Shlomo Mansour, of blessed memory, was the oldest hostage taken on October 7th and will be laid to rest today (Sunday) in the cemetery at Kibbutz Kissufim. Shlomo was kidnapped and murdered by Hamas terrorists on the day he was abducted. His body was returned to Israel only last Thursday.
He passed away at the age of 86 and left behind five children and 12 grandchildren.
Shlomo’s family called on the public to accompany him on his final journey and to stand by the roadside with Israeli flags.
A Man of High Morals and Values
In a statement released by Shlomo Mansour’s family upon his return, it was written: “Shlomo, a survivor of the Farhud in Iraq, who was kidnapped from his home in Kibbutz Kissufim, was the cornerstone of our family. A man of high morals and values, a lover of humanity who always sought to help others with all his heart. A man with a golden heart, golden hands, and a smile worth gold.”
A Founding Member of Kibbutz Kissufim
Shlomo had a unique and deeply symbolic life story. His story began with a traumatic event similar to the one that would end his life, the Farhud riots in Iraq. The riots occurred in June 1941 against the Jews of Baghdadת under the influence of the Nazis and the incitement of Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem . Shlomo, who was just a small child then, miraculously survived the riotד. Technically and substantively, Mansour was a Holocaust survivor.
Several years later, Mansour immigrated to Israel along with the large wave of Iraqi Jews following the establishment of the state. At age 16, he found himself at the new Kibbutz Kissufim, established along the Egyptian-Gaza border in 1951. A decade later, Mansour married Mazal, a young woman who had arrived at the kibbutz. Together, they built a home and a family in the kibbutz, which they maintained joyfully for 60 years.
