Yechiel Levi
Written by Avi Borenstein following interview with his daughter Ada Levi Pavin in October 2023.
Yechiel Levi was born around 1895-1897 and lived with his family in Ostrowiec. He came to "Palestine" in the 1920's before the rest of his siblings. In Israel, and lived in Kibbutz Ginegar. He was able to escape from the Polish Army with the assistance of his brother Eliezer as described here.
He had 4 sisters: Hela who came to Israel before the Holocaust, Genia who survived the Holocaust . His 2 brothers were: Leib Levi [changed name to Leib Lev in Israel] and Eliezer (Leizer) Levi [Halevi in Israel. See Eliezer's page for more family information]
Yecheil and his brother Eliezer were active "Zionists" in Ostrowiec as indicated in below excerpt from Ostrowiec Yizkor Book, 1971, pages 225-226, “The Development of Modern School Systems” by Iser Boymfeld :
The “Zionist” organization was founded by Avrom Yankev Mintsberg, the brothers Yehiel and Elieyzer Levi, the brothers Shmuel and Ezra Bomshteyn, Simkhe Mintsberg, the brothers Blankman, Elieyzer Mintsberg, the brothers Yekhiel and Elieyzer Pantser, Yehiel Malinak, Yekhiel Halpern, Yekhiel Vaynberg and others.
Also in the same Yizkor book it is metioned on Pages 248-251, “The Zionist Youth” [HaNoar HaTzioni] Arouse the Jews to Aliyah by Moshe Blajberg:
I met with Yechiel Levi z”l from Kibbutz Ginegar and gave him regards from his nephew. Standing before me was a Jewish farmer, a cattleman by trade but also a distinguished educator. He very much enjoyed our meeting and let me know it as we walked the length and breadth of Kibbutz Ginegar, which lies along the edges of Balfour Forest. I mentioned to him the letter that he had sent to his pious father, so detached from the problems of the Land, but which his nephew had shared with us. In it he spoke of the drought that they were suffering and of the rat scourge that consumed every good inch of field – simple words etched in pencil on “simple paper, gray as ash” [as in the well-known song, Two Letters], but which for us served as a complete treatise regarding the conditions of the Land.
Yechiel's father also came to Israel with his second wife, and is buried in Jerusalem.
Yechiel passed away in the 1950's .