Meir Nakar

Meir Nakar (Hebrew: מאיר נקר‎‎; July 26, 1926 – July 29, 1947) was an Irgun member in pre-state Mandatory Palestine and one of 12 Olei Hagardom.

Meir Nakar was born in Jerusalem to a poor Orthodox-Jewish family of Iraqi-Jewish origin, one of five brothers and a sister. His father was a shoemaker. At age 12, he left school and began working to support his family, and a year later, he joined the Betar Zionist youth movement.

At age 15, he tried to enlist in the British Army to fight in World War II, but was rejected. When he was 17, he tried again and succeeded, using a forged birth certificate. He served in Egypt, Cyprus, and Greece. The antisemitism he encountered during his military service solidified his Zionist views. After being discharged in 1946, he returned home and joined his father in the shoemaking business. At the same time, he joined the Irgun underground movement, and received the nickname "Yehiam".

For the first five months of his Irgun service, Nakar was active in recruitment and propaganda, but then moved into the Irgun's Combat Corps. He participated in the Irgun attack on the Goldschmidt Officer's Club in Jerusalem.

On May 4, 1947, he participated in the Acre Prison break, an Irgun raid against Acre Prison to free imprisoned Jewish underground members. Nakar was a member of one of the blocking squad that laid mines on nearby roads to delay British forces pursuing the attackers and escapees as they retreated. The mining operation was successful, but during the retreat, Dov Salomon, one of the commanders of the operation who was responsible for calling away the blocking squads, forgot about his squad. As a result, his squad was left behind, and was still waiting at its post when the British arrived and arrested them. Others from the blocking squads taken prisoner were Avshalom Haviv, Yaakov Weiss, Amnon Michaelov, and Nachman Zitterbaum.

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