Tel Aviv - Palmach Museum and Palmach soldier

This gentleman fought in the Israeli War of Independence 70 years ago.
His unit's scrapbook is in front of him. 

Yesterday, Steven and I shook the hand of a hero.  A slight man of ninety, this native Israeli, a Sabra, had been a member of the strike force of the Hagana, the forerunner to the IDF.  He was part of an elite group, the Palmach, that defended Israel during the Israeli War of Independence that began in 1947.

We talked to this Palmach fighter by great good luck and by our own mistake.  We had no reservations for the ninety minute presentation given by the Palmach Museum, but the IDF soldiers at the front desk said we could go back to the photo gallery and look around.  This is where we encountered our nonogenerian, in a room empty of people but full of large scrapbooks. He told us his story as he flipped through the large scrapbook that each unit of the Hagana was instructed to compile.

His unit was called the Brooklyns, not because its members were from Brooklyn, but because they all went to the same café by that name in Tel Aviv.  Members included both men and women.  They had no uniforms; they resembled partisans and street fighters. They were scrappy and brave.

At the age of 20, on May 14, 1948, he was with the Brooklyns on the Lebanese border, anticipating trouble.  The Arab nations had already engaged the Israelis, but all-out war was expected to erupt that day, as David Ben Gurion declared the independence of the state of Israel.  The Palmach fighters that day had no cannons and no air cover.  They were fighting with imported guns and “tanks” created by welding steel plates to truck frames.  As the bullets flew from Lebanon, he wasn’t sure to be glad or mad that Ben Gurion was reading Israel’s Declaration of Independence.  One of those bullets struck him in the arm, and he subsequently spent two years in hospitals recovering.  It was his first and last day of battle.  Many of his fellow soldiers that survived the battle joined kibbutzim after the war. 

After recovering, he was in the mechanical field until retiring.  Now he tells his extraordinary story three days a week at the Palmach Museum.  It was an honor and a privilege to meet him.

Palmach Museum Photo Gallery