From Haifa Teens to Negev Legends

In the spring of 1955, four teenage boys from Haifa, bound by the fire of youth and the dreams of Hashomer Hatzair, left the city behind and marched south into the burning sands of the Negev. Arie Zalmanovich, Amiram Cooper, Oded Lifshitz, and Shlomo Margalit carried little more than hope, a few tools, and an unbreakable belief that they could turn emptiness into a home. They were just seventeen, yet they planted the first tents of what would become Kibbutz Nir Oz, coaxing life from a place where almost nothing grew. Together they dug wells, laid irrigation pipes, and sowed the first wheat that would one day wave golden under the fierce sun. Their laughter echoed across the dunes as they built something eternal with their own hands.

Arie, the quiet farmer with soil in his blood, rose every dawn for nearly seventy years to tend those fields. Amiram, the thoughtful economist and poet, wrote songs and verses that captured the soul of the land and the kibbutz, his words becoming anthems sung at every celebration. Oded, the gentle journalist and lifelong peace activist, drove sick children from Gaza to Israeli hospitals week after week, believing with all his heart that humanity could bridge any divide. And Shlomo, the steadfast caretaker who still tends the kibbutz cemetery today, watched over the community like a guardian, turning barren ground into gardens and lawns that shaded generations.

For decades they lived the dream they had built. They raised families among the trees they planted, shared meals in the dining hall they constructed, and watched their children and grandchildren run across the same earth they had once claimed from the wilderness. They grew old together, four brothers of the spirit, proud that their sweat had made the desert bloom.

Then came the morning of 7 October 2023, when evil poured across the fence they had always believed could one day be a bridge instead of a barrier. Arie was dragged from his home and died weeks later in a dark tunnel, denied the medicines that kept his heart beating. Oded, the man who had ferried Gaza’s children to safety for years, was torn from his beloved Yocheved and murdered in captivity by the very people he had tried to help. Amiram, the poet whose songs rang out at every kibbutz festival, was taken with his wife Nurit and killed months later in Gaza’s shadows.

Only Shlomo, by some miracle no one can fully explain, survived that day unharmed. Now he returns alone each week to care for the graves of his three lifelong friends, the boys who once marched south with him to change the world.

Their bodies have come home one by one, laid at last in the rich soil they loved so fiercely. The wheat still grows in Nir Oz because of the foundations they laid, but the fields feel emptier without their footsteps.

It is my deepest wish that one day soon a simple memorial be raised at the entrance to the kibbutz, perhaps four modest statues or a single strong stone carved with their names, Arie, Amiram, Oded, and Shlomo, so that every person who passes will remember the young dreamers who turned sand into a garden and gave everything to keep it alive.

Shlomo Margalit tends to the graveyard at Nir Oz, where his friends are now buried.

May the memories of Arie Zalmanovich, Amiram Cooper, and Oded Lifshitz be eternal blessings. And may Shlomo Margalit, the last of the four, find strength and peace among the home they built together.