Yoav Byron

Yoav Byron was born in 1923 in Basra

Yoav Byron was born in Basra, Iraq, to Eliyahu and Sabina, the eldest of 10 children. He was first named Frederick, and later took the name Yoav, his name in the Zionist underground. In May 1941 he volunteered for the British Army as an interpreter with a Gurkha unit and later received the Fighter against the Nazis medal.

In 1942 he helped found the Zionist movement and the Haganah in Iraq. From October 1945 to February 1947 he was in charge of illegal immigration from Iraq to the Land of Israel. In March 1946 he gave the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry a memo on the state of Iraqi Jews, and an Iraqi military court later sentenced him in absentia to 7 years in prison.

He fled to Lebanon and reached the country on foot. He worked at Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov and helped found Kibbutz Neve Or with Aliza, whom he married. He served in the Golani Brigade in 1948 and stayed in the IDF until 1957, studying law at Tel Aviv University.

He became a lawyer in 1958 and ran his own office until 1971. In 1971 he was appointed a magistrate and served in Beersheba, Ashkelon and Kiryat Gat for 17 years. He worked to preserve the heritage of Iraqi Jewry, published books, and was buried in Omer.