Draft:Meir Orkin

Meir Orkin
מאיר אורקין
Born	(1914-10-02)October 2, 1914 Białystok
Died	December 9, 2010(2010-12-09) (aged 96)

Meir Orkin-Grossman (Hebrew: מאיר אורקין; October 2, 1914 – December 9, 2010) was an Israeli politician and public activist. He served as head of the Ga'aton Regional Council from 1951 to 1954.

Biography

Meir Orkin-Grossman was born in 1914 in Białystok, the eldest of three children of Kalman and Liba Orkin. His family earned their living from a tailoring workshop located in their home. He grew up in a secular Zionist household, while also being exposed to Jewish tradition and literature. In his youth, he studied at the local Hebrew gymnasium and, at the age of nine, joined the Hashomer Hatzair branch in Białystok. He later became an instructor for the "HaSneh" battalion, where he met Chaika Grossman, who would later become his wife.

On behalf of the movement, he spent a year in training at the "Kibbutz LaMifal" collective in Kalisz, where he gained experience in industrial labor. After receiving a draft order from the Polish Army, he began preparing to immigrate to Mandatory Palestine. By bribing officials in the Interior Ministry, he obtained a certificate under a false identity and immigrated on May 15, 1936. The rest of his family remained in Poland; his parents and sister were murdered at Treblinka extermination camp, while his brother died in a prisoner-of-war camp in Minsk.

He joined a pioneering group that settled in Rishon LeZion, where he worked digging planting pits. About a year later, he moved with a group of graduates from "Kibbutz LaMifal" and settled in Kibbutz Sarid, where he learned to operate a tractor. In 1941, he moved to Nahariya, where he worked as a tractor driver.

With the outbreak of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, he joined the fighting forces. On the eve of his departure to war, he reunited with his childhood friend Haika Grossman, who had survived The Holocaust and had recently immigrated to Israel. The two married on June 10, 1948, and moved to Kibbutz Evron, some of whose founders were alumni of "LaMifal." They later became full members of the kibbutz, where their two daughters, Leah and Yosefa, were born.

In December 1951, he began serving- replacing his wife Chaika- as head of the Ga'aton Regional Council. He remained in office until November 1954.

Beit Chaika

Afterward, he was among the founders of "Yogvei HaGalil," a regional cooperative for the operation and maintenance of agricultural machinery, and from 1960 served as a member of its management board. During the 1960s, he managed the kibbutz's kurkar quarry, and in 1970 initiated its conversion into a landfill site (today known as Ecopark Evron). In the 1970s, he served as treasurer of the "Harish" company.

Following the death of his wife in 1996, he initiated the establishment of "Beit Chaika" near Kibbutz Evron, which serves as an educational center.

He died on December 9, 2010, and was buried in the cemetery of Kibbutz Evron.

Publications

• Meir of Chaika: Life, Deeds, and Thought (autobiography), Evron, 2008, 228 pp.
• And You Shall Tell Your Children: Members of Evron Recount Their Experiences During the Holocaust, Evron, 1990, 160 pp.
• The Book of Evron, 1955.
• The Book of Evron II: Forty-Five Years of the Kibbutz's Existence (edited by Yitzhak Warhaftig, Meir Orkin-Grossman, and Amiram Cohen), Evron, 1983, 118 pp.
• BaMahrozet: A Selection of Songs from Kibbutz Life (edited by Meir Orkin-Grossman and Hagar Walter), Evron, 1971, 84 pp.
• An Arabic anthology on the Holocaust period, edited by Meir Orkin-Grossman, Evron, 1988.