Expelled residents of the Disengagement-destroyed town of Sa-Nur, and members of Beitar, held a memorial ceremony today for a true Jewish hero, murdered by Arabs 60 years ago today.
The ceremony was held in the old military cemetery in Netanya, at the gravesite of Baruch Mizrachi - an Arab who converted to Judaism, was religiously observant, and fought to build a Jewish state.
Mizrachi's story is one of physical, spiritual and societal courage. He was born as Hamuda Abu-La'inin to a prominent Arab family in the Galilee in 1926, and shortly afterwards, his mother, known to have been of Jewish origin, died when he was very young. Around age 13, after having studied in a public Arab school in Tzfat, he transferred to the Jewish "Alliance" school in Haifa, where he studied Hebrew and Bible. This brought him close to the Jewish People, and he decided to convert to Judaism.
The youngster went to the Chief Rabbinate in Jerusalem, but in accordance with custom, he was twice rejected. The third time, at the tender age of 16, he was accepted and allowed to convert to Judaism. He lived in Haifa as a religious and observant Jew, worked as a clerk, and joined the Etzel organization in fighting the British occupation. He was ultimately arrested by the British, and was among the hundreds of Etzel-Lechi fighters exiled to Eritrea.
In Africa, it is told that Baruch was offered freedom on condition that he return to his Arab and Moslem roots - but he refused. He was then made to suffer cruel abuse by the Sudanese guards, at whose hands he, together with other Jewish prisoners, was seriously wounded.
Upon his return to the Holy Land, shortly before Israel declared its independence in May 1948, he undertook an undercover mission to destroy an Arab headquarters in Jenin, where war was being prepared against the future Jewish state. He was recognized as a Jew by an Arab policeman, however, and he was executed the same day in the village of Kfar Jaba - across the road from what became, close to 50 years later, the Jewish town of Sa-Nur.
Assumed to have been buried in the Shomron, which remained under Jordanian control until 1967, Mizrachi was remembered only by a plaque at Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem. After the Six Day War in 1967, the IDF Governor of the Jenin Region, Lt.-Col. Tzvi Resky, arrived in the village of Kfar Jaba, and began to seek information about the fallen hero.
He Didn't Beg, but Died Proudly as a Jew
Resky learned of a burial site in the area, and together with IDF Rabbi Lt.-Col. Dov Shachor, Etzel representative Ben-Tzion Katznellenbogen, and local geographical expert Tzvi Hermoni, they paid a visit to the local Mukhtar. The Mukhtar, known to have saved a Jewish unit from death at the hands of his fellow Arabs in 1948, told the Israelis what he remembered of the period. He said that the village was the seat of an Arab military court, which executed three Arabs and Mizrachi. Baruch Mizrachi did not plead for his life, the Mukhtar said, but simply decided to die as a Jew.
Following the recovery of his body in a grove, Mizrachi was reburied in the Netanya Military Cemetery (Plot 1, Row 2).
Today (Monday), the 60th anniversary of his death, a group of people from the former Jewish town of Sa-Nur in the northern Shomron, as well as Beitar Youth members, arrived at the grave to say Kaddish and prayers for Mizrachi. Sa-Nur activist Yossi Dagan spoke and said, "When we lived in Sa-Nur, we did what we could for Baruch, who left no descendants, by telling his story to the thousands of people who visited us. Today, following the destruction of Sa-Nur by Ariel Sharon's Disengagement plan, we continue to do what we can..."
"We believe that we will return to our homes," Dagan said, "first to nearby Homesh, and then to Sa-Nur, and then we will be able to memorialize him with a proper monument."
Dagan told Arutz-7 afterwards that the efforts to rebuild Homesh are proceeding apace, noting that it has been "about nine months now that we have had practically a non-stop Jewish presence there."