Epstein Secrets

ld War Two-vintage halftracks. Our training battalion was based, alongside the country’s main armored brigade, in a huge, hillside army camp outside Beersheva in the Negev. I knew that our fironut — basic training — would be tough. That was the whole point. But we endured a seemingly endless array of inspec

did, it had to be a step up from what lay ahead of me in the Negev. “Yeah. Sure,” I replied. I heard nothing further in the days after I got back to Beersheva. But at the end of the month, I was ordered to report to a small hut in an army base near Tel Aviv. It belonged to Maka Esser, the personnel departme

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

ld War Two-vintage halftracks. Our training battalion was based, alongside the country’s main armored brigade, in a huge, hillside army camp outside Beersheva in the Negev. I knew that our fironut — basic training — would be tough. That was the whole point. But we endured a seemingly endless array of inspec

did, it had to be a step up from what lay ahead of me in the Negev. “Yeah. Sure,” I replied. I heard nothing further in the days after I got back to Beersheva. But at the end of the month, I was ordered to report to a small hut in an army base near Tel Aviv. It belonged to Maka Esser, the personnel departme

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

avy losses. Go see Tzipori." Motke Tzipori was in charge of organizing the armored units. He sent me to Julis, the training base between Tel Aviv and Beersheva, where tanks from maintenance units around the country were being brought. Once they were reasonably operational, and as more reservists arrived from

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