Yedidya Atzmony

Apparently the second of the six children of Moishe and Chana Yudis. Came to Palestine in 1925, the first in the family to do so. Was a builder (contractor) by profession. On arrival in Israel, stayed in a Sochnut house in Tel Aviv and later worked in the fields of Rishon LeZion. Hit by a car in 1926 after he had moved to Jerusalem. Stayed in a hospital to recover. First wife, Esther Danon, was daughter of the Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Nissim Yehuda Danon. Tremendous status difference from Yedidia, as well as Sephardic/Ashkenazic difference. Presumably the incapacitating mental illness from which Esther suffered had something to do with making marriage across such great differences possible. Married Mina Daniel in 1936. In 1939, he, his wife, Mina, and three children officially changed the family name from Koszczer (the Polish spelling) to Atzmony. "Koshche' means "bone' (in Polish?); "atzm" means bone in Hebrew. He changed his first name from Gottlieb, which means "beloved by God," to Yedidya, which means the same (more precisely, "beloved by YHVH") in Hebrew.