Shiff, Reuven (Red)

Son of Sarah and Moshe, was born in February 1926 in Canada. During the Second World War he decided to enlist, and when he was fifteen years old, he went to the recruiting center, changed his age and forged his father’s signature, and was accepted into the army. At the end of the training he was sent to Europe as a sergeant and a machine gunner in the infantry. Participated in the victory and conquest campaign. After the war he returned to Canada. Where he worked in his brother’s restaurant, but found no rest in him because he was awakened by the Zionist consciousness and decided to immigrate to the Land of Israel. Reuven joined the sailors who accompanied the illegal immigrant ships and arrived in Israel on the illegal immigrant ship Geula. In January 1948, Kibbutz Ein Baruch, during difficult times for kibbutz members, was given days of fighting in the Galilee. Of his fellow sailors, he remained the only one on the kibbutz, calling the kibbutz and friends. His friends called him affectionately “Red” (reddish). During the difficult battles in Ramot Naftali he volunteered to come to the aid of the place and after a short time decided to enlist in the army. After joining the Negev Brigade, he joined the “Chayot Hanegev” unit. He was not afraid, and in any case he was calm and calm because, as he pointed out, he had grown used to the battles, but he did not like to tell what he had been through in Europe. Reuven fell in a raid on Bir Abu Jaber on July 17, 1948. He was buried in Ruhama, and his memory was placed in a memorial booklet on the death of Kibbutz Ma’ayan Baruch on May 16, 1950) was put to rest in the Nahalat Yitzhak Military Cemetery.