Shmueli (Kahane), Ben-Zion
Son of Esther and Shlomo, was born on December 30, 1920, in the city of Khust, in Carpathian Russia (then Czechoslovakia), where he completed a Hebrew primary school. When the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1939, he boarded a small ship on the Danube and through the Black Sea. He was captured and exiled to Mauritius. During the Second World War, son of-Zion volunteered for the Czechoslovakian army, and when he arrived in Israel he changed his uniform in civilian clothes and joined the founders of Kfar Ruppin. From here he volunteered for the Jewish Brigade. After his release, he returned from Europe to the kibbutz. At the beginning of the War of Independence, he stood up to defend the homeland. He served as a devoted corporal in one of the battalions of the Golani Brigade and participated in Tirat Zvi, Beit Shean, Jenin, Nazareth, the Western Galilee and recently in the Negev to Gvulot. In Operation Horev, the expulsion of the Egyptian army from Israel, the Golani Brigade was tasked with creating a deception in the western wing of the front, before the main effort in the eastern wing began. On the night of December 22-23, 1948, the brigade captured the 86th post north of Khan Yunis, threatening the road and the railway, and gave the impression that the intention was to cut off the Egyptian forces in the Gaza Strip. The Egyptians reacted with a fierce counter-attack with the help of artillery and armor, and under enemy pressure the Golani fighters were forced to retreat. In this battle he fell on the day of the 21st of Kislev 5709 (December 23, 1948). After the signing of the armistice with Egypt, he was laid to rest at the Ruppin village cemetery.
