Epstein Secrets

a kibbutz boy in pre-state Palestine, has been intimately entwined with the infancy and adolescence and, now, the increasingly troubled middle age of the State of Israel. Still less is it only a record of its, or my, achievements, although they are inevitably a part of the story. In setting out to write it, I was al

he early 1960s, there were only two of note. One was Sayeret Golani, attached to the Golani Brigade near the northern border. The truly elite one was Sayeret Tzanhanim, the paratroopers’ sayeret. It had been built from Company A of Battalion 890, where Yigal had served in the 1950s. “Which sayeret?” I asked. “It’s

a kibbutz boy in pre-state Palestine, has been intimately entwined with the infancy and adolescence and, now, the increasingly troubled middle age of the State of Israel. Still less is it only a record of its, or my, achievements, although they are inevitably a part of the story. In setting out to write it, I was al

he early 1960s, there were only two of note. One was Sayeret Golani, attached to the Golani Brigade near the northern border. The truly elite one was Sayeret Tzanhanim, the paratroopers’ sayeret. It had been built from Company A of Battalion 890, where Yigal had served in the 1950s. “Which sayeret?” I asked. “It’s

could spend a further two or three reading history, or a novel or poetry. He always struggled between the impulse to devote his life to fighting for the State of Israel, and to studying, reading and living as a more "normal" family man. His drive to serve, and to excel, was stronger. Tuti Goodman, the young woman he'

Other Israeli sayerets were attached to specific fighting forces. Sayeret Golan, for instance, was part of the Golani infantry brigade in the north; Sayeret Tzanhanim, was part of the paratroopers. But "matkal" is the Hebrew word for the general staff, since it was the generals in military headquarters who had allo