73 years later, sister visits site where brother died defending Gush Etzion

Seventy-three years after Yosef Nadav was killed defending Gush Etzion from Arab Legion forces in the War of Independence, his sister, Tamar Shachar, came to see the place where her brother drew his last breaths.

“This closes a circle of mourning,” wrote her son Ayal Shachar on his Facebook page after the visit.

Children of immigrant parents from Yemen who traveled to Israel by donkey and by boat, Yosef and Tamar were among five siblings who joined the Palmach and fought in the 1948 War of Independence.

Nadav and Tamar had both defended convoys en route to Jerusalem, with Tamar working on the Tel Aviv route and Nadav helping with the flow of supplies to Gush Etzion.

He chose to help defend the kibbutzim in the Gush Etzion region, whose presence was considered essential to the defense of Jerusalem.

Israel’s Remembrance Day, commemorated on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, is linked to the date of that final battle in which Nadav was among the soldiers and kibbutz residents killed by the Arab Legion.

Nadav’s parents Aharon and Shoshana did not immediately know of their son’s death. They went daily to Palmach headquarters to ask about his whereabouts, Ayal Shachar told The Jerusalem Post.

The bodies of those killed were not transferred to Israel for more than a year and are interred in the Mt.

Herzl Military Cemetery.

After the fall of Gush Etzion, the region was under Jordanian rule until Israel gained control of the territory during the 1967 Six Day War. New communities have since been built there.

Typically, Shachar said his family attends the Mt. Herzl Remembrance Day ceremony but this year decided to join the Gush Etzion community, which holds its own event in the Kfar Etzion cemetery to mark the fallen in Israel’s wars and those lost in terror attacks.

The family also visited the 700-year-old oak, known as the Lone Tree, and the Gush Etzion museum, where they saw Nadav’s name inscribed on the wall.

Gush Etzion Regional Council Head Shlomo Ne’eman said: “The visit of Tamar and her family and the story of Yosef Nadav are a valued connection of our heritage to this land and symbolize our resurrection.”