Stern, Jacob

Son of Shmuel Naftali. He was born in Cheshvan in 1906 in Berenicek, Poland, and was a member of the youth movement of Tzeirei Zion in April 1926. He immigrated to Eretz Israel in April 1926 and joined a group that was in the training camp in Rehovot. He was the first wagon driver in the camp and was responsible for jobs such as drilling, planting, etc. One of the members who followed him to the camp testified: “In the eyes of the new man he was the symbol of the working man, with his solid body and tense muscles, who ruled over his ‘violin’, the turd. When the members of the hachshara went to their permanent spot, which was Kibbutz Givat Brenner, Yaakov was the first to come to work in the new settlement and the first to lean his tent. He drilled a well and placed the water pipe in the kibbutz. After a while he left the kibbutz to look for another way of life, but continued to maintain close ties with the kibbutz and his friends, and from time to time he even joined the kibbutz. Five years later he returned to Givat Brenner permanently with a wife and daughter. Some time after his return, the kibbutz was to send him to work in Sodom. Although the work involved a long separation from his family and his friends took it upon himself, he did not have time to fill it. On September 14, 1938, Yaakov, who had been a member of the Haganah since his arrival, joined the car, which transferred supplies from Tel Aviv to Ramat Rachel and was shot from the ambush. He was laid to rest in the Givat Brenner cemetery. He left a wife and a girl. The members of Givat Brenner published a booklet to remember it and many days after its fall, the children of the kibbutz would say about those who are accepted as a heroic guard. “He is a guard like Yankiel.”