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The rich boy from Baghdad who chose kibbutz and fishing life, and even after the age of 90 continued to repair bicycles

His merchant father wanted him to continue on his way - but David "Jimmy" Shimon "became addicted to socialism", made rifle bullets at the Ayalon Underground Institute, was one of the founders of Maagan Michael and helped establish the Nahal-Yam stronghold in Sinai. His friend mourned this month at the age of 98

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• Ma'agan Michael

• Chinese

Eli Ashkenazi

Saturday, February 27, 2021, 8 p.m.

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Born in the name of David, known by all as Jimmy.

Shimon (Photo: Official Website, Oliver Stutz)

The childhood and adolescence of David "Jimmy" Shimon in Baghdad, London and Tel Aviv prompted him to follow a path outlined by his father - to be a businessman who continues the family's thriving business.

But Shimon was captivated by the ideas of sharing and equality, and his life led him to Kibbutz Maagan Michael, to a deep identification with the idea of ​​the kibbutz and with the place he was a partner in its establishment.

"Me and Maagan Michael are one," Shimon said in an interview with him 26 years ago.

This month he passed away at the age of 98.

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Deeply identified with the kibbutz.

The entrance to Maagan Michael, summer 2013 (Photo: Shlomi Gabay)

Shimon was born in Baghdad in 1923, the third child of his parents.

His father was a merchant who imported goods from Europe and "brought modern life to Baghdad," as Shimon recounted.

Among other things, he will import clothes, furniture, musical instruments and more.

Thanks to this, the family lived financially well and lived in a large house that surrounded a courtyard and had servants at its disposal.

At the age of four he began to study Talmud Torah, and he remembered well how the "Mualem" (teacher - AA), would whip with the ruler on the hands of the children. A year later he went to study at the "Alliance" school. At the age of eight, the family moved to London, and soon learned English. "I became a little Englishman," he said.

However, with the rise of Nazism in Germany and the spread of anti-Semitism in Europe, the father feared that evil spirits would reach England as well. She settled for a short time in Jerusalem, where their relatives lived, then moved to Tel Aviv, and then Shimon began studying at the Herzliya Gymnasium, where they began to call him "Jimmy", which became a name associated with him for the rest of his life.

"I was addicted to socialism."

Shimon (Photo: Official Website, Oliver Stutz)

In 1942, before the end of the school year, the eighth-grade student committee, of which Shamon was a member, decided to apply to the school administration to advance the matriculation exams so that the graduates could vacate and assist in the national effort, given the fear of the Nazi army invading Israel.

At the end of the exams, Jimmy went to the Galilee, with the help of Kibbutz Ayelet Hashachar.

For a year he worked there as a cowherd, and on Passover 1943 he joined his members from the Scout movement who were in a pioneering training program (hachshara) in Pardes Hanna prior to the establishment of a kibbutz.

He said that then she was captivated by the collective idea.

His father believed that his son would return to Tel Aviv, continue on his way and enter the business world, but despite their love for each other, a rift was created between the two, against the background of the gap in their worldviews.

"I grew up in a bourgeois home, but mentally I had a different attitude to life. My father and I loved each other, but I was a socialist and he felt he was losing me," he told Maagan Michael in an interview.

He said that at that time a lot of Marxist literature was read.

"I was addicted to socialism," he said.

Alongside his work with his training buddies, Jimmy was also responsible for the core array of members of the nucleus called "Scout Group A."

This was a very difficult task, because many job seekers competed for a small number of jobs in and around the colony.

Lacking a choice, members of the Hachshara scattered throughout the country, trying to find sources of livelihood.

More on Walla!

NEWS

By the age of 20, she had escaped the Nazis, blown up bridges and established a kibbutz.

The hardships did not end there

To the full article

Agricultural work on the ground, production of weapons below it

One day, Jimmy rode the donkey Sarah, to which a cart used by the group for various transports was hitched.

That day he had to bring from the bus station a new friend who had come for training - Rebecca Lifshitz, a native of Germany.

The two became a couple and after a while were even assigned their own small tent, a "family tent".

Over the years, Jimmy and Rebecca had four children, but they did not hold an official wedding ceremony.

Just a few years ago, in their old age, they celebrated the wedding ceremony with their family.

Hachshara members lived in Pardes Hanna in harsh conditions, "like gypsies," according to Shimon.

"In the winter the tent leaked and we were completely wet."

He also testified to "mischievous acts" that were done at night, such as raids on the fruit trees of the colony's peasants and the theft of sacks of cement from a British army camp whose guards were drunk on New Year's Eve.

The same "operation" was led by Uri Ben-Ari, later commander of the Southern Command.

"We had a guaranteed livelihood and took part in a national mission."

Exhibited at the Ayalon Institute Museum (Photo: Reuven Castro)

The members of the training designated themselves as a "marine economy", ie a kibbutz based on the fishing industry, but until the dream came true they were offered an offer that until then they could only dream of - work for all members of the training in a secret project of the Defense Organization.

It was a job at the Ayalon Institute, which was located underground in the orchards of Rehovot.

At the site, the Haganah, eight meters deep, set up a nine-millimeter bullet factory for the Stan submachine gun, which was the fighters' personal weapon.

Some of the members of the nucleus worked in agricultural work above ground, while most of them engaged in the production of ammunition so essential, below it.

"For those who were in charge of this work, it was a magical offer," Shimon later said.

“We had a guaranteed livelihood and took part in a national mission,” he said.

A magical place at the edge of nowhere

A small group of members of the nucleus worked in fishing on a boat they rented and docked at the Tel Aviv port.

Shimon began to belong to the group of fishermen.

Even after the kibbutz came ashore on the Carmel coast in August 1949, Shimon continued to engage in it, and in time became a senior figure in the fishing industry in Israel and was even elected secretary of the Israeli Fishermen's Organization.

It was hard work, which involved prolonged cruises for several days of absence from home.

Due to his expertise in the fishing industry, he was asked by the state in 1967, after the Chinese occupation in the Six Day War, to conduct a professional survey on fishing on the Bradville stage in Sinai.

At the end of the survey, he was asked to stay and accompany the establishment of the Nahal-Yam outpost that was established on the seafront, and that fishing was planned to be its main industry.

He agreed to the request, remained in place and became the professional figure and center of the fishing industry. In all matters of the economy ", as it was written about then in the newspaper" Lamerhav ". The newspaper reporter who came to the holding at the time was amazed by the amount of loot that Jimmy and the holding soldiers fished and noted that the Nahal-Yam holding is different from all other holdings. ".

Jimmy explained to the reporter that in the future it will be possible to establish fishing villages and an industry that will develop around the fishing industry.

Fixed bicycles even after the age of 90. Shimon (Photo: official website, Oliver Stutz)

Nearly 30 years after he was a partner in the establishment of Kibbutz Maagan Michael, he was now a key figure in a new hold.

He later told of Nahal-Yam that it was "a magical place at the edge of nowhere.

Lived there as at the kibbutz. "

After two years in the Sinai returned to his kibbutz and successfully worked in bananas, then plant Plasson kibbutz and later as an electrician as well as bicycle workshop where he worked until recently, when he was already late 90s his life.

Carmel Nir, in eight worked alongside At the bicycle repair workshop in Maagan Michael, he said that during the years they worked together, "Jimmy learned and absorbed what love is.

"Love between us as people, as friends at work and partners on the road, love for our home and country ... I will take from you the peace of mind, reason and wisdom, the simple truth and the fascinating and endless stories."

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