Teitelbaum, Joseph

Son of Chaya and Israel Aharon, was born in 1900 in Sejera to a local peasant family. In the first year of his life, his father died and his mother moved to Yesod HaMa’ala, where she remarried. Joseph grew up and studied as a farmer and when he grew up he was also a farmer, a man of the land. He married a wife and had two daughters. Joseph knew Arabic well, and the customs of the Arabs were clear to him. From his knowledge, he made great use of his functions in the Hagana service. Because of his good relations with the Arabs and the sheikhs throughout the country, he often conducted difficult and tedious negotiations about blood-redemption and the like. He used his connections to obtain the necessary information for the Yishuv. During the bloody riots of 1936-1939, he managed the relations with the Arabs on behalf of the Haganah. At that time he moved to Givat Brenner, where he remained as a guard of fields and as a liaison with the Arabs on behalf of the institutions. He believed in normal neighborly relations, and often managed to settle disputes and prevent excessive bitterness and bloodshed. With the outbreak of the War of Independence, he believed that he would succeed in influencing entire Arab villages that would not help the fighters against the Jewish Yishuv. After the fall of his friend, Yehoshua Globerman, who was one of the Haganah commanders, traveled on December 9, 1947 to an Arab village near Latrun to find out the names of the participants in his murder. His excellent relations with the Arabs did not stand him and he was murdered on the way in Wadi Sarar (Nahal Soreq) at the entrance to the tent of his friend Sheikh and with him was assassinated his Arab assistant who accompanied him. His weapon was stolen from him. The police found his body in a Bedouin tent that had been abandoned. Joseph was brought to eternal rest in the cemetery at Yesod HaMa’ala.