Zlotnik-Zehavi, Jacob

Son of Naomi and Shmuel. He was born on April 3, 1926 in Be’er Tuvia to parents of the Third Aliya who settled on the ground. Years later, the family moved to Haifa where Yaakov studied at the Reali School and later at the vocational school at the Technion. At the age of thirteen he joined the Betar youth movement and later moved to Rehovot and then to Petah Tikva, where he worked as a clerk in the “Araz” association and in the evening served as a counselor in the local Beitar kibbutz. In Petah Tikva, he also joined the Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization), underwent a course for commanders and was later assigned to the “Battle Corps.” He was known as a brave and cool commander and liked his subordinates and commanders. Among his roles were warehousing and purchasing weapons. On April 23, 1946, during his organization’s attack on the Ramat Gan police fortress, Yaakov served as commander of one of the posts and managed to paralyze the opposition of the policemen in the fortress section that he was in charge of. However, during the withdrawal he was critically wounded and died shortly afterwards. He was laid to rest in the cemetery of Nahalat Yitzhak near Tel Aviv. The chapters of his life and heroism are published in “Memories of Eternity” in the Yizkor Book of Heroes of the Irgun Zvai Leumi.