Moshe Dayan
Moshe Dayan (Hebrew: משה דיין; May 20, 1915 – October 16, 1981) was an Israeli military leader and politician. As commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (1953–1958) during the 1956 Sinai War, and especially as Defense Minister during the Six-Day War in 1967, he became a worldwide fighting symbol of the new state of Israel.[2]
Moshe Dayan
Independent
GOC Northern Command
Head of Southern Command
May 20, 1915
Degania Alef, Beirut Vilayet, Ottoman Empire (now Israel)
United Kingdom (World War II)
Israel (from 1948)
Haganah (c. 1929–48)
British Army (World War II)
Israel Defense Forces (1948–1959)
Rav Aluf (Chief of Staff; highest rank)
In the 1930s, Dayan joined the Haganah, the pre-state Jewish defense force of Mandatory Palestine. He served in the Special Night Squads under Orde Wingate during the Arab revolt in Palestine and later lost an eye to a sniper in a raid on Vichy forces in Lebanon during World War II. Dayan was close to David Ben-Gurion and joined him in leaving the Mapai party and setting up the Rafi party in 1965 with Shimon Peres. Dayan became Defence Minister just before the 1967 Six-Day War. After the Yom Kippur War of 1973, during which Dayan served as Defense Minister, he was blamed for the lack of preparedness; after some time he resigned. In 1977, following the election of Menachem Begin as Prime Minister, Dayan was expelled from the Israeli Labor Party because he joined the Likud-led government as Foreign Minister, playing an important part in negotiating the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.
Early life[edit]
Moshe Dayan was born on 20 May 1915 in Kibbutz Degania Alef, near the Sea of Galilee in Palestine, in what was then Ottoman Syria within the Ottoman Empire, one of three children born to Shmuel and Devorah Dayan, Ukrainian Jewish immigrants from Zhashkiv. Kibbutz Degania Alef, with 11 members, was the first kibbutz, and would become part of the State of Israel.
Dayan was the second child born at Degania, after Gideon Baratz (1913–1988).[3][4][5] He was named Moshe after Moshe Barsky, the first member of Degania to be killed in an Arab attack, who died getting medication for Dayan's father.[6] Soon afterward, Dayan's parents moved to Nahalal, the first moshav, or farming cooperative, to be established. Dayan attended the agricultural school there.
Dayan was a Jewish atheist.[7][8] He spoke Hebrew, Arabic, and English.