Mordechai Pondiller

Son of Rachel and Yeruham, was born in 1915 in Latvia and immigrated to Israel in 1936. He had a thorough education. In Israel he worked as an agricultural laborer and joined the “Wingate” organization, which settled in Moshav Ramot Naftali. He was single and lonely and not many knew him very closely. He was healthy, strong and connected to the earth and to her work. He filled all the positions in the organization and the Haganah with precision and seriousness. He participated in the bloody events of 1936-1939 in guarding and defending and building the “Northern Fence” in the Galilee. During the Second World War he joined the British Coast Gunners Unit and after many difficulties managed to move to the Artillery Unit of the Jewish Brigade and with it he passed the battles in Italy, participated in all its military and national activities, and provided assistance to the refugees. Upon his return to Ramot Naftali, he moved to a plantation course, dreamed of planting fruit trees in his moshav and even began preparing the planting pits, but the war broke his dreams. He did not receive quiet farm work, nor did he realize his desire to establish a home and family there. As a member of the Hagana he participated with all the local people in his defense. Mordecai stood courageously in all the severe attacks that followed one another on Ramot Naftali and fell during an attack when he went up to an observation post on the Citadel Tower and there they caught an enemy bullet on the day of the 22nd of Nissan 5708 (1948). He was laid to rest at the Ramot Naftali cemetery.