Gotthilf, Jonathan

The eldest son of Yehudit and Shmuel, was born on June 19, 1958, in Rehovot. Jonathan was named after a good friend of his father, who fell in the War of Independence. His family – the Pardesan family, a veteran of Rehovot and Ness Ziona – has been connected to the land of the land for four generations, and sank in Jonathan the love of the homeland and the responsibility for its fate. When he was in first grade, Yonatan traveled with his parents to the United States, where he stayed for three years, and at the school stood out for his talents. When they returned to Israel, he continued his studies at the Sprinzak Elementary School and the Katzir High School in Rehovot and completed a real trend. From an early age Jonathan was an independent and strong character. He was about ten years old when he made himself audacious: he went to the orchards at night, traveled alone on a bicycle for a long distance, jumped from the lifeguard tower or returned alone from the sea to the streets on foot. As a teenager, he went to Sinai to work in fortifications, under conditions that even strong, tough men found difficult to endure. He was tall and handsome. Despite his tough image, Yonatan was very emotional and had a good Lev. He wrote poems, loved animals, and small children, and treated old people with affection and respect. He loved people in general, and after his death was discovered how many were his friends. Yonatan began his military service in an aviation course, but voluntarily asked to leave the course and volunteered for an elite unit of infantry. He served in the Golani reconnaissance unit and loved the hard work of the commando unit. Most of the time Jonathan served in the north of the country during a period of terrorist attacks and infiltrations. A few months before his release, his friend in the unit, Yossi Bar-Meir, fell from Afikim. His death severely hurt him, and he accepted Yossi’s role as a sergeant in that department. In 1979 Yonatan was discharged from the IDF and was assigned to reserve duty in a Nahal unit patrol unit, together with other members of the Patrol. He returned to the army from the IDF and had clear plans for the future: he rented an apartment in the Hadar Yosef neighborhood of Tel Aviv and began working as a security man at Lod Airport, while studying mathematics at Tel Aviv University. In the second year of his studies, Yonatan moved to a combined department of physics and computers at Bar-Ilan University and at the end of the year prepared to marry his girlfriend, Dorit, but the war broke out, and Jonathan joined his unit Even before he received a summons, he always claimed that the terrorists should not be let go, and went out in the Lev of Yonatan was killed in the Peace for Galilee operation on June 10, 1982, when he fought in the eastern sector of Lebanon, and his unit was hit by an aerial bombardment. , 24, was brought to rest in the military cemetery in Rehovot, where he left behind his parents, brother and sister.