RICA MENACHE (Belgian Congo)
RICA MENACHE had spent most of her 22 years far from the harsher realities of life – in Elizabethville, the Belgian Congo, where her father had owned a shoe factory – living a sheltered life surrounded by servants and a small, tight community of white Gentiles. She had gone to a Catholic mission school and all her friends were Christians. She had hardly even heard of Zionism or Palestine –until to her shock, she had been banned from the local Girl Scout organization because of her religion.
At fifteen she had gone to South Africa to learn how to organize a Jewish Scout movement among the 2,000 Jews in the eastern Congo, and there she had been introduced to Zionism. She had returned to Elizabethville with a suitcaseful of books about Palestine and had translated them from English to French so that other Jews in the Congo could read them. Then, with the help of her brother, she organized a Zionist movement in the Congo and was eventually offered a year of free study in Palestine, where she decided to stay
March 1948 found her as one of the defenders isolated in the Etzion Bloc. She was looking forward to the large Haganah relief convoy sent to evacuate some of the defenders. She was hoping to rejoin her fiancé, Emanuel Menachem Meidav based in Jerusalem. This convoy was ambushed by hordes of the Mufti-led Arab irregular fighters on the return to Jerusalem. Fighting was desperate with many Jews becoming casualties including 12 dead, eventually they were forced to take up defensive positions in an abandoned Arab building known as Nebi-Daniel. With the negotiation of a Red Cross official, they accepted the terms of the British to be evacuated to Jerusalem by a British convoy, where overcome by fatigue she slept for two days.
Learning that Emanuel was in the Old City, she persuaded the Haganah to send her there. Beside her in the armoured car was the slim, thin-faced girl, Esther Cailingold, just arrived from England, eager to join the struggle for a Jewish State specifically in the Old City. (Esther was later killed in action in the fighting for the Jewish Quarter).
She joined a group commanded by Emanuel Meidav. Fighting at her post, Rica heard that Emanuel had been seriously wounded by an explosion. She ran to the hospital building to discover that he had lost his eyes and hands.
The Jewish resistance was fierce and had actually managed to blunt the attack by the Arab irregulars A force from the Etzioni Brigade which included an American volunteer, Daniel Spicehandler (a WW11 Air Gunner, and later Squadron 69 of the IAF), failed to break through the Jaffa Gate. Later a Palmach unit successfully reached the Jewish Quarter but had to withdraw and the Jewish fighters eventually had to accept the surrender terms of the Jordanian Arab Legion who had invaded after May 15th taking over from the Arab irregulars.
Meanwhile Rica had sat by her beloved for two days and two nights, watching him as he succumbed from his wounds just as the Palmach arrived.
Rica (Meidav) today lives in Haifa.