Yitzhak Pundak
| Yitzhak Pundak | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
June 13, 1913 Kraków, Austro-Hungarian Empire |
| Allegiance |
 Israel
|
| Rank | Major General |
| Commands held | 53rd Battalion (Givati), Oded Brigade, Nahal, Armored Corps |
| Battles/wars | 1948 Arab–Israeli War, 1956 Sinai War |
| Other work | Ambassador to Tanzania |
Yitzhak Pundak, born Yitzhak Fundik (Hebrew: יצחק פונדק; born June 13, 1913), is a former Israeli general, diplomat and politician. He turned 100 in June 2013.
Pundak was born in Kraków, Poland (then part of Austria-Hungary) and immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1933, from Poland.
Pundak's military career started with the Haganah. In 1945, he was an instructor in a platoon commanders' course.
In the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Pundak served in the HISH and Israel Defense Forces as the commander of Givati Brigade's 53rd Battalion. He commanded the defense of the villages Nitzanim, Negba, Gat and Gal On, including what was seen as a failure and embarrassing surrender in the June 7, 1948 Battle of Nitzanim. In August 1948, he was appointed chief of the Oded Brigade and participated in Operation Yoav and Operation Hiram. In 1951, he founded the independent Nahal unit, which split from the Gadna program.
In 1952, Pundak traveled to France for a course in armored warfare, and returned to the IDF to implement what he learned. He was appointed to head the Armored Corps on December 22, 1953, helping transform it into the Armored Conscriptions (Hebrew: גייסות השיריון) that employed a new doctrine of combining armored and motorized infantry units. The change was officially made on February 3, 1954, and Pundak was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. He was pressured to end his tenure on July 26, 1956, replaced by Haim Laskov as the armored forces commander. He accuses a certain officer within the armored corps that exploited a failure in the Ordnance Corps and portrayed it as Pundak's personal failure. He also said that he had been promised the rank of Major General (Aluf) in 1959 but that the promise was broken. In 2013, upon turning 100, he received the rank.
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