Mittelman, Batya

Daughter of Matilda and Shlomo. She was born in 1891 in the town of Kuzlitz, Chernigov in the Ukraine. Batya studied at the Gymnasium in the city, and with her father, who was a talmid chacham, she studied Hebrew and Bible at home and was a believer in Zionist education, and helped her mother deal with all the needs of the house. In 1905 many of the residents of the town, including relatives, traveled to Australia and to the United States. The father of the family decided: “From one exile to another, I do not travel anymore.” He immigrated with his family with their many children on a journey that lasted for three months, in 1907, to Eretz Yisrael. In Jerusalem, the father opened a hotel called “Jordan” because he, along with a group of immigrants he met on the ship, went to buy land on the other side of the Jordan River and to settle on it. Because of the poor economic situation, Batya and her sister Miriam went to work in the moshavot of Judea and sent their money to help the family. During the course of her work, she met a young man who came from the Galilee and his mouth filled with songs of praise for life there. Batya was fascinated by the stories and at the end of 1909 she reached the settlement of Yavne’el in the Lower Galilee. Here she met some of the members of the Hashomer Association, was accepted by the Association and moved to Sejera, as one of the “Working Group” who arrived there. Batya, because of her pleasant temperament, quickly acclimatized both in social life and in the various works, even the most demanding of her. She learned to ride a horse and use weapons and saw herself as equal to male friends. Batya worked in the Kinneret and Migdal Farm for a period of time and was among the first pioneers to reach the Jezreel Valley. When it was attacked, those in possession were armed and fiercely defended the settlement. On 12 Adar, 12 February 1913, her body was found on the seashore in Haifa after she was drowned in the sea. Batya was brought to rest in the Haifa cemetery. She left parents, four sisters and two brothers. Her brother Aryeh fell in the ranks of the “First Battalion of Judah” in 1919. Her life history and other things in her memory were presented in “The Book of the Second Aliyah,” in the book “Dreamers and Warriors” and in the book “Alei Aukef”.