Kaplan, Yehuda (Yoram, Jerry)

Son of Celia and August, was born on 17.6.1927 in the city of New Jersey, United States. He completed a professional high school and served for a while as an assistant to a pharmacist in the US Army during and after the Second World War. After his discharge he entered a preparatory course for the university, but when he heard that the Jews in Palestine, struggling for their independence, needed young forces to help them, he stopped his studies and volunteered for the Hagana. To Haifa. From there he came to Tel Aviv and after two weeks went to combat service in the Givati ​​Brigade. During Operation “Maccabi” for the breakthrough to Jerusalem, on May 21, 1948, a force from the “Givati” Brigade left a number of armored vehicles to transfer ammunition to the Harel forces in the eastern sector. The force encountered British armored vehicles near Deir Ayyub and absorbed casualties. A reinforcements force was sent to his aid and after retreating, the forces seized the Latrun detention camp, intending to use it as a base for the conquest of Latrun. The next morning, the force suffered a heavy bombardment of the Kaukji’s “Rescue Army” guns stationed in Latrun. The force had casualties and had to retreat. In this battle Yoram fell on Wednesday, May 13, 1948, the day before the declaration of the State of Israel, which for his rebirth came to fight. The investigation of the missing persons unit in the IDF found that Yehuda was buried in a mass grave along with Shlomo Barber and Mendel Mat in the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in a grave that belonged to the 32nd Battalion.