Yehuda Cohen

Yehuda Cohen was born in 1938 in İzmir

Yehuda Cohen was born in 1938 in İzmir, Turkey. He came to Israel in 1949 with Youth Aliyah and grew up in Ramat Hadassah and in Moshav Nahalal.

He joined the IDF in 1957 and served in the Combat Engineering Corps, including Battalion 601. He fought in the Six-Day War and the War of Attrition, and commanded engineering Battalion 923 in the Yom Kippur War. He studied in the United Kingdom and earned a civil engineering degree at the Technion.

He later commanded the Military Engineering School and studied at the National Security College. From April 1983 to October 1985 he was Chief Engineering Officer with the rank of brigadier general. In this period the corps joined the Ground Forces Command and planning began on the Puma armored engineering vehicle.

In January 1986 he became director general of the Public Works Department and held the post until 1993. He then became the first director general of the Cross-Israel Highway company, serving until 2010, while most of Highway 6 was paved.

He lived in Caesarea and died in April 2019. He was buried in the Caesarea cemetery.