Kalmanson, Leonid (Aryeh)

Son of Anatoly and Maya. He was born on February 14, 1958, in the city of Yalta in the Soviet Union. In 1972 the family immigrated to Israel and settled in Jerusalem. Leonid had already learned seven years at a school in his hometown. From an early age he suffered from diseases. Asthma was particularly bothering him. Leonid suffered from the hostile attitude toward him. To the Jewish child. Who came to discover alienation and anti-Semitic remarks. All this influenced him and contributed to his inability to establish ties with the people of his surroundings. Suffered as a Jew, aroused Leonid’s desire to leave the Diaspora and immigrate to the Land of Israel. “If we do not immigrate to Israel,” he would say to his parents, “I will leave the border to Israel alone.” The boy’s “threats” influenced him, and the family finally accepted his pleas. In Jerusalem, Leonid studied at the Danish High School in a biologically realistic direction. To his parents’ dismay, Leonid remained an introverted child. Closed, sad and even a little depressed. He did not get in touch with his classmates and did not go out to have fun. His whole world was reading books, which were his best friends. As a type of idealist and romantic, he excelled in the fields of physics and mathematics. He also loved music – classical and pop. Play with house animals. Most of all he loved Israel – the people and the land – and dreamed of serving his homeland, when the time came, in the most dangerous positions. However, the realization and reality were much more difficult than Leonid’s dream of loneliness. When he arrived in August 1976, when he was drafted into the regular army, he knew how to hide the asthma he had previously acquired, so that nothing would interfere with his acceptance into the Golani Brigade. He did the first stage of basic training with great effort, and without complaining. Afterward he was temporarily sent to a paramedics course and was awarded a cum laude. In the second stage of basic training, he was physically and mentally broken and he could not withstand the pressures, especially since he was now separated from the few friends he had acquired during the first service. On the 27th of Adar 5727 (February 27, 1977), he fell while serving, was brought to rest in the cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, and left behind his parents and sister.