An American Jewish Zionist Forgotten Hero

Some two years ago, the Jewish Press published an appeal of mine:

Among the Jewish seven [six] killed victims listed in the newspaper report was an American Rabbi it seems, Yehudah Leib Lozovsky or a phonetic variety of that spelling [Lazovsky].

No other information about the Rabbi is available. It would be fitting that he be remembered.

I am asking the readers of JewishPress.com to assist with locating biographical information about the Rabbi. If you are aware of any details that could help, please contact...

I was unsuccessful.

I have now read a letter that has appeared in HaUmma quarterly, No. 222 by Moshe Ehrenfeld, an historian of the Haredi community's role in the 1948 fighting, relating that Lazovsky, an American, who was killed on April 6.

Lazovsky had immigrated to Eretz-Yisrael some ten years earlier from America. He was an amateur geographer and researcher of the land's antiquities. He was in the house of Shmuel Eliezer Zilberman where, for three days, they held off the Arab rioters. At one point, he crawled out above the barriaded entrance and fired off some shots from a small Browning pistol he had.

The Arabs complained to the British troops in the area, who were Indian Moslems (those soldiers had been brought in earlier to guard the Haram A-Sharif). They tried to enter the buidling but were repulsed and then shot through the door and killed Rabbi Lazovsky and Zilberman.

They are buried on the Mount of Olives with the other casualties. Their graves are also, like Itzkkowitz, not in the best condition. Here is Zilberman's gravestone from several years ago:

Lazovsky's is also in bad condition and cannot be identified as which one in that row.

Worse, he is not yet (!) recognized by the National Insurance Institute. And, of course, as he was not a soldier or a member of an underground, not by the Ministry of Defense.

Lazovsky, an American Jewish Zionist. Little is known about him.

And a forgotten hero.

_________

UPDATE:

A new gravestone is in place (courtesy of Sarah Barnea):

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