Ohayon, Moshe (Ben-David)

Son of Aziza and Yosef, was born in 1924 in Safi, Morocco, to an affluent and well-to-do family. He graduated from school and had a future of tranquility and affluence, but out of Jewish longings, without the influence of foreign elements of Zionist propaganda or agony of exile, yearned for the Land of Israel from his youth. Several times he tried to immigrate and once volunteered to serve as a sailor aboard a ship on its way to Palestine, but his attempt was unsuccessful. After World War he finally found the way to a training kibbutz in France. He did all the work with joy and served as secretary. Moshe boarded the illegal immigrant ship “Negev” and was taken with all its passengers to Cyprus. There, too, he behaved like an exemplary pioneer and encouraged his friends, who tended to despair. In 1948 he immigrated to Israel. He joined his kibbutz training and worked in the kibbutz. After the declaration of the state he took part in the battles against the Syrians in the Jordan Valley, in the liberation of Sha’ar Hagolan, and later joined the first of the regiment that was established and took part in its activities. (10.9.1948), Moshe fell in battle near Jib Yosef (Amiad today), wearing a machine gun to withdraw from his platoon by helping his comrades escape the trap into which they fell. On the 25th of March 1943, he was put to rest at the military cemetery in Degania Aleph.