Pogach, Yonah

Son of Zelig. He was born in 1901 in Sosilkov, Russia, and was a pioneer in defending the Jews of his city against Russian rioters who attacked them, and in 1921 he immigrated to Eretz Israel as a pioneer, joining the Gdud Ha’avoda and working in Rosh HaAyin. On the 23rd of Nisan, (May 1, 1921), when Yonah was in Jaffa and stayed at Beit Ha’olim, the riots of 1921 broke out. The immigrants’ house was the first target of the Arab rioters. The pioneers who lived there barricaded themselves inside the house and managed to repel two attacks. In the third attack, the rioters were accompanied by Arab policemen armed with rifles and the mob burst into the house and killed twelve of its inhabitants. Here, too, Yonah excelled in his courage. When he saw the house surrounded by rioters, he decided with another of the pioneers to break out to inform the police in Jaffa about what was going on. One of the policemen shot him and killed him. He was laid to rest in a mass grave in the old cemetery in Tel Aviv. A list in his memory was published in the journal “Kuntress”.