Tam, Yosef

Yosef, son of Naomi and Haim, was born on September 16, 1951 in the Emek Hefer transit camp. He completed his elementary studies at the Mizrahi School in Herzliya and completed his high school studies at the Kiryat Shmuel Yeshiva in Haifa. Afterward he continued his academic studies at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan. Yossi, as his family and friends affectionately called him, was born to parents from Yemen, the second son of seven brothers and sisters. As a child, he was timid, clinging to his mother and his father when he saw a stranger. In everyday life at home he excelled in his kindness and sense of humor. In time, he developed and grew up to be sensitive and considerate. At school he liked the studies and was diligent. The students in his class loved him, and his teachers appreciated his accomplishments in the various subjects, and the great effort he invested in his studies. Yossi also helped with the housework after completing his lessons, and his help was always vital in a home full of children. He was willing to take care of his little brothers, making it easier for his mother and removing some of the burden placed on her. As a child he realized that his father’s salary, which was a factory worker, was not enough to support all the household. He therefore wanted to study for academic studies, both because of his interest in them and because of the chance to earn well and help his family. He went to high school to strengthen and establish his deep faith in the religion of his forefathers. In high school he studied religious studies alongside regular studies. He found interest in memorization, sophistry, and in studying the commandments and duties, and in human relations. Yossi was a human lover and deeply connected to the land and to the people. Precisely because he was so religious and believing, he saw the need to enlist in the army and to defend the ideal principles that seemed important and fundamental to our existence here. Yosef was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces in mid-November 1969 and assigned to the Armored Corps, where he was assigned to serve as a tank gunner in a unit of the armored corps in the south. The soldiers and the tank crews, in a letter to his sister that he was a gunner in the platoon commander’s tank, and that he was proud to have been chosen for this role in the team, but he admitted that it was burdening him with additional work and greater demands. When the Yom Kippur War broke out, Yossi was drafted and sent to the Sinai front. In a moving battle, on the 14th of Tishrei 5734 (October 10, 1973), east of Ismailia, Yossi was hit and killed. He was laid to rest at the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. Survived by his parents, three brothers and three sisters.