NAME: Enoch Yaakov

LEHI ALIAS: Hillel, Avraham Rabinovitz

DATE OF BIRTH: 17 February, 1927

DATE OF DEATH: 31 January, 2008

Yaakov was born to Chaim David and Hannah Bina (née Goldman) in Berlin in 1927. His parents separated and the mother’s family immigrated to Israel after the Nazis came to power in Germany. Max Goldman, one of the first members of Etzel, was his uncle. Yaakov joined the Lehi in 1943. He operated as part of a youth cell in Tel Aviv and took part hanging posters under the command of Dov “the Blonde” and later Hagai. Among the members of his cell was Rachel Piha (Herut). Yaakov also took part in recruiting new members to Lehi. He got a job at the postal and phone company and inserted listening devices into the phones of British police officers. Together with Shimon Krabinsky, he participated in tours of Sarona to examine the possibility of planting explosives in the camp. In preparation for his move to the United States to establish a Lehi branch there, he took a weapons course, a weapons instruction course and a course in encryption and communications with Binyamin Gaffner. Yaakov sailed to New York in early 1947 (Gaffner came shortly after him). Yaakov lead a group of 16-17-year-olds, held a fundraiser with Rabbi Baruch Korf, and helped smuggle a Lehi member from Canada to the U.S. Yaakov separated from Gaffner and traveled to Rio de Janeiro to establish a Lehi branch in Brazil. In Brazil, he lead a group of about 20 Lehi supporters and also translated articles from “HaMa’as” and other material into Portuguese and distributed them. When he returned to the U.S. from Brazil, Yaakov retired from Lehi operations, and in 1955 he married Hilda Cohen. They had two daughters and a son: Aviva, Tamar, and David. Yaakov was a Physics Professor at the University of Kansas until his retirement in 1992. He wrote a memoir that his daughter, Tamar, edited and published in 2009: A Very Interesting Life. Yaakov Enoch died in 2008.