Menashe, Chaim-Yitzhak

Chaim-Yitzhak, son of Aliza and Menashe Menashe, was born in 1931 in Baghdad, Iraq. He was one of the first to join the Hehalutz movement, which operated under underground conditions. Chaim-Yitzhak aspired to immigrate to Israel. In 1945, at the age of 14, he fulfilled his dream in mortal danger, climbing on foot via Transjordan, and then sneaking across the border of the country. His mother arrived some time later. From his youth he stood out in his stubbornness, strong character and practical sense. In all of his being he felt the stress of exile. Not a day went by without a clash with an Arab boy on the street. As part of Youth Aliyah, he was sent to a training center in Galil Yam, worked in groves and vegetable gardens and dreamed of joining Kibbutz Shefayim. With the outbreak of the War of Independence, he joined the Palmach, one of the Harel battalions, and fell on 4 Nisan, April 13, 1948, when he accompanied the Hadassah convoy on its way to Mount Scopus. The convoy passed through the Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, and when the war broke out, the convoy encountered an Arab ambush in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. Hundreds of Arabs hurled heavy gunfire at them. Some of the vehicles managed to get out and return, but two buses, an ambulance and an escort vehicle were ambushed. In the afternoon, the Arabs managed to set fire to two buses on the road, and they were unable to help the convoy. The British intervened and rescued the survivors from the trapped vehicles. Chaim-Yitzhak was brought to rest in a mass grave at the Sanhedria cemetery in Jerusalem. He was 17 years old when he fell.