Ronis (Greenwald), Avi
Avi, son of Pnina and Michael, a survivor of the Holocaust and the death camps, was born on February 12, 1951. In Ra’anana, Avi grew up and was raised by his mother’s second husband, who treated him as a son. Avi began studying at the Achdut elementary school in Kiryat Motzkin and then moved to the Habonim school in Ramot-Remez. He went on to study for two years at the “Samet” high school, near the Technion (where he was awarded a prize for his excellent work) and in the eleventh and twelfth grades he attended the agricultural school at Kibbutz Heftziba, He was a member of the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement and later joined Mahaney Haolim, first as an apprentice and later became an active instructor. He wrote articles for the movement’s interpreters and continued his training in Heftziba, where he instilled in his students a love for the values of work, love of the kibbutz and the love of the country. Avi was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces in mid-February 1970 and served in the Armored Corps, completing his basic training in the tank corps, tank commanders’ course, armor patrol course and armor officers course. Wherever he went, he was considered a model soldier and commander, a man of initiative and resourcefulness, an excellent guide and a commander beloved to his students and soldiers. His commanders convinced him to continue serving in the regular army in combat positions in the Armored Corps.
Avi loved the army, he loved the courses and the training and exercises in the field, and he helped to train and teach and contributed greatly to the training of armored personnel carriers and commanders. Was very attached to his family, but mostly loved his farm Hefziba, A few weeks before the outbreak of the war, he married a member of Kibbutz Heftziba, and during the Yom Kippur War Avi was the commander of a tank company in the Golan Heights, and when the war broke out his company was split in the southern sector of the Golan Heights, And in the course of which he commanded the reinforcements that arrived, and under his command the company did a great deal to stop the Syrian forces. In the evening of Yom Kippur, on October 6, 1973, When the Syrians tried to capture his tank position, he hit six enemy tanks, he went up to a bare position, Attacked from there and forced the Syrians to retreat. In this action, he was injured and killed. He was laid to rest in the military cemetery in Haifa. Survived by a wife, parents, brother, and sister. After his fall, he was promoted to the rank of captain and was awarded a commendation by the Chief of Staff for “courage, resourcefulness, and leadership. In a letter of condolence to the bereaved family, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan wrote that my Avi was a talented, proactive, efficient and popular officer. A list of his path and image was published in the booklet “I Remember Them One by One”, which was published in memory of the sons of Raanana, who fell in the war; His name is engraved on memorial tablets placed in the schools where he studied; A tree was planted in his name and remembered in “The Forest of Defenders.”
