David Ben David cheated death and missed Israel’s birth
David Ben David swam to Haifa in 1940, unknowingly escaping the ill-fated "Patria". He spent most of the 1948 war as a POW, saved from death more than once by his Arab Legion captors.
David Ben David during the 1948 siege of Kfar Etzion, where many of his comrades were killed by enemy forces. From his autobiography, Gesher al Tehumot (Bridge over the Abysses).(photo credit: NATIONAL LIBRARY OF ISRAEL COLLECTION)ByZACK ROTHBART
