Rafaeli, Asher

Son of Leah and Rafael. Who was born in the city of Sulamania, Iraq, on 31.8.1950. He was the fourth child in a family with eight children: Yitzhak, Avraham, Herzl, Yoel, Malka, Rina, Michal and Shlomo. His father was a goldsmith, who also ran a small grocery store in Solmania. In addition, the father served as a public emissary in the local synagogue. Who immigrated to Israel with his family at the age of one, in 1951. After a period in which they lived in the transit camp, they settled in Afula, where he grew up and was educated. When he was a member of a traditional family, he attended the “Ohel Meir” school and the religious high school “Yehuda”. Which he remembered to his childhood friends as a frail, sensitive and highly introverted boy. He had many friends with whom he kept in touch all his life, although he did not take part in youth movements like most of his friends. In the army he served in the Combat Engineering Corps. He was one of the founders of the bridgehead crossing the Suez Canal in 1973 (the Yom Kippur War). After graduating from the IDF he joined the Israel Police, where he served as an officer until 1988. His last position was as head of the Administration Systems Analysis Division. And on the recommendation of then-Prison Commissioner Gondar Shaul Levi, Asher was transferred (on loan) to the Prisons Service, and in 1990 he took part in a representative delegation from the IPS to Denmark for study purposes. In 1994, he was appointed Head of the IPS Personnel Directorate and was promoted to the rank of Under-Gendarme, and in 1997 he was sent to the National Security College in Tel Aviv. At the college, he combined graduate studies alongside trips and security activities in the State of Israel. His relatives remember how he used to tell with great excitement about his experiences of this period. He was full of fascinating stories, full of pride in his studies. Who married Rachel and was the father of Rotem, Liat and Noa. He is remembered as an exemplary family man, a loving husband and a devoted father. From childhood he loved animals. He especially liked to watch migrating birds and even photograph them with his camera. As he grew older, he continued to do so, and often went on trips in nature reserves, in the desert and in every other landscape. Another of Asher’s hobbies: his great love for the songs of the Land of Israel. He especially loved singer Esther Ofarim and singer Berman. His relatives also remember how he found satisfaction in crossword puzzles, and spent many hours cooking tastefully for family members and close friends. On Monday evening, January 20, 1997, during a vacation at his home from college, after a Lev dinner prepared for the family, he suffered a Lev attack and died. A brigadier who was forty-seven when he fell. He was laid to rest in the cemetery in Givat Shaul, Jerusalem. Survived by a wife, son and two daughters, and eight brothers and sisters