Tzip, Reuven (Roman)

He was born in 1903 in Marburg, Yugoslavia, to a Christian family. Until the age of fourteen he attended primary school and acquired the affection of his teachers and educators. Then he went to work to support his family whose father died when the boy was five years old. He studied mechanics, and during his studies and work he also practiced sports and excelled in heavy athletics. In 1923 he immigrated to Palestine following his sister, who immigrated a year earlier. He was hired by the Electric Company in Tel Aviv as a mechanic and locksmith and later was appointed supervisor of the distribution and distribution networks in the city’s power station. He was active in the Maccabi Association and devoted much of his time to studying Hebrew and painting. In 1934 he converted to Judaism and married Hannah and they had a daughter named Ruth. On September 10, 1938, a group of 17 workers left the company to repair burnt pillars between Masmiya and Be’er Tuvia in the south of the country. On their way back to Tel Aviv, in a freight car and a pickup truck, they were attacked by a gang of rioters near the Masmiya Bridge, and seven were injured and killed, Reuven among them. He was laid to rest in the cemetery of Nahalat Yitzhak. He left a wife and a daughter. In a memory booklet for the work and maintenance workers of the IEC employees, his widow Hanna wrote about him among other things: “In this healthy body there was an extra soul, kindness, understanding for another, shyness, love for life.”