This page tells the story of Esther Dreisinger Koifman (1923-1948), a Polish Holocaust survivor who lost who entire family in the Holocaust and immigrated to Palestine as part of the Ma’apilim clandestine immigration movement. After being sent to a detention camp in Cyprus by the British, Esther finally made it to the Land of Israel in 1947 and joined Kfar Etzion, the first of the Gush Etzion settlements, where she met and married her husband, Zalman Koifman, and served in the Haganah to defend the settlement and Jerusalem from Arab attacks. Together with over 100 defenders of the village, Esther was killed on May 13, 1948, at the age of 24, just one day before the establishment of the State of Israel. To read her entire story in English, click here and in Hebrew, click here. This story is part of Yizkor, a national project compiled by the Defense Ministry in order to pay tribute to those who gave their lives for the establishment and protection of the State of Israel.
