Ripstein, Yosef (“Sefi”)

He was educated in the “Levanon” school in his city Minchin, Germany, and he joined the Hehalutz movement in which he set out for the Neuendorf Farm to train himself to immigrate to Eretz Israel. In 1934 he succeeded in realizing his dream, Yosef came to Israel and lived in Gedera, and with his own hands he built his house and other houses in Mishva, and when he became a contractor he built houses even in Tel Aviv. In the outbreak of the bloody riots of 1936-1939, Yosef was accepted to the national institutions and joined the Guard Corps, and he was attached to the “Movement Guard”. On 24 Av, August 9, 1939, when he returned with his friends to the guard to patrol the dirt roads between Ekron and Hulda, his truck went over a mine, and all five of its guards were hit, and Yosef was killed. He ws buried in the cemetery in Gedera, along with his friends who had been wounded. The circumstances of his death are recorded in the book “To Fire and To Guard”.