Kalif (Mualem), Ovadia (Meir)

Ovadia, son of Naima and Yaakov Kalif, was born in 1930 in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq. He studied in the “Talmud Torah” of the community and in 1943 immigrated to Israel by land with the family, who settled in Jerusalem. He worked hard in carpentry to help the family, and in the evenings he studied in order to complete his education, in an effort to reach a higher social and economic level. Ovadia became involved in social and youth life and joined the Hagana underground. In the winter of 5708, he served in a unit of the Moriah battalion and was sent to the Etzion Bloc in the last days of the Bloc, and according to the testimony of his comrades who survived, fought and courageously defended every step until he was hit by a bullet in the neck and fell during the great attack of local Arabs on the Bloc, on the 3rd of Iyar 5708 (May 12, 1948). On the 17th of Cheshvan 5710 (17.11.1949) he was transferred to eternal rest in a grave in the military cemetery at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.