Reese, Yaakov (Kova)

The only son of Rivka and Aryeh was born on April 24, 1930 in Lvov, Poland. In his hometown he attended elementary school and was the first in his class. At the outbreak of World War II, he fled with his parents to Romania, where the family had been through the difficult years of war. Jacob continued his studies at the Gymnasium, founded by Polish refugees in the city of Craiova near Bucharest. Even in this institution, where a hostile spirit prevailed among the Jews, he excelled in his studies and liked his teachers and friends even though he was the only Jew among the Christians. In 1944 he immigrated to Israel with his parents. When he arrived, he found an incomprehensible world and felt himself a stranger, but quickly learned the language. In 1945 he was accepted as a student in the fifth grade of the Herzliya high school and a few months later he was enthusiastic and devoted to the Zionist idea. He enthusiastically devoted himself to his Hebrew studies and made them strong. In English he was immediately the best student in the gymnasium. “In the eight moons, in which I taught the late Yaakov Reiss, I was impressed by him and saw him as a straight-headed, straight-thinking, sensitive and opinionated man, respectful of parents and teachers and cherish a book and literature,” wrote his teacher Reuven Avinoam. The fifth joined the Gadna and fulfilled his duties faithfully. He was especially prone to mechanics, and during the holidays he worked in the garage. At the outbreak of the War of Independence, he enlisted in the army and thwarted his parents’ efforts to release him from the army or at least to transfer him to a non-combat position. For several weeks he worked in the air force headquarters, but refused to continue, arguing that he could not remain on the home front while his comrades were fighting in the front. At his request, he was transferred to the flight school, and even there he excelled and his instructors predicted great things to him. On 10 December 1948 he came home for a short vacation, fell ill, but refused to stay home and hurried back to the training base, so that no one else would take the exams. On the way he was seriously injured in a road accident. He was taken to a hospital and died there five days later, on the 17th of December, 1948. He was laid to rest in the military cemetery in Haifa.