Lavi, Yaakov

Son of Israel. He was born on May 13, 1920, in Novoslice, in Besarabia. In 1925 he immigrated with his family to Eretz Israel. They settled in Haifa and Yaakov studied first in elementary school. Then he moved to Reali School. The subjects that attracted him most were Hebrew, Bible, history, Talmud, and aggadah, as evidenced by one of his teachers who said he had a “solid, rigid, slightly angular, self-contained character with a spark of rebellion in his clear eyes. . . A strong intellect, alert and sharp. With a rich, oral expression of excellent style in writing.” In those years, he joined the Scouts movement, but after a while his entire group moved to the Mahanot Ha’olim and Yaakov devoted himself entirely to the movement. After completing his training year in August 1939, he traveled with a few friends to Europe and returned to Israel immediately and joined the group that set out to settle in Beit Ha’arava in the northern Dead Sea. He was a member of the Culture Committee and devoted his love to preparing material for the Bible and literature circles. On the 13th of Kislev (December 13, 1940) he went with his friend Ze’ev Levintel to fish in Jordan, between the Allenby Bridge and the Dead Sea. An Arab gang shot and wounded them with mortal wounds. The two were brought to rest in the small cemetery overlooking the Arava and the Jordan River. He left parents and a sister. His friends published a pamphlet in his memory and the memory of Ze’ev Lewenthal. At the beginning of the pamphlet they wrote: “A warm life, soaring and martyrdom without time – what else can Israel choose for its sons?” When the Arava House fell in the War of Independence by the Arab Legion of Jordan, the kibbutz cemetery was desecrated. After the Six-Day War, a monument was erected near the cemetery, in which the names of all the fallen were engraved, including the name of Yaakov Lavi.