Yador Rezital

Son of Shmuel and Tzipora.

Born on 4 Tammuz 5695 (5.7.1935) in Givatayim. There he did his elementary schooling, and after completing it he did his secondary schooling and completed that too.

During his school years he belonged to the HaNoar HaOved movement, and when he finished high school there in 1953 he joined the Netiv HaSadeh core group of the movement and went for training at Kibbutz Gesher. As part of his military service he was a youth counselor in Givatayim.

From 1953 to 1961 he was a member of Kibbutz Beit Guvrin. There he took a wife, and a daughter was born to them there, their eldest. Besides his work in agriculture and in the pasture, he was the internal secretary and the bookkeeper, but in October 1961 the family left the farm.

In 1962 he began studying at the faculty of accountancy in the Tel Aviv University branch. He was the secretary of the "Amal" printing school in Tel Aviv and, most recently, an audit clerk at the Tel Aviv Municipality.

Already in Beit Guvrin he was known as one who loved nature and yearned for its open spaces, as an enthusiast of archaeology and geology, and it was evident that the soul of a poet dwelt in him. During basic training in the Nahal he wrote a diary called "From a Recruit's Diary" ("Miyomano shel Tiron"), part of which was published in "Ma'arachot" in 1954, and which was for him a certain peak, although he never boasted of his talents for writing and poetry. He also wrote pieces in the weekly of the Kibbutz Meuhad, "BaKibbutz," about the caves of Beit Guvrin and other subjects.

Already while at Beit Guvrin he tried to capture every interesting moment in photographs, and not ordinary photographs, but ones upon which an artistic stamp was imprinted. "I love cloudy skies and silhouettes," he would say, and various artistic photographs remained in his estate.

Later on, when Yaador arrived with his family and his daughters in the big city and began to study energetically at the university and to engage in other matters, he did not abandon his great loves for photography and for writing, and for his family. To his daughters he would devote his time from time to time, reading to them from "Robinson Crusoe" and from the Book of Genesis, drawing pictures for them and telling them about the kibbutz. He was a good man and a quiet type who spread a calming spirit over all those around him. He enjoyed offering help to others, and he felt good when serving as a support to his friend.

After his discharge from service he was called up for reserve duty from time to time, and his illustrated postcards to his daughters ("so that the children will know that amid shells and thunder Daddy ran for them and went out to war") testify to his immense love for them. He would write to his wife in sad rhymes, and once he even wrote with mature cynicism: "The important documents (including the insurance policy, ha-ha-ha) keep close at hand." On the day of their tenth wedding anniversary he received the order for reserve service ahead of the Six-Day War, and out of admiration he said to his wife: "Do you know what the IDF is? It is a mighty force, mighty." And in a letter he remembered to bless her on their reaching ten happy years of marriage together.

He was a cohesive social force in his unit and instilled a good spirit in his platoon.

But on the first day of the battles of the war, 26 Iyar 5727 (5.6.1967), he was found with the assaulting troops at the head of the fighters in the role of medic; then the battle took place at Sheikh Muhammad in Khan Yunis, in which he fell. After his fall he was commended by the GOC Southern Command "for personal example," and that battle was described as follows: "On 5 June 1967, in Khan Yunis, under heavy fire he leapt into a trench in which there were wounded, gave them aid and continued to run under fire to give aid to other wounded. While running to give aid to a wounded man, he was killed."

He left a wife and two small daughters. He was brought to his eternal rest in the military cemetery at Kiryat Shaul.

In the Amal network's printing high school in Tel Aviv, the study room was named after him and contains a corner in his memory. On the first anniversary of Yaador's fall the family published a booklet in his memory, and afterwards published a book in his memory. In "Nizkor," published by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and its Students' Association, edited by Yehuda HaEzrahi, his life story and an account of his last battle were included. In the anthology of the legacy of the sons who fell in Israel's battles, "Gevilei Esh," volume 4, material from his legacy was included.