Avigdor Ben-Gal

Avigdor "Yanush" Ben-Gal (Hebrew: אביגדור בן-גל‎; 1936 – February 13, 2016; born Janusz Goldlust) was an Israeli general.

He was born in 1936, in Łódź, Poland, as Janusz Ludwig Goldlust. When he was three years old, World War II broke out with Germany invading Poland. His family left Poland for the USSR, and finally arrived in Siberia. After his parents disappeared, he eventually arrived in Tel Aviv with his sister on the Tehran transport. They were taken in and raised by a distant cousin.

A few years after Israel became independent and won the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Ben-Gal was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). His first combat experience came during the 1956 Suez War with Egypt. Despite having dreamed of being a doctor, he decided to stay in the army after his mandatory military service was finished. In an interview, he explained his reasons:

"I never intended to turn the army into a career, but I remained because I liked it. I loved the Negev, the desert, the fields. I loved speeding in jeeps. Later I got used to the army, and it became a part of me. And maybe also, I was afraid to make a new start in life."

During the Six-Day War in 1967, he was the operations chief of a brigade that broke through Egyptian fortifications in the Sinai. He lost half his right foot when his jeep struck a mine. By 1972, he had been appointed commander of a brigade.

During the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Ben-Gal commanded the 7th Armored Brigade and oversaw the defense of the Golan Heights against Syrian attack. Ben-Gal had foreseen the war two weeks before it started, and had begun preparing his brigade. As the threat of war wasn't being taken seriously in Israel at the time, he had been branded a "madman". However, when the war broke out, his brigade was the only IDF unit in a state of full readiness.

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