Gadi Eizenkot, the 21st IDF Ramatkal (Left) with the Israeli President Reuven Rivlin (center) and with Benny Gantz , the 20th IDF Ramatkal (Right) By Gideon The IDF chief of staff (Ramatkal in Hebrew) is one of the most respected and most trusted…
Tag: IDF
Yosef Trumpeldor – The man and the legend
Yosef Trumpeldor (1880-1920) lived a short life; forty years altogether. Yet, in those short years, he accomplished more than most people who live twice as long. He was an admired Jewish leader in his life and a symbol for…
The great tank battles of the Yom Kippur War of 1973
On October 6, 1973, during Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, a Syrian and Egyptians armored force began a coordinated surprise assault along the Israeli-Syrian border in the Golan Heights in the north of Israel, and along…
Gideon Pick
By Gideon Gideon Pick was my uncle. I never met him; he was killed in action before I was born. This article is in his honor. Gideon Pick (August 7, 1937 – October 10, 1956) was born in Jerusalem. As…
Entebbe Operation: Told by the soldiers who were there
Interviews with the IDF soldiers and the officers who made it happen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lemwyO054OI
Becoming a hero – Getting to know Emmanuel Moreno
In the graduation ceremony of his team, the commander of Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s elite special forces unit, said on him that Israel didn’t have such a warrior since Bar Kokhba (Kosiba), the legendary leader of the Jewish revolt against the…
The secret war that never stops
Lebanese news sources report that the terrorist organization Hezbollah arrested one of its top people on charges that he was a Mossad spy. According to the media, the arrested spy was responsible for informing the Mossad about five planned…
Israel’s Army Singing Bands – A window into the Israeli Society
The road to understand Israel goes through its military singing bands. The history of Israel, its humor, its pain, its hope, and its evolution is all reflected in songs performed by young Israeli performers at the beginning of their careers.…
Israeli songs with special historical meaning
The two songs below captured in few words historical events in a way that elevated them to historical documents that will last for a long time. The first song is describing a tough battle in Jerusalem during the Six Day war. The other song became the…
Jerusalem – A City Under Siege
By Gideon Jerusalem is not the largest city, nor the richest one, but it is the most desired city in the world, if judged by the number of times it was attacked by enemy forces. “Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged…
September 5th 1972
In the early morning hours of September 5, 1972, members of Black September broke into the Israeli quarters of the Olympic Village. After seizing the coaches in the first apartment and wounding wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg in the face, the…
Itzhak Hofi – An IDF General and Head of the Mossad
Itzhak Hofi, who died at the age of 87, lived and operated in some of Israel‘s most critical times; a developing young nation fighting for its survival. It seems that he was in many of the most important intersections that…
The Battle on Mount Hermon in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 – The courage of the Golani soldiers under fire
By Gideon Benny Masas, a Golani soldier from battalion 51, in an interview shortly after the second battle to recapture the Hermon was over: “They began shooting at us when we got there. The dead and the injured teammates…
My life as an Israeli student-soldier: Memories from the Technion
In the picture: Second from left, as a Technion student in the First Lebanon War By Gideon One of my classmates at the Technion’s prep class, Moshe, was also a Golani reservist. He was also called for service during the First…
Becoming a Golani Soldier
By Gideon As the news about the growing number of casualties among Israeli soldiers in Operation Protective Edge continued to arrive, the name “Golani” was mentioned disproportionately to the size of this infantry brigade. The unit had suffered painful casualties in…