Nissim was born on 6 August 1921 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria to parents Jacob and Perla. Shortly after his birth his father was kidnapped and murdered by Bulgarian terrorists. His mother bought him up alone and they immigrated to Holon in Israel in 1935. He studied at the Safra High school in Tel Aviv and in 1939 he enlisted into the Holon Battalion. Early in 1940, aged nineteen, he enlisted into the Royal Army Medical Corps. His mother was unaware of his death until after the war when she met a soldier who knew Nissim. He said he was with Nissim on a ship near Tobruk when it was attacked by Germans. Nissim ran to help a wounded soldier but the ship was attacked again and he was killed.