Gilinsky, Yitzhak-Gershon

The only son of Deborah and Baruch. He was born on July 2, 1920 in Otian, Lithuania. His father was a well-known public activist in his city, one of the founders of Hebrew culture and one of the first of the Revisionist Zionists. Yitzhak received a national-traditional education in his home, absorbed the love of the people and the country, and attended the Hebrew elementary and high schools in his city. In 1935 he immigrated to Eretz Israel and completed his high school studies at the Montefiore School in Tel Aviv, where he joined the ranks of the Betar youth movement and became an active member. Yitzhak was loved by his friends and everyone knew him as a charming young man, polite and enthusiastic, modest in manner and honest in character. After completing his studies, he served as a librarian in the Sha’arei Tzion Municipal Library and the Benjamin House. During the Second World War, when the German army reached Al-‘Almin, Yitzhak volunteered for the British Army and was assigned to the First Battalion of the Palestine Infantry. In a letter to his good friend, Yitzhak spoke of the motives that led him to volunteer for the army, noting that “after many considerations – at first before I enlisted and when I was drafted – I decided there was something more important than a family and private happiness.” He was strong in spirit and constantly encouraged his anxious parents. Even when he was injured on the front, he did not inform his parents about it, but wrote: “I feel great, my mood is remarkably good.” In all his letters from the front in Italy he emphasized his strong love for the Land of Israel and his hatred of the German enemy. Yitzhak refused to leave the army because of his injury and stayed for a while in a rear unit so that he could devote himself to helping the Jewish refugees in Europe. When the Jewish Brigade was established, it rejected the idea of ​​working in the office, let alone the idea of ​​taking a vacation. His opinion was: “We have not yet won the war, the battle has not yet ended.” However, it was evident that he lacked the leisure and reading hours, as he wrote: “I have not read a Hebrew book for a long time and I miss reading very much.” On a trip with a group of Israeli soldiers in Rome, Yitzhak was very impressed by the city’s art treasures but refused to kiss the Pope’s hand while visiting the Vatican. When asked where he came from, he answered: “I am a Jew from the Land of Israel.” In a last letter he sent to his friend, two weeks before he was critically wounded, he wrote: “Tonight I’m going out again. On the 17th of Nisan 5745 (March 31, 1945), when his battalion, the First Battalion, crossed the Senio River in Italy, encountered Yitzhak’s platoon in a German holding class that had been entrenched on one of the hills. In the battle that developed for the conquest of the German position, Yitzhak was wounded and transferred to a military hospital on April 13, 1945. He was laid to rest in the British military cemetery in Forli del Sagno, Italy, where he left his parents. In the book “Yizkor” (“The Book of the Year of the Press”) and the Yizkor Book of the Jabotinsky Institute. Location of Kibbutz VI.C.19 Unit Palestine Regiment Rank Private.