Aryeh Zalmanowitz, 85, of blessed memory

Aryeh was kidnapped from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz. On December 1, his family was informed that he was murdered, and his body is being held by Hamas.
He was one of the founders of kibbutz Nir Oz, a father to Boaz and Yoav, and grandfather to five grandchildren. He was born in Haifa and arrived at the kibbutz with a Nahal core group. Aryeh was a man of the land, worked in agriculture and field crops, specializing in wheat cultivation in the Negev conditions. In recent years, he continued to wear his work clothes every morning and would take his electric scooter to have coffee and spend time with the young farmers.