David Shaltiel (; 16 January 1903 – February 1969) was an Israeli military and

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as t ...

officer, later also

diplomat A diplomat (from ; romanization, romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state (polity), state, International organization, intergovernmental, or Non-governmental organization, nongovernmental institution to conduct diplomacy with one ...

, and was most well known for being the district commander of the

Haganah Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

during the

1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...

Biography

David Shaltiel was born on 16 January 1903 in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

into a Portuguese

Sephardic Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

family, the oldest son of Benjamin Sealtiel and Helene Wormser. At 16, Shaltiel joined the Zionist youth movement Blau Weiss, and he went to Palestine in 1923. However, he was not happy there, and returned to Europe in 1925. From 1925 to 1930 he was enlisted in the

French Foreign Legion The French Foreign Legion (, also known simply as , "the Legion") is a corps of the French Army created to allow List of militaries that recruit foreigners, foreign nationals into French service. The Legion was founded in 1831 and today consis ...

. In 1934 he returned to Palestine. There he started working for the

, being charged with buying arms in Europe. In 1936 he was captured in

Aachen Aachen is the List of cities in North Rhine-Westphalia by population, 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, 27th-largest city of Germany, with around 261,000 inhabitants. Aachen is locat ...

, Germany, by

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

. Shaltiel spent the next three years in prisons/concentration camps, including Dachau and

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (Old Reich) territori ...

. When he was sent to Berlin in 1939 the Haganah succeeded in freeing him. He then went back to

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

. There he was at first arrested for his suspected involvement in the murder of three Arabs, but the charges were eventually dropped. Shaltiel was married twice – first to Inge, then in 1942 to Yehudit, born Judith Irmgard Schonstedt (1913–2010), psychologist and daughter of a rabbinic family from Berlin. Shaltiel and Yehudit adopted a little girl, Tamar, who had to be returned to her biological mother. He died in Jerusalem in February 1969.

Military career

In 1942–43, he was the Haganah Commander in

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

. Fulfilling also the office of commander of the

Counterintelligence Counterintelligence (counter-intelligence) or counterespionage (counter-espionage) is any activity aimed at protecting an agency's Intelligence agency, intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering informati ...

Service - the "Ran" - and of the Intelligence Service – the Shin Yud or SHAI – of the Haganah, he was involved in the conflicts between the Haganah and the other Jewish underground groups -

Irgun The Irgun (), officially the National Military Organization in the Land of Israel, often abbreviated as Etzel or IZL (), was a Zionist paramilitary organization that operated in Mandatory Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of th ...

and Lehi. Later, as Haganah's link to these organizations, he helped them coordinate several missions with the Haganah, among them the widely condemned attack at Deir Yassin. In 1948, he was the local Haganah district commander when the village was attacked by Irgun and Lehi's Jewish fighters, despite a non-aggression pact signed between the Zionists and the

Mukhtar A mukhtar (; ) is a village chief in the Levant: "an old institution that goes back to the time of the Ottoman rule". According to Amir S. Cheshin, Bill Hutman and Avi Melamed, the mukhtar "for centuries were the central figures". They "were ...

of the village, the villagers wanting to remain neutral in the war. At first Shaltiel did not agree with attacking Deir Yassin, but after a day he surrendered and wrote a letter to Irgun and Lehi, saying that he had "no objection to your carrying out the operation". Yitzchak Levi, head of the Jerusalem branch of Haganah Intelligence (SHAI), proposed that the inhabitants should be notified that the truce was over, but Shaltiel then refused to endanger the operation by warning them. He was also the mastermind behind Operation Kedem, which had the goal of capturing "

East Jerusalem East Jerusalem (, ; , ) is the portion of Jerusalem that was Jordanian annexation of the West Bank, held by Jordan after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, as opposed to West Jerusalem, which was held by Israel. Captured and occupied in 1967, th ...

". The mission was carried out July 8, 1948, by Irgun troops and was a total failure. From that moment, he was, (according to himself), disgraced and his name was erased from official Israel history. Between June 11 and July 21, 1948, he had a series of meetings, mediated by the UN, with Abdullah el Tell, the commander of

Arab Legion The Arab Legion () was the police force, then regular army, of the Emirate of Transjordan, a British protectorate, in the early part of the 20th century, and then of the Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, an independent state, with a final Ar ...

troops in the Old City. On July 7 they signed the "

Mount Scopus Mount Scopus ( ', "Mount of the Watchmen/ Sentinels"; ', lit. "Mount Lookout", or ' "Mount of the Scene/Burial Site", or "Mount Syenite") is a mountain (elevation: above sea level) in northeast Jerusalem. Between the 1948 Arab–Israeli ...

Agreement", which stated that the Jewish enclave at Mount Scopus should be de-militarized and would come under UN supervision. On July 15 the Haganah and Irgun launched a massive bombardment on the Old City, which was followed by infantry attacks on the New,

Jaffa Jaffa (, ; , ), also called Japho, Joppa or Joppe in English, is an ancient Levantine Sea, Levantine port city which is part of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, located in its southern part. The city sits atop a naturally elevated outcrop on ...

and Zion Gates. These failed to gain their objectives. On 21 July Shaltiel and el Tell signed a formal cease-fire based on the existing positions of their forces. After the end of the Independence War, David Shaltiel founded the Border Corps of the Israeli army, Heyl Hasfar, and was its first commander. Later, because of administrative problems, he recommended the transfer of these units into the frame of the Israeli Police, and they became known as Border Guard, Mishmar Hagvul.

Diplomatic career

In the years 1950–1952 Shaltiel served as military

attaché In diplomacy, an attaché () is a person who is assigned ("to be attached") to the diplomatic or administrative staff of a higher placed person or another service or agency. Although a loanword from French, in English the word is not modified ac ...

of Israel in France, and later fulfilled several diplomatic charges - as Israel's plenipotentiary minister in

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

and

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

"Presentó sus credenciales el Ministro de Israel en Cuba," ''Diario de la Marina'', Aug. 9, 1956, p. 1 (1952–1956), then in Mexico and concurrently to the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...

and

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...

(1956–1959) and ambassador in

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

(1963–1966).

References

Sources

* Collins/Lapierre: "O Jerusalem". 1973. History Book Club. * Dayan, Moshe: "The Story of My Life." 1976. . * Lüth, Erich: ''David Shaltiel. Hamburger- Fremdenlegionär - Diplomat - Verteidiger von Jerusalem.'' 1970. Hans Christians Verlag. * Michael Studemund-Halévy, Sioniste au parfum romanesque: la vie tourmentée de David Shaltiel (1903-1969, in: Christoph Miething (ed.), ''Politik und Religion im Judentum'', Tübingen 1999, pp. 255–264. * Eli Tzur, Michael Halévy, Moshe Aronwald, S''homer leYisrael: David Shaltiel'', Tel Aviv 2001

External links

The Jerusalem Battalion
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shaltiel, David 1903 births 1969 deaths 20th-century Israeli military personnel Israeli Sephardi Jews German Sephardi Jews German people of Portuguese descent Ambassadors of Israel to Venezuela Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to Mandatory Palestine Soldiers of the French Foreign Legion Israeli people of Portuguese-Jewish descent Burials at Mount Herzl Ambassadors of Israel to Cuba Ambassadors of Israel to Honduras Ambassadors of Israel to Mexico Ambassadors of Israel to the Dominican Republic Ambassadors of Israel to the Netherlands Prisoners and detainees of Mandatory Palestine Immigrants of the Third Aliyah