Yosef, son of Malka, née Castel-Capeluto and Ben-Zion, was born on July 7,1924 in Hebron, to a family living many generations in Eretz Yisrael. Following the 1929 riots, they moved from Hebron to Venezuela, and after five years returned to Eretz Yisrael, settling in Kfar-Saba.

Yosef was educated there and an active member of ‘Hamaccabi-Hatsair’. He joined Beitar and later Etzel. After the split he followed Yair with friends Yehoshua and Menachem Cohen. Yosef participated in the attacks on British Haifa- bound convoys passing through Kfar-Saba, and in intelligence operations related to the Qalqilya railway station. He instructed and trained new recruits in the Natanya region.

Yosef has two sisters and a brother: Shulamit, Yehudit, and Eliyahu. His sisters were active in Lehi, arrested and imprisoned in Bethlehem. The household was nationalist and highly sympathetic to underground movements. His parents assisted greatly, among other things, in taking in the wounded. Lehi units set out on operations from their home, and the parents contributed funds for activities of the organization. They did all this in great isolation, stemming from strong hostility prevalent then  in Kfar-Saba, towards Lehi fighters. Yosef was arrested by the British CID in 1944. He was among the first exiled to the prison camps of Eritrea, Sudan and Kenya. He returned from Kenya to Israel with the last exiles, following the Declaration of Independence.

Immediately joining the 89th Battalion of the IDF’s 8th Brigade, with the other Lehi members, he participated in all the battalion’s combat, until being wounded in the battle  of Uja-el- Hafir (Nizana). In 1953 Yosef married Dvora Yankelevitz, one of Herzliya’s first settlers. They had two daughters, Yaira (named after Yair) and Osnat. Yaira passed away after an illness, and is survived by her husband David Levi, chairman of the Jordan Rift Valley settlements, and two children, Matan and Shir.

Yosef and Dvora have five grandchildren: Matan, Shir, Lital, Sivan and Adar.

Since the establishment of the State he has  directed the Jerusalem finance company ‘Kidum’.