he found in life in general and in his family in particular served him as a reward and consolation. With confidence in the future of Israel in a free homeland, at the beginning of the War of Independence, he served as a driver and fought enemies who plotted to sever Jerusalem from the humiliation. On the seventh day of Adar 2 5708 (March 18, 1948), he drove in one of the armored cars in a convoy to Hartuv, and on the way he fell with eight of his friends, and was buried in Sanhedria in Jerusalem. (13.9.1951) was transferred to the eternal rest of the military cemetery at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.