Yad Mordechai takes its name from Mordechai Anielewicz, the hero of the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazis during the second world war. The kibbutz founders, like Anielewicz, originally hailed from Poland. During the Israeli War of Independence this kibbutz was located along the road of the Egyptian army’s main advance. For several days the badly outnumbered defenders of the Kibbutz, which consisted of Kibbutz men and haganah soldiers, managed to hold off the enemy’s onslaught. Finally after five days the defenders had no choice but to vacate the community. But their resistance had won for the Israeli forces valuable time to prepare and as the Egyptians continued their drive north towards Tel Aviv they were stopped at Ad Halom a few days later. The Egyptians were finally pushed back to what came to be known as the Gaza Strip which they occupied until the Six Day War.