Kalai-Strelitz, Menachem

Son of Pessia and Joseph. He was born on July 25, 1914, in the Valkna Oblast in Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania During the First World War the family was exiled to the Vitebsk region and later returned to Lithuania. Menachem studied at the Tachkemoni School and in 1928, after completing his studies, the family moved to Kfar Sava and its sons began agricultural work, and during the 1929 riots the family took an active part in defending the place from the Arab gangs. Menahem studied for a while at the Tiferet Israel Yeshiva in Haifa and at the Technion, and spent his days learning Torah from his grandfather, who was one of the founders of the Kfar Saba Yeshiva. In those days he joined Betar, left the house for a while and went to work in Petach Tikvah, where he was actively involved in the Betar organization. When Menahem returned to Kfar Saba, the first group of Betar members entered Kfar Saba and worked with them to earn a living in the Hebrew agriculture, becoming a central figure in the Betar youth movement, and was always the moving spirit that encouraged and encouraged the Betar. The poet Uri Zvi Greenberg, who was his favorite, tried to motivate his friends in Israel and abroad to join the national movement, when Menachem Begin was one of the founders of the local branch. With the outbreak of the 1936 riots he canceled his plan to travel abroad and began to prepare the tools needed for the struggle, and was one of the first in the Irgun to manufacture hand grenades and primitive rifle grenades, and tried to manufacture bullets. On May 14, 1936, Menachem was wounded by a bomb that exploded in his hands while he was assembling it. He was transferred to Hadassah Hospital in Tel Aviv and on the 27th of Tammuz (17.7.1936) He died in a cemetery in Kfar Sava, where his life and heroism were published in the book “HaZikor” for those who perished in the Etzel. The memory of those who perished in Kfar Saba and the surrounding area and in the book of 1936-1937.