Harel Brigade Fighters Heritage: Keeping the Palmach legacy alive
Of all the fighters of the Independence war, only three men are still with us: David Levin, Avraham Savir (Stashevsky) and Shmuel Lalkin, all in their mid-90s
By PEGGY CIDORTHE GROUP: (front row, left to right) Eliezer Ben-Ami, responsible for making the hand grenade that blew up Barasani and Feinstein; Shmuel Lalkin; and David Levin. (Back row) Eilat Lieber, director of the Tower of David Museum, and Yonni Amir, head of the Harel Association.(photo credit: ILANA SILVERMAN RICHTER)
The rain, the wind and biting cold painted the Old City’s walls gray and made its pavement slippery – but it required much more than that to stop the group of Independence War veterans and their families from meeting up, this time as free men, in the prison where the British kept them for years.Last Friday morning, the Tower of David Museum and the Museum of Underground Prisoners saluted the Palmach fighters from the Harel-Palmach Brigade who were captured by the British and imprisoned. Three of them, led by Yoni Amir, the son of Daniel Amir (Katz) who was a fighter and a mortar battalion and today the living spirit behind the association of these veterans, were able to come to remember. They are still passionate about their own history and the events they were part of.Of all the fighters of the Independence war, only three men are still with us: David Levin, Avraham Savir (Stashevsky) and Shmuel Lalkin, all in their mid-90s. The tour began at the Kishle, in the Tower of David Museum, and continued with a visit to the Central Prison in the Russian Compound, where the prisoners were incarcerated after their trial. There, in Room 23 where they resided, they met and again encountered many the prison facilities that played roles in their imprisoned lives: solitary confinement cells, workshops, exercise yards, etc.The nonprofit Harel Brigade Fighters Heritage organization, which preserves the legacy of the brigade from 1948 to today through the Facebook group “Friends of Harel Brigade Fighters Heritage organization,” arranges heritage tours and other activities like this one. The organization was founded in the 1980s by Uri Ben-Ari z”l and other commanders of the Harel Brigade from the Six Day War, with the purpose of remembering and passing on the heritage of the fighters and fallen of the brigade, and preserving their memories. Uri Ben-Ari himself was a company commander in the 4th Battalion, Haportzim, of the Palmach-Harel Brigade in the battles of the War of Independence in the area of the road to Jerusalem, and afterward commanded the Harel Brigade as a reservist in the Six Day War.Amir’s recounting of the details of the story of his own father and of all the fighters of the brigade who accomplished the right thing at the right time culminated in a moving encounter. David Levin, from the Harel Brigade and also a prisoner of the British in those days, arrived last at the gathering and was welcomed by Shmuel Eliezer Ben-Ami. Ben Ami was not a member of the Harel Brigade, but a fighter of “Lehi” known to be the one who prepared the grenades hidden in oranges used by Lehi and Etzel fighters, Moshe Barazani and Meir Feinstein who took their own lives, prior to being taken to the gallows. Ben-Ami went to hug Levin, and the two men remained close together for a while, smiling at each other.When Ben Ami came back to sit by his daughter, he told her, obviously very touched, “He just told me that he loves me, do you understand?”There was indeed a sense of emotional sharing among these veterans and their close relatives there – something that took them all far beyond the ancient and obsolete disagreements of the past between the different armed groups who fought for the creation of the State of Israel. Levin was right; 71 years after that war, after their incarceration and shared struggle, they were free to just love each other.
