Hillel, Chaim

Chaim, son of Rachel and Eliyahu Hillel, was born on Hanukkah in Jerusalem in 1928. When he was one year old, his parents moved to Neveh Shalom in Tel Aviv, where he studied at the “Sha’arei Torah” Talmud Torah in the neighborhood and graduated from the Bialik Municipal School. He worked in the “Egged” garage and in his service in the underground he used his professional skills in sabotage operations against the British. Once, when a British policeman was in the middle of arresting a young wife, he threw a gun at the policeman and saved the girl from prison.
In 1945 he was held in detention in the Latrun camp and released on condition that he remain in house arrest at night and report to the police twice a day, but even under these conditions he found it possible to continue his underground activities. In the winter of 1948, he participated in the defense of Tel Aviv on the part of Neve Shalom and the Ezra and Hatikvah neighborhoods, and was wounded in the arm, arm, chest and leg and brought to Yarkon Hospital. When he heard that his friends had gone to battle for Ramle, he escaped from the hospital before his recovery and took up his post. Chaim died in the battle for Ramle on May 17, 1948. On May 11, 1952, he was laid to rest at the military cemetery in Kiryat Shaul.