Greenberg, Jacob (Jacques)

Son of Golda and Gershon, was born on December 12, 1930 in the city of Biboler, Romania. Jacob was a Yaffa baby with blue eyes. His mother tied a red string to his baby cart for fear of the “evil eye”. As a child, he was orphaned from his mother and since then followed his older brother Aryeh. When Aryeh set out to train Hanoar Hazioni and immigrated to Eretz Israel, Yaakov hurried after him and two months later, in April 1947, immigrated to Israel and moved to live with his brother in Kfar Yona. He quickly enlisted in the army and his brother expressed his displeasure at enlisting at such an early age. His answer was: “Do not you see that the earth is burning?” Yaakov was trained in the IDF for two weeks, then served for a year until he fell in battle, first guarding various settlements in the north of the country, and when the Oded Brigade was established he joined it as a machine gunner and took part in all the activities and battles that his company, And the Beit Netofa Valley in the fall of 1948. He fell in the fall of 1948 with his regiment to the south to take part in Operation Yoav in the area of ​​Faluja-Beit Jubrin, and he participated in Operation Hiram on December 9, 1948. In Etron, north of Malkia, while she was shooting a machine gun at his class. When he was taken on a stretcher to an ambulance, he did not complain or say a word about himself but was interested in the safety of his friends. Only when they reached the ambulance did he ask the soldiers that if he died he would inform his brother, who was serving in another part of the country at the time. That same day he died of his wounds and was laid to rest the next day at the cemetery of Kfar Giladi-Tel Hai. In his letter to Aryeh, Yaakov’s brother, his commander wrote: “Jacques was very fond of his friends and they always looked for his girlfriend, because he knew how to spend their time playing his harmonica.” He added that his behavior was exemplary to his friends, both on the issue of order and discipline and during the fighting, when he fulfilled his duties in a respectful manner.