Yad Mordechai is a kibbutz

Kibbutz

A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...

 in southern Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

. Located 10 km south of Ashkelon

Ashkelon

Ashkelon is a coastal city in the South District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv, and north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The ancient seaport of Ashkelon dates back to the Neolithic Age...

, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hof Ashkelon Regional Council

Hof Ashkelon Regional Council

Hof Ashkelon Regional Council is a regional council in the Southern District of Israel.The council is bordered to the north by Be'er Tuvia Regional Council, to the east by the Be'er Tuvia, Lakhish, Shafir and Yoav Regional Councils, to the south by Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council and the Gaza...

. In 2006 it had a population of 710.

History

The community was founded in the 1930s by Hashomer Hatzair

Hashomer Hatzair

Hashomer Hatzair is a Socialist–Zionist youth movement founded in 1913 in Galicia, Austria-Hungary, and was also the name of the group's political party in the Yishuv in the pre-1948 British Mandate of Palestine...

 members from Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 and initially organized themselves in a kibbutz called Mitzpe Yam close to Netanya

Netanya

Netanya is a city in the Northern Centre District of Israel, and is the capital of the surrounding Sharon plain. It is located north of Tel Aviv, and south of Haifa between the 'Poleg' stream and Wingate Institute in the south and the 'Avichail' stream in the north.Its of beaches have made the...

, which was founded in 1936. However, the 14 dunam

Dunam

A dunam or dönüm, dunum, donum, dynym, dulum was a non-SI unit of land area used in the Ottoman Empire and representing the amount of land that can be plowed in a day; its value varied from 900–2500 m²...

s allocated to the kibbutz was too little, and insufficient to develop the kibbutz.

As a result, the community moved to an area near Ashkelon in December 1943 and with the new settlement named in honor of Mordechai Anielewicz, who died fighting the Nazis while being the commander of the Jewish Fighting Organization

Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa

The Jewish Combat Organization was a World War II resistance movement, which was instrumental in engineering the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. ŻOB took part in a number of other resistance activities as well...

 in the Warsaw Ghetto

Warsaw Ghetto

The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of all Jewish Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. It was established in the Polish capital between October and November 15, 1940, in the territory of General Government of the German-occupied Poland, with over 400,000 Jews from the vicinity...

. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the kibbutz was attacked by Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, in the Battle of Yad Mordechai

Battle of Yad Mordechai

The Battle of Yad Mordechai was fought between Egypt and Israel in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, at the Israeli kibbutz of Yad Mordechai. The Egyptians attacked the communal village several times throughout May 19 and May 20, but failed to capture it...

.

The kibbutz hosts a giant statue of Anilewicz by Nathan Rapoport

Nathan Rapoport

Nathan Rapoport , who is also known as Natan Rapoport, was a Jewish sculptor who was born in Warsaw, Poland. His middle name may be rendered in English as either Yaakov or Jacob. In 1936, he won a scholarship to study in France and Italy. He fled to the Soviet Union when the Nazis invaded Poland...

 clutching a grenade

Grenade

A grenade is a small explosive device that is projected a safe distance away by its user. Soldiers called grenadiers specialize in the use of grenades. The term hand grenade refers any grenade designed to be hand thrown. Grenade Launchers are firearms designed to fire explosive projectile grenades...

, set on a hilltop next to the kibbutz's water tower which was preserved after being destroyed by the Egyptians. The kibbutz also has a museum devoted to Anielewicz and his fighting in the Ghetto, as well as the Battle of Yad Mordechai, one of only two Holocaust

The Holocaust

The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...

 museums located on a kibbutz (the other being at Lohamey HaGeta'ot).

Additional reading

• Larkin, Margaret
  Margaret Larkin
  Margaret Larkin was an American writer, poet, singer-songwriter, researcher, journalist and union activist.She wrote The Hand of Mordechai on a kibbutz in Israel, Seven Shares in a Gold Mine about a murder conspiracy in Mexico, and the Singing Cowboy, a collection of Western folk songs...
  
  (1968) The Hand of Mordechai New York/South Brunswick

External links

• Official website
• Yad Mordechai Travelnet