Yigal Allon

His father, Reuven, immigrated to Palestine in 1890 along with his father and elder brother from Belarus, then a part of the Russian Empire.

His mother, Haia Shortz-Peikowitz, came from a Jewish family of Safed.

Her father was a founding member of Rosh Pinna.

Allon's father initially wanted to name him "Yigael", meaning "he will be redeemed", but decided it was too passive, and instead decided on "Yigal", meaning "he will redeem".

When Allon was five years old, his mother died and his older brothers left home.

Allon, the youngest child, remained with his father.

The area of Kfar Tavor was isolated and dealt with regular raids and thefts by neighboring Arab and Bedouin communities.

After his bar mitzvah at age 13, Allon was given a gun by his father to protect the family crops from thieves.

Yigal Allon (יגאל אלון; 10 October 1918 – 29 February 1980) was an Israeli military leader and politician.

He was a commander of the Palmach and a general in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

He was also a leader of the Ahdut HaAvoda and Israeli Labor parties.

Yigal Peikowitz (later Allon) was born on 10 October 1918 in Kfar Tavor, then a part of the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration.

Allon joined Haganah in 1931 and went on to command a field unit and then a mobile patrol in northern Palestine during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine.

During the revolt, while working on the fields and farms of the kibbutz, Allon was summoned to take a position of command in the Haganah by Yitzhak Sadeh.

After completing a squad command course, Allon was appointed to the command of the Mobile Guards.

He took part in the expulsion of Arabs who immigrated with their flocks to the Jewish fields.

He also became known for the ambushes he planned for gangs that infiltrated the settlements.

During this period, Allon participated in several operations of the Special Night Squads (SNS), under the command of Orde Charles Wingate and Bala Bredin.

In 1934, 16-year-old Allon began attending the Kadoorie Agricultural High School.

Here, he became aware that his home education was poor compared to his classmates from urban areas.

His teachers encouraged him to expand his horizons and close gaps in his education.

In his autobiography, Allon praised the school director and claimed that he taught Allon important social values.

During school, Allon adopted Labor Zionism.

After the outbreak of the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, he joined the Haganah and later the Palmach.

He commanded a squad and organized key operations in the Jewish Resistance Movement such as the Night of the Bridges.

After graduating in 1937, Allon and a group of Labor Zionists founded the Kibbutz Ginosar on Palestine Jewish Colonization Association land leased to the settlement of Migdal.

In Ginosar, Allon made an impression as a local leader and became friends with Berl Katznelson.

In 1941, he became one of the founding members of the Palmach.

During the 1947–1949 Palestine war, Allon commanded the conquest of the Galilee, Lod and Ramla, as well as the entire Negev up to Eilat as Head of the Southern Command.

Allon entered politics after a forced relief from command by then-Premier David Ben-Gurion.

During his political career, he served as foreign and education minister, deputy prime minister, and briefly as acting prime minister.

He was one of the architects of the creation of the Labor party, advocating for the merge of Ahdut HaAvoda with Mapai.

In 1967, he devised the eponymous Allon Plan, which proposed next steps for Israel after the 1967 Arab–Israeli War.

While the plan was not officially adopted, it served as a guideline for the next decade of Israeli settlement.

He served briefly as acting Prime Minister of Israel between the death of Levi Eshkol and the appointment of Golda Meir in 1969.

Allon was the first native-born Israeli to serve as Prime Minister of Israel (the first elected native-born Prime Minister would later be Yitzhak Rabin in 1974).

He was a government minister from the third Knesset to the ninth inclusive.

Born a child of pioneer settlers in the Lower Galilee, Allon initially rose to prominence through his military career.

He also took part in the Sinai Interim Agreement in 1975.

In 1980, Allon died unexpectedly due to cardiac arrest while campaigning for the leadership of the Labor party.