Keren-Zvi (Hirschhorn), Israel

Son of Shifra and Moshe, was born on 1 June 1927 in Ramat Hasharon and attended elementary school, was a cheerful and alert boy who waited impatiently for the day when he would join the Haganah. He was Simcha and full of joy, and since then he was devoted to the Haganah, and after his graduation he helped the family to earn a living. After a short period of training he was transferred with his unit to the vicinity of Jerusalem and acted as a squad commander in Sha’ar Hagai. One night, his class was ordered to harass the residents of Deir Ayyoub by throwing grenades at the village. The unit approached the place and had already taken Christianity out of the grenades, but at the last moment the order was taken back and the men returned with their fist-clipped grenades without Christianity. The road to the base was not short, so it was decided to throw the grenades without a specific target in order not to be hit by the explosion. The one who did not do so, his friends say, was Israel, who saved the grenade and brought it to the base. In December 1947 he was sent to Gush Etzion. Was among the convoy’s fighters at Nebi Daniel and miraculously managed to get out of the roadblocker of the convoy two minutes before he exploded on the people inside him and arrived on foot to the block, killing two armed Arabs on the way. When it was his turn to fly to Tel Aviv, he chose to remain in the area and was one of the last fighters in Gush Etzion. His friends say that on the 4th of Iyar 5708 (13.5.1948), the last day of fighting, he lay wounded, but when the battle near Kfar Etzion erupted, he jumped out of bed and came out to help the fighters. On 17 November 1949, he was transferred to the military cemetery at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem with the rest of the victims of the Gush.