Weitz, Yechiam (Yemik)

Son of Ruchama and Yosef. He was born on 18.9.1918 in Yavniel. His father was a member of the Second Aliya and his mother was a member of the Altschuler family, one of the founders of Rehovot. After a while, his family settled in Jerusalem and Yechiam went to school in Beit Hakerem and Gymnasia Rehavia. Which he finished at the age of seventeen. Yechiam was sensitive to the landscape and the beauty of his surroundings and gave expression to his notes from those days. In 1935, after graduating from high school, he went to work at Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek, and in 1936, when the riots broke out, he joined Kibbutz Gimel of Hashomer Hatzair in Rishon Letzion. The letters he wrote were saturated with nostalgia for the home and the atmosphere of the house, but also for his satisfaction with the work he was subjected to. After two years he felt the need to continue his studies and went to England and studied chemistry and botany at the University of London. He also preserved his connection to his quarry and the culture he absorbed in Israel. “If I could find,” he writes in one of his letters, “some old volume (I want a new one) of Bialik’s poems, I would be happy to receive it in Dar.” In the summer of 1939, after he passed his exams, he returned to Israel and was accepted to study at the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus. After the outbreak of the Second World War, he abandoned his studies and was one of the first recruits to the Palmach and one of its most prominent instructors. On May 2, 1942, he married Rama Samsonov of Hadera, and after a week of vacation he returned to his service and later became one of the first Palmach commanders. As a guide in the course for the commanders of the departments in Ju’ara. In 1945, at the end of World War II, he was one of the outstanding students of Palmach commander Yitzhak Sade and of the Rema Moshe Sneh. He was given a leave to continue his studies, but not for long periods of time. The “Night of the Bridges” operation was held in the framework of which Palmach units set out to blow up eleven bridges of iron, roads and tracks in eight places in the country cut off from neighboring countries. On 18 Sivan (16.6.1946) Yechiam went out with a Palmach unit to blow up two bridges, the railway bridge and the road bridge that ran over Nachal Akhziv, which was hit first and he was killed on the spot, and the rest of the thirteen fighters were killed when the fire hit the explosives they were carrying, Yechiam was brought to burial on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem – he left a wife, parents and two brothers. A collection of his letters was published in 1948 by “Am Oved” and a second edition in 1966. He was forty years old when he died. On the side of the road Nahariya – Rosh Hanikra, a monument was erected to commemorate the 14 fallen soldiers, engraved with the story of the battle. To the north of it was a youth hostel named after Yad Yahad,. Kibbutz Yechiam in the Western Galilee is named after him, and also Choresh Yechiam, near Kibbutz Ma’ale Hachamisha in the mountains of Jerusalem.