Shlomo Mantzur, 85: Baghdad native was kibbutz’s ‘legendary carpenter’

Shlomo Mantzur, 85, was murdered by Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Kissufim on October 7 and his body kidnapped to Gaza.

His fate was unknown until February 11, 2025, when the IDF declared him dead. His body was returned to Israel by Hamas on February 27, 2025, as part of a ceasefire deal.

His wife, Mazal, said she last saw him taken away in handcuffs in his pajamas by several terrorists, without his glasses or hearing aid, and driven toward Gaza in his own car. Mazal managed to escape to a neighbor’s home and survive.

The IDF later declared that Shlomo had been killed on October 7 and his body held captive for 509 days.

He was buried in Kibbutz Kissufim on March 2, 2025. He is survived by his wife, Mazal, their five children, Batya, Itzik, Dikla, Moshit and Tamar, 12 grandchildren, and his five siblings, Rachel, Moshe, Poriya, Eli and Hadassah.

He was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Baghdad in 1938, and survived the Farhud pogrom in 1941, in which Arab rioters broke into his home and beat his family members.

In 1951, when Shlomo was 13, he moved with his family to Israel, leaving everything behind, according to a government obituary. They settled at first in an immigrant camp in the Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem.

Three years later, the teenaged Shlomo was convinced to move to Kibbutz Kissufim with a youth group and was among the founders and developers of the nascent community. There he worked for years in the chicken coop as well as at an eyewear factory, and learned carpentry as a hobby.

He met Mazal in the kibbutz and they wed and built their family there, making their home in Kissufim for close to 70 years.

“Shlomo was much more than a community member to us — he was a father, a grandfather, a true friend and the beating heart of Kissufim,” the kibbutz said in a statement after his death was confirmed.

“His smile, modesty and human warmth were an inspiration to us all. Our legendary carpenter, with hands of gold, knew how to fix everything and to make art out of every object and item he came across,” the kibbutz added.

His daughter, Moshit, told Haaretz that her father was “a level-headed man, a very talented man with an enormous desire to help and establish and build and do.”

She added that “my father was an optimistic man. He was happy, he always smiled – if you’d cross paths with him, he would smile at you immediately. His heart would be filled with joy, just because he met you. It didn’t matter who he’d see. He loved people, and he loved to help.”

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