Zarka, Jacob

Ben Colette and Eliyahu Chai. He was born on October 24, 1965 in Dimona. Even when he was in the kindergarten he was found to be sharp in his mind and thoughts, and as he grew up, he turned out to be warm and loving, sociable, and especially stubborn. Yaakov was first educated by his friends and loved ones at the Afikim elementary school in Dimona and went on to the Alon junior high school in the city. When he reached high school he chose to move to the “Einot” youth village boarding school – an agricultural high school in the coastal plain, where his instructors noted his social behavior and his scholastic achievements. Yaakov showed a tendency to sports – especially soccer – and during his studies in the boarding school continued to run and won first place in a competition held in the village. At the beginning of January 1984, Yaakov enlisted in the IDF and was drafted into the Logistics Corps, where he was called “Zarka.” Yaakov opened a delicatessen in Dimona, which flourished, until other merchants also opened delicacies, leading to a crisis in his business, and at one point became interested in career army service, and in the summer of 1988 he returned to the army, serving as a cook and kitchen officer at the field artillery school in the tribe, In the course of his studies, he was trained in the management and marketing studies The main book of the Tadmor hotel chain in Herzliya, where he was certified as a cook of type 4. Jacob was in the profession of the cooks he loved so much, and he was very satisfied with the work for the soldiers at the base. , Born in late January 1990, Rahamim Eliahu was born in mid-August 1991, Meital was born in late September 1993, Coral joined in mid-June 2000 and Orian – the youngest daughter – came into the world in mid-October 2004. Yaakov was a family man in every aspect of his life. He loved his children very much and did not give up quality time with them, even when he returned exhausted from an intensive day at the base. He used to play and talk with them, he was interested in the state of studies – a subject that was especially important to him, he urged them to learn and develop and to keep up with what they were doing. He was also devoted to his extended family and enjoyed especially family gatherings at events and celebrations. Senior sergeant Yaakov Zarka fell during his duty on February 1, 2006, when he was forty years old and was brought to rest in the military cemetery in Dimona, leaving Raya, four daughters and a son, parents, brother Avner and two sisters Ilana and Sigalit.