Sharfstein, Gad (Kurt, Yehoyachin)

Son of Lotty and Bernard. He was born in 1918 in Berlin, the capital of Germany. As a child, he experienced all the events Germany experienced at the time – the consequences of its defeat in World War I – the undermining of the agriculture and the undermining of the democratic regime and the rise of extremists from the right and the left. He joined the Zionist youth movement “Kadima” and at the age of fourteen he led a group of young people and immersed in them the ideas of the Zionist movement and the belief in a better life on a kibbutz in Eretz Israel. Gad invested all his energies in acquiring education and knowledge. On behalf of the Habonim youth movement he left with his group for agricultural training in Denmark, and here, too, in hard physical work, he acquired skill and expertise. He had golden hands and a fertile mind. He invented many “inventions” that made life easier in training and corrected everything that needed repair. At the beginning of March 1938, Gad immigrated to Palestine with his group and was accepted to Kibbutz Alonim. The days were the days of the bloody riots of 1936-1939 and shooting and assaults, mining and arson were daily activities around the kibbutz. As a member of Haganah, Gad joined the Guard Corps and was on duty at Couscous and Tivon, between Haifa and Elonim, near Sheikh Abrik. The detachment from the members of the Notarah period was difficult, he felt that the work of Hashmura was not productive and he wished with all his might to return to work and work in the kibbutz. On the 14th of Tammuz, 1.7.1939, Gad died during his service and was laid to eternal rest in the cemetery at Kibbutz Alonim. On the first anniversary of his death, the kibbutz published a pamphlet in his memory, in which he was eulogized by his friends.