Tag Archives: War of Independence

Jew of the Week: Uzi Gal

The Machine Gun that Saved President Reagan

Uzi Gal

Uziel Guthardt Glass (1923-2002) was born in Weimar, Germany. His family fled from the Nazis to England in 1933, and from there made their way to Israel in 1936. They joined a kibbutz and changed their last name to Gal. From his youth, Gal was interested in weapons engineering, and designed his first automatic gun (which shot arrows) at age 15. At 20, now a member of the Jewish Haganah defense force, he was arrested by British troops for carrying a gun (forbidden to Jews in Israel at the time) and spent three years in prison. It was during his service in Israel’s War of Independence that he began designing a new, smaller, safer, and more effective submachine gun. In 1951, the IDF adopted his design, giving birth to the famous “Uzi” (although Gal requested that the weapon not be named after him). The weapon was also adopted by over 90 different countries, and became the most popular submachine gun in history, with over $2 billion in sales. It has been used primarily as a personal defense weapon by officers, tank infantry, and special forces units. Most famously, it was the weapon of choice for the US Secret Service – typically hidden in a small briefcase – and was used to save President Ronald Reagan from an assassination attempt in 1981. Along with other military decorations, Gal was the first person to be granted the Israel Security Award. With the high rank of Colonel, Gal retired from the IDF in 1975 in order to take care of his daughter, and moved to Philadelphia for her medical treatment. He continued designing weapons in the US until his passing due to cancer in 2002. In 2003, the Uzi was officially retired by the IDF, praised for its instrumental role in Israel’s many military victories.

Words of the Week

The truth is, we are all living in Israel. It’s just that some of us haven’t realized it yet.
– Sam Harris

Jew of the Week: Yolande Harmor

Yolande Harmor

Yolande Gabbai Harmor (1913-1959) was born in Alexandria, Egypt. She went to school in France and returned to Egypt at 17 to get married. Working as a journalist, she soon became a noted writer in Egypt, as well as a popular socialite and member of Egypt’s “high society”. Meanwhile, Harmor was also drawn to Cairo’s Zionist circles. In 1945, she was recruited by the Jewish Agency and became a secret agent, gathering intelligence about Egypt’s royalty and politicians. She was able to get close to people like the Grand Mufti of Cairo, members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and even Egypt’s King Farouk himself. Her intelligence reports included detailed accounts of Arab military plans and troop numbers, giving the nascent Israeli state critical information to win the War of Independence. In July of 1948, Harmor’s cover was blown and she was arrested. However, as a favourite of some of Egypt’s most powerful people (many of whom had fallen in love with her), she was dealt with fairly lightly. After a few months, it became apparent that Harmor had developed stomach cancer. She was released from prison and deported out of Egypt. Harmor moved to Paris, and served on Israel’s UN delegation, and then for the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Throughout this time, she continued to use her sources in Egypt to secure key intelligence information. In 1951, Harmor finally settled in Israel. Unfortunately, her efforts for the State of Israel were soon forgotten. Saddened, and further weakened by the passing of her beloved second husband, Harmor succumbed to her cancer at the young age of 46. In recent years, her incredible story has come to light once again. The city of Jerusalem established ‘Yolande Harmor Square’ in 1997, and a documentary film about her life was released in 2010.

Words of the Week

The Jews have been objects of hatred in pagan, religious, and secular societies. Fascists have accused them of being Communists, and Communists have branded them capitalists. Jews who live in non-Jewish societies have been accused of having dual loyalties, while Jews who live in the Jewish state have been condemned as ‘racists’. Poor Jews are bullied, and rich Jews are resented. Jews have been branded as both rootless cosmopolitans and ethnic chauvinists. Jews who assimilate have been called a ‘fifth column’, while those who stay together spark hatred for remaining separate…
– Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin, ‘Why The Jews?’

Jew of the Week: Ruth Porat

“The Most Powerful Woman on Wall Street”

Ruth Porat

Ruth Porat (b. 1957) was born in England to Jewish immigrants from Israel. Her father was a Holocaust survivor who escaped to a kibbutz and fought in Israel’s War of Independence. He later became a physicist and moved the family first to Massachusetts and then to California, while doing research at Harvard, MIT and the National Accelerator Lab in Palo Alto. Ruth Porat studied at Stanford, and has Master’s degrees from both The London School of Economics and The Wharton School. Throughout most of her career, Porat worked for Morgan Stanley, rising all the way up to the rank of CFO and Executive Vice President. Before that, she served as the Vice Chair of their Investment Banking division, and the head of their international Financial Institutions Group. During the 2008 Financial Crisis, Porat was a chief adviser to the US Treasury, and was praised for helping to save AIG from total collapse, an event that would have completely tanked the economy. Not long ago, she was nicknamed the “Most Powerful Woman on Wall Street”. At the same time, Porat has been married for over 30 years, and is a mother of three, maintaining a steady “work-family mix”, as she calls it, and encouraging her co-workers to do the same. As one of only a few women with such high positions in the financial world, she has become an important role model. She is also a breast cancer survivor. In the past, working as a co-head of Morgan Stanley’s tech investment division, she directed funds to companies like eBay, and Amazon in their early days, helping to turn them into the giant companies they are today. Due to her vast knowledge of both the financial sector and the digital world, she was recently hired by Google, and as of last week, is their new CFO.

Words of the Week

Transgressions of man towards God – Yom Kippur atones for them. Transgressions of man towards man, Yom Kippur does not atone for them, until one seeks forgiveness from one’s fellow.
– Talmud, Yoma 85b