Eli Rahav

Eli Rahav was born in 1940 in Rehovot

Eli Rahav was born on December 23, 1940, in Rehovot, to a family that settled there early in the 20th century. His father, Dov Litman, was a carpenter and a track athlete with Hapoel, and his mother was a homemaker. He joined Hapoel and the United Movement and spent summers in Kvutzat Kinneret.

In 1954 he entered the naval school, then moving from Haifa to Acre, despite a hearing injury from 1948. He was one of 45 accepted out of 200 candidates and also passed his matriculation exams.

He enlisted in 1958, completed officer and naval officer courses, and was commissioned in October 1959. He served on destroyers, trained with the British Royal Navy in 1960, and took the name Rahav after the submarine INS Rahav. He then commanded torpedo boats and fought in the Six-Day War and the Battle of Rumani in 1967.

In 1968 he was named commander of INS Haifa, a Sa'ar 2 missile boat built in Cherbourg, France, and sailed it to Israel. He later headed the Naval Ships Branch as a brigadier general. After his service he worked on seaport infrastructure and researched naval heritage.