Kinney, Matan
Ben Sigalit and Yehuda. He was born in Kfar Hayarok on September 13, 1981, a younger brother to graze. His second name – Yaakov – was given to him after his mother’s grandfather. When Matan was one year old, the family moved to Alonei Abba, a community settlement in the Jezreel Valley. In 1984 his sister Ofra was born. Two years later, the family moved to Kibbutz Gonen, where his brother Carmel and Adar were born. Joining the kibbutz was not easy for Matan, who was a shy, withdrawn child with a unique personality. He became attached to one of his classmates, and the friendship with him remained courageous throughout Matan’s life. Matan began his studies at the Goma Regional Elementary School in Kfar Blum and continued on to the Hula Valley – the regional high school in Kfar Blum. He played basketball as a hobby, and even won several trophies in tournaments, but he did not raise the hobby to a regular level. Matan loved music, played guitar, and even belonged to a band during a certain period of time. Matan was fond of computer games and imagination, and liked to be absorbed in reading – especially in science fiction books. He was also very attracted to airplanes – he read about it and learned it, hoping to get to the Air Force as a pilot. At the age of adolescence, the period of storms and rebelliousness, he decided with his parents to leave the house and studied for a while at the Neve Tzelim boarding school in Hod Hasharon, but at the age of seventeen, he returned home to take an external matriculation exam in Kiryat Shmona. In November 1999, Matan joined the IDF with a driver’s license, which he received a few days earlier. Acclimatization in the army was not easy, but he never gave up and succeeded, even in the most difficult times. Matan distributed his vacations between the house and his girlfriend, Magal, who lived in Kiryat Shmona. He used to spend his holidays playing the band, dancing (his area) and various entertainment. On October 29, 2001, Matan was killed in a road accident on his way from his girlfriend’s home in Kiryat Shmona to his home at the end of his vacation. He was twenty years old when he fell. Matan was laid to rest in the military section of the Kibbutz Gonen cemetery. Survived by his parents, three sisters and a brother. The commander of the unit wrote to the parents: “… your son was no longer a soldier in the company,” he says, adding that he was one of the most prominent – mainly because of his special character, the great joy of life that characterized him, the high motivation and the developed sense of humor. As a fighter … “she eulogized Meira, who accompanied him during his education in the kibbutz:” Nothing in your life comes easily to you, except your death, which comes with unbearable ease … The last few years have been good for you. Flowers like you, Matan, open slowly … How sad that the fortune of happiness has tasted so little … “
