Yoel Gonen

Yoel Gonen was born in 1938 in Jerusalem

Yoel Gonen, originally Gorodish, was born in Jerusalem in 1938 to a Haredi family of 6 children that had come from Lithuania. His older brother is Shmuel Gonen. He studied at the Etz Chaim Yeshiva.

He began his service in the signal company of the 7th Brigade and was a radio operator in the Sinai War. In 1958 he moved to the Armored Corps, where he helped bring Patton tanks into service and trained at Fort Knox. He fought in the Six-Day War as operations officer of the 7th Brigade.

After that war he set up several battalions and, in the War of Attrition, Unit 88, an amphibious unit using captured vehicles. In 1973 he took command of the 274th Brigade and led it in Sinai during the Yom Kippur War. He later commanded the national ground training center and the 440th Division, and left regular service in 1979.

He became CEO of the building company Hadar Tiberias, and in 1984 CEO of Avraham Gindi's building company. He was active in the Labor Party and ran for mayor of Rehovot in 1993 before withdrawing. He later served as a director of Bank Otsar Ha-Hayal.