Kalev, Yaakov (Kobi)

Son of Rachel, he was born on the 16th of Cheshvan (16.10.1958). At the age of two, Kobi moved to Givatayim, where he grew up and was educated. When he was four years old, he was orphaned from his father. Kobi knew how to maintain close contact with his father’s family, but he loved and respected Yitzhak his stepfather, who raised him as a son in everything. He attended the Borochov elementary school and the ORT high school. In February 1977, Koby enlisted in the IDF and volunteered for the paratroopers, and in May 1977 he took a parachuting course and then a combat paramedics course. After he was discharged from the army, he worked at the bank, and Kobi was elected to the workers committee at the bank, although he was a relatively new employee, because of his involvement and concern. At the beginning of the Peace for Galilee War, his unit led the advancing force in the central sector near Bahdun, near the Beirut-Damascus highway, where face-to-face fighting developed, with Syrian artillery planting Katyushas around IDF forces. A Katyusha shell hit Kobi as he guided his platoon before storming a nearby village. Kobi was killed along with seven of his friends on 2 Tamuz, 23.6.1982, and he was 23 and a half years old at the time of his death. He had planned to attend the memorial ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of his father’s death. The commander of his unit wrote to his family and told how Yaakov fought face-to-face against the enemy under the shower of shells. “In his fall Yaakov left a deep void in our ranks,” his commander concluded. Yaakov was laid to rest at the military cemetery in Kiryat Shaul. He left behind a wife, parents, brother and sister. In his name, his friends in Givatayim conduct a soccer tournament every year between the city’s schools.