Yocheved Kashi

Yocheved Kashi was born in 1929 in Mashhad

Kashi was born in 1929 in Mashhad, Iran, where her parents had settled after leaving Russia. In 1932 the family immigrated to the Land of Israel and settled in Tel Aviv. She was the older sister of the singer Aliza Kashi.

In 1946 she joined the Haganah. She served as a runner and took part in defending the Hatikva neighborhood early in the War of Independence.

In May 1948 she enlisted in the IDF Women's Corps and later became an officer. At the parachuting school at Tel Nof she commanded the parachute folding unit. Her request to join a parachuting course was first refused because she was a woman, but Yehuda Harari accepted her, and she and Menucha Fidel completed the course.

She kept jumping until she reached 12 jumps and earned paratrooper wings. Her photo appeared on an Independence Day poster in 1951. She was discharged in 1952.

She married the painter Zvi Milstein, and in 1956 the couple moved to France. She taught plastic arts at a university in Paris. After Milstein died in 2020 she lived in a nursing home in Normandy, and she died on 3 November 2022.