Dov Gazit came to Israel from Baku, Azerbaijan by way of the Russian Gulags. He joined the Haganah, and rose to chief-commander of the IAF Technical School in Haifa. While serving in Africa, he acquired a lion cub, which became the first lion in Dr. Aharon Shulov's Jerusalem Biblical Zoo.
Early life
Dov Gazit was born Borys Reuvenovich/Romanovich Grobshtein, was the brother of Solomon Grobshtein, and one of three sons of Reuven Grobshtein, an engineer in the Baku oil fields. He was 8 years old, when his father was murdered during the Armenian-Tatar uprisings. At age 18, Borys went to study at the Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology, where became a member of a Zioniststudent group. The NKVD crashed a Zionist group meeting, and arrested all the participants, including Borys, who was convicted and sent to a Gulag in Siberia for three years. After many applications for release, he was allowed to leave the Soviet Union and go toPalestine, without permission to see his family, and nor to ever return to the Soviet Union. Borys worked in the fields around Ra'anana, but later moved to Jerusalem, to the Zikhron Moshe neighbourhood, next door to Ephraim Katzir, a friend of Borys', and later to become the President of Israel. After arriving in Palestine, Borys changed his name to Dov Gazit.
Military service
While the British fought the German and Italian armies in the Arab Desert, Dov, and his friend, Yeri Shrem, were sent to Eritrea, by the Israeli Air Service Technical School in Haifa. After his term, he continued to serve in additional management/administration positions at the school, as a Civilian Employee, with the rank equal to `Sgan Aluf` or 'Sa'al'.
While stationed in Eritrea with his compatriot, Yeri. Dr. Aaron Schulow, and the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo, asked Dov to find and send back to Jerusalem an African lion. Dov found a lion cub for sale in the market. He took the Zoo's new acquisition back to his, where he and Yeri cared for the cub for several months. With the lion cub growing too large to keep in their quarters, he managed to get the cat to Alexandria, and on a boat to Palestine. The lion cub, the first lion in the Dr. Shulov's new zoo, was renamed Yehudah. Dr. Aharon Shulov wrote a history of the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo, and on pages 47–51, he detailed Dov Gazit's adventures in acquiring Fifi, and getting the cub from Africa to Jerusalem.
Dov retired from the Air Force Technical School, and died in 1986, at the age of 78. He is buried in the cemetery at Hof haCarmel, on the slope of Mount Carmel.
