The Haganah

1. The Haganah • The Haganah was first called The Hashomer. • The Hashomer had only 100 members. In 1920, The Hashomer became a new, more powerful organization called the Haganah. Ben Gurion helped establish the Haganah. • The Haganah had many men and women fighters. They defended the Jews and their country eagerly. In 1929, The Haganah volunteers saved Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa from mass destruction during the Arab riots. • After 1929, The Haganah began to expand. They improved training as well. By 1939, The Haganah had 25,000 fully trained soldiers. They were armed with stolen rifles, machine guns, homemade grenades, and many other weapons. • During World War Two The Haganah grew again. This time they sent spies into Nazi occupied territory. They would parachute down to the battleground, and organize an armed resistance from within the enemy territory. At the same time, lots of The Haganah members joined the Jewish Brigade of the British army. The Jewish Brigade fought bravely in Egypt and Italy. On May 15, 1948 the Jewish state was established. The Haganah fought off regular armies easily. The British, as usual, helped the Arabs. Despite the actions of the British, The Haganah managed to hold the British back. • The Haganah became later the IDF, Israel’s defense army of today.

3. Moshe Dayan • Moshe Dayan was a soldier in the Haganah and later on became a statesman and a general in the IDF, which is now the Israeli Army. • His eye got shot with a sniper rifle in one of the wars. Dayan stayed with the Haganah until 1948. • During Israel’s War of Independence, Dayan held the rank of lieutenant colonel and commanded various fronts. • In 1956, he was a major general and led the Sinai Campaign. • In 1957, Dayan retired from the military and joined the Israeli labor party Mapai. In 1959, Moshe Dayan was appointed minister of agriculture under Prime Minister Ben Gurion, and later, minister of defense. • During the 1967 Six Day War, he remained in the cabinet. • After the great Israeli victory, Dayan entered the old city of Jerusalem and went to the Wailing Wall. He administered the areas occupied by the Israeli army on the West Bank of the Jordan River. In 1977, Dayan became the Foreign Minister in MenachemBegin’s government. He helped create the Camp David Accord. • Dayan was born on May 20, 1915 in Kibbutz Degania, and died on October 16, 1981 in Tel Aviv.

4. Interesting Facts • Moshe Dayan got his eye shot with a sniper rifle fighting in the British war in Lebanon • Moshe Dayan became a major general in 1953 and led the Israeli army during the Sinai campaign in 1956. • Dayan served as chief of staff of Israel’s armed forces from 1953 to 1958. • In October 1964, after a disagreement with Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, he resigned his post in the government.