AJN article helps find families

AS of next Yom Hazikaron, thanks to The AJN, the Australian relatives of Private Zvi Leibowitz will almost certainly receive a condolence letter from Israel’s Defence Ministry,  just like families of the state’s other 22,684 fallen soldiers.

In 1969, the Israeli infantryman, who made aliyah from South Africa, was killed by a sniper at the Suez Canal during the War of Attrition. He is buried at Kibbutz Tzora near Beit Shemesh.

But for years, no condolences have been sent as no relatives are listed in the records.
Israeli Gidon Katz, a former South African himself, was concerned there are 16 soldiers worldwide with South African origins, Leibowitz among them, whose families had been untraceable.

With Telfed, an Israel-based organisation for former South Africans, Katz began an international search.

Defence Ministry files showed four soldiers might have relatives in Australia. So Katz recruited his brother-in-law Eli Rabinowitz of Perth to comb the country.
Rabinowitz contacted The AJN, and a story appeared in the April 16 edition, ahead of Yom Hazikaron.

It caught the eye of Melbourne reader Ray Bloch, who contacted his Queensland friends, Bruce and Allen Leibowitz, Private Leibowitz’s brothers. Judy Leibowitz, their mother, is now in aged care, but kept a scrapbook on her heroic son.

Bruce, a Mackay radiologist, is currently overseas, but his wife Astrid knew of his brother’s gallantry and said the family would apply to receive the annual condolence.
Meanwhile, Boaz Friedman Shachal, of Ra’anana, Israel, opened a surprise email — The AJN article sent by a Sydney-based friend.

Shachal, nephew of Lieutenant Natan Mordechai Friedman, did not know of the anomaly.
His uncle was in the Israeli Air Force, and died in 1951 during border skirmishes. He is buried at the Mount Herzl military cemetery.
“It’s a small world after all, and an even smaller Jewish world,” reflected Shachal on the odds of an Australian friend alerting him.

Rabinowitz responded to him: “By sending you the article, your friend performed a huge mitzvah in enabling a family to honour the life of someone who gave up his life for Israel.”

In another case, Mark Berelowitz of Perth made contact after seeing an article by Rabinowitz in Perth newsletter The Maccabean.

He is a nephew of Private Yechezkel Berelowitz, one of 128 defenders of Kibbutz Kfar Etzion massacred by Arab attackers on May 13, 1948, a day before Israel was founded. He is buried at Mount Herzl.

Although he has known about his uncle’s death “ever since I was a little boy”, like the others, he had no idea a search was on for family members.

Rabinowitz still hopes to find relatives of Oded Kaploun, an infantryman killed in 1948. But he is amazed his hunt has brought him this far.

PETER KOHN