Isser Harel was born in Vitebsk, Russia (now Belarus) to a large, wealthy family. The exact date of his birth was not passed on to him because the book of Gemara in which the date was recorded was lost in the migrations of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and World War I. The family had a vinegar factory in Vitebsk. It was a gift of his maternal grandfather, who had a concession to make vinegar in large parts of Tsarist Russia. Young Isser was five years old when the revolution broke out and Vitebsk passed several times between the Whites and the Reds. On one occasion he saw Leon Trotsky give a speech in the town.

The Harel family faced hardship when the Soviet regime confiscated their property. In 1922 they emigrated from the Soviet Union to Dvinsk in independent Latvia. On the way, Soviet soldiers stole their suitcases, which contained the rest of their possessions. In Dvinsk, Isser began his formal studies, completed primary school, and began secondary school. As he grew, a Jewish national consciousness grew within him and he joined a Zionist youth organization.

When he was 16, Harel began preparations to immigrate to British Mandate for Palestine. During this preparatory year he worked in agriculture with the aspiration to join a kibbutz.

With the outbreak of the 1929 Hebron massacre, his friends decided to move up their immigration date in order to reinforce the Jewish settlement in Palestine. Documents were prepared for the 17-year-old Harel stating that he was 18 and eligible for a British visa. At the beginning of 1930 he immigrated to Israel. He crossed Europe from north to south to board a ship in Genoa, carrying a pistol that he concealed in a loaf of bread.

Isser Harel started out in 1930 as a young Russian immigrant to Israel on a kibbutz. He later founded his own orange company. He will be best remembered, however, as the first director of the Mossad.

By the 1940s Harel joined the Haganah and the British auxiliary forces to fight the Nazis. He headed the intelligence branch of the Haganah in 1942. It was Harel who sank the Irgun ship the Altalena, upon orders given by David Ben-Gurion.

Harel quickly climbed the ranks of the Israeli elite, ultimately becoming the first head of the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service. He was the Mossad director from 1952-1963, where he directed both the Shin Bet and the Mossad.

He is credited with developing a close relationship with the CIA and, together the United States, Israel collected information about the Soviet Union. He also created the Trident Network in which Israel, Iran, and Turkey collected intelligence about the Egyptian government.

Harel was known for his dedication to defending Israel and protecting democracy within the Jewish state. During his tenure as the Mossad chief, he led two famous operations. The first was the capture in 1960 of Adolf Eichmann, one of the Nazi architects of the Final Solution. The other involved Yosseleh Schumacher, the grandson of an ultra-Orthodox Brooklynite, who, in 1959, was prevented from kidnaping his son and enrolling him in a religious school.

In 1962, Harel learned that the Germans were assisting the Egyptians in developing missile technology. According to Reuven Merhav, former long-time member of the intelligence community, the technology was far inferior to Israel's and not a threat to her security; nevertheless, Harel believed it necessary to intimidate Germany. This angered Ben-Gurion.

As a result of irreconcilable differences with the Prime Minister, Harel resigned from the Mossad in 1963.

After his career in intelligence, Harel was primarily a writer. His best known book, The House on Garibaldi Street (1975), recounts the capture of Eichmann.

He died in Israel ( Telaviv) on February 19, 2003.

www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org, Wikipedia