Shaul Ziv

Shaul Ziv was born in 1937 in Lviv Oblast

Ziv was born in 1937 in a village in Galicia near Lviv, to Rachel and Rafael. During the Nazi invasion he lost his father, and he and his mother escaped deportation and wandered through Eastern Europe posing as Ukrainians. A Jewish Red Army officer, Rafael Zhurek, took them to France.

In April 1947 they sailed on the immigrant ship Theodor Herzl, but the British sent its passengers to detention camps in Cyprus. From Cyprus Ziv reached the Land of Israel with Youth Aliyah and lived at kibbutz HaZorea and then Beit Alfa.

He joined the IDF in 1955 and volunteered for Shayetet 13, fighting in the Sinai War and later in raids during the War of Attrition, where he was wounded in 1969. He commanded the unit from October 1971, a period that included Operation Spring of Youth and the Yom Kippur War. He retired in 1977 as a lieutenant colonel.

In civilian life he founded and headed the Land of Israel studies department at the Wingate Institute. He also founded an adventure travel company called Air, Sea, Land.

He was married to Efrat and they had 3 children. He died of cancer in 1999 and was buried at kibbutz Nir David. He was later recognized as a fallen IDF soldier, harmed by dives in the Kishon River during his service.