Rotenberg, Yisrael-Meir (Yasha)

Yisrael-Meir (Yasha), son of Rivka and Issachar Rotenberg, was born in 1914 in Izbica, Poland. When he was 11, he joined the Hashomer Hatzair movement and was an active member. When he was 15, he emigrated with his family to France, contacted other young Jews and together they founded a branch of Hashomer Hatzair in Paris. In 1939, he was about to immigrate to Eretz Israel in Aliyah Bet, but the Second World War broke out.
During the first months he was in ORT training in southern France, where he married a wife and together with her he endured the hardships of wanderings. After a great deal of effort, they succeeded in establishing a training group, but on the day they completed the first plowing of their land they had to flee to Switzerland in the middle of the night because of the threat of deportation. There the couple had their first son. He also worked there until he left the country.
At the end of the war, in early 1945, Yisrael Meir was called to return to Paris and was again active in Hashomer Hatza’ir and Hehalutz. He organized the refugees to immigrate. On July 26, 1945, he immigrated with his family to Israel and settled for a year and a half in Kibbutz Evron. From there he moved to Kiryat Amal and worked on paving roads. After the establishment of the state, he joined the battle and worked in an armament unit. On 20 Shvat, February 19, 1949, he died in a military hospital in Tiberias after a short illness, and was brought to rest in the military cemetery in Tiberias, leaving behind a wife and two sons. He was later transferred to the military cemetery in Haifa on 1.6.1950.