The Story of HaLamedHeh

הל"ה

"The Thirty-five"

 

In 1927, a group of religious Yemenite Jews--Mizrahis they were called--founded an agricultural village they named Migdal Eder (Hebrew: מִגְדַּל עֵדֶר), based on a biblical quotation (Genesis 35:21). The land, which lay between the ancient Biblical cities of Bethlehem and Hebron, had been purchased in 1925 by Zikhron David, a private Jewish land holding company. In 1929, during Palestine riots and recurring hostilities, Migdal Eder was attacked and destroyed. Local Arab villagers sheltered the farmers, but they could not return to their land.

In 1932, a Jewish businessman of German extraction, Shmuel Yosef Holtzmann, provided financial backing for another attempt at resettling the area, through a company named El HaHar ("To the Mountain"). The kibbutz established there in 1935 was named Kfar Etzion, in his honor (the German word holtz means "wood", which is etz עץ in Hebrew).

Just after midnight, during the early morning hours of 16 January 1948, thirty-five officers of the Haganah, the Jewish Defense Force of the fledgling nation of Israel, set out on foot, under cover of darkness, on the trecherous mission to resupply the beleaguered Haverim of the Kfar Etzion Kibbutz. Six hours was not enough time, and when the sun rose on that cold winter morning, two Arab women sighted the Haganah column, alerting elements of the Arab Legion.  What ensued were two vicious firefights that lasted almost to sundown. When the shooting stopped, every one of the brave Haganah fighters lay dead.

Not until June 1967 did Jews again inhabit Kfar Etzion, but following the Six Day War, it was the first kibbutz to be reestablished.

My grandfather, Benjamin Berkowitz, was one of the Thirty-five. This company, "Lamed Heh" is dedicated to his memory to bring forth to the world the blessings of wine that my father, and so many others, gave their lives to protect.

                                         --Baruch Berkowitz