Moshe Dayan

Moshe Dayan (Hebrew: משה דיין‎; 20 May 1915 – 16 October 1981) was an Israeli military leader and politician. He was the second child born on the first kibbutz, but he moved with his family in 1921, and he grew up on a moshav. As commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (1953–58) during the 1956 Suez Crisis, but mainly as Defense Minister during the Six-Day War in 1967, he became to the world a fighting symbol of the new state of Israel. After being blamed for the army's lack of preparation before the outbreak of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and for his failure of nerve during the war, he left the military and joined politics. As Foreign Minister Dayan played an important part in negotiating the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

Early life

Moshe Dayan was born on 20 May 1915 on Kibbutz Degania Alef, near the Sea of Galilee in what was then Ottoman Syria or Palestine, within the Ottoman Empire. Dayan's parents, Shmuel and Devorah Dayan, were Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. Kibbutz Degania Alef, with 11 members, was the first kibbutz, and would become part of the State of Israel.