Katznelson, Benjamin

Son of Reb Leib. He was educated in one of the gymnasiums in the city and in 1912 his parents sent him to Eretz Israel to study at the Herzliya Gymnasium in Tel Aviv, where he was successful in his studies. As a student of the Seventh Division of the Gymnasium, Turkey joined the war with the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary), and the connection between Palestine and Russia was severed. Benjamin, who was a subject of enemy territory, was deported along with other deportees to Egypt. When he was in Alexandria, he learned of the establishment of the “Partisans Brigade” founded by Joseph Trumpeldor. He quickly joined the battalion together with Reuven Katznelson, a relative of his family, and was transferred with his unit to the Gallipoli front. On the 17th of Sivan (May 30, 1915), during a heavy bombardment of Gallipoli, Benjamin fell on the battlefield and was buried in a British military cemetery at the foot of Mount Etcheva in the Gallipoli Peninsula. The news of his death reached his hometown and shocked all his acquaintances with shock and grief. His name is commemorated in the “Soldiers’ House,” in the book “Yizkor” of the Jabotinsky Institute, in the book “A Nation in Its War” and in “The Years of Our War from Gallipoli to the Soldier.” A list of his character was published in the Bobruisk Book.