Moshe Mann

Moshe Mann was born in 1907 in Turka

Moshe Mann was born in 1907 in Turka, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and today in Ukraine. He immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1926 with the HaShomer HaTzair movement. His sister Hana was married to Abba Hushi, a former mayor of Haifa.

He first lived in a kibbutz camp near Haifa and joined the Haganah. He later moved to Kibbutz Merhavia in the Jezreel Valley and became its security officer. He took part in the Haganah's first rifle course and later taught in it, where Yigal Allon was one of his students.

He commanded the Afula area from 1933 and the Jezreel Valley from 1939, and worked with Orde Wingate. He helped build the Notrim, the Hish and the Palmach. In 1942, under the code name Saadya, he was tasked with acting against the Irgun and Lehi.

In 1946 he took command of the north and led the Levanoni Brigade. In February 1948 the brigade split, and he became the first commander of Golani, which fought at Mishmar HaEmek, Tiberias and the Degania battles. After his wife Zilka was killed in an Iraqi air raid on Merhavia in May 1948, he left the military and returned home to his 3 children. He died in 2004.