KADDISHEL
A Life Reborn
refugees from landing in Palestine. Furthermore, it helped build the Haganah, and some of its members went on to create the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency. Sadeh left military service when the Palmach disbanded after the War of Independence, and until his death in Tel Aviv three years later he wrote essays, stories, and plays, sometimes under the pen name Y. Noded. He was also an active supporter of sports, and the competition slogan, “Alaftm v’lo alufim” (“Thousands, but not champions”) is attributed to him. The first track race in Israel, HaKafat Har Tavor (Around Mount Tavor), started as a memorial to him. Two kibbutzim in the Negev, Nir Yitzhak and Mash’abei Sadeh, are named after him. Israel Bar Yehuda, who joined Yagur in 1930 as an Achva mem - ber, later became a member of parliament and the minister of the interior in the new State of Israel’s government, playing an import- ant role as a representative of Achdut HaAvodah to the government. Bar Yehuda was instrumental in establishing an early yardstick for who was officially Jewish. Recognizing that many European Jews immigrated with Gentile spouses and children, and wanting to “spare these mixed couples complications and embarrassment,” he believed that officials should simplify matters by recording in - formation as it was supplied by new immigrants. “Any person de- claring in good faith that he is a Jew shall be registered as a Jew, and no additional proof shall be required,” he proposed. This was highly controversial and ultimately a compromise was reached; a person who claimed Jewish ethnicity could not simultaneously be a member of another religious group, such as Christian or Moslem. Bar Yehuda also promoted separation between religious law and civil law. 9 Moshe Carmel also lived in Yagur. Carmel was a respected lead- er and the top commander of the northern front during the War of Independence. Carmel had made aliyah to Palestine from Minsk, Poland, in 1924. After the war, he became Israel’s minister of transportation. “Alafim
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