Itzhak Coral Almog

Itzhak Coral Almog was born in 1938 in Alexandria

Almog was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1938, to a Jerusalem family of rabbis. His father, Jacques Coral, was a cotton expert who worked for a company exporting Egyptian cotton. He studied at a French Christian brothers school and later in a special Arabic matriculation class at the Jewish community school.

He was accepted to the medical school of Alexandria University for 1956/1957. After the Sinai War, his family was expelled from Egypt in February 1957. They reached Haifa and were sent to Ofakim, where his father helped set up the cotton gin.

Almog joined the IDF in 1958 and served in the navy, first in Shayetet 13 and naval intelligence, then as an officer on destroyers and missile boats. He commanded ships and flotillas in the Red Sea and took part in the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War. He later headed the weapons branch at navy headquarters and in 1978 took command of the navy training base in Haifa.

In his last post he managed the building of new navy vessels, the Sa'ar 5 ships and the Dolphin submarines. After his military service he managed technology companies in the United States and Israel.