What makes Israel such a remarkable country, the envy of many other countries around the world, is the contribution and willingness of so-many dedicated residents.
The story of Avraham Yoffe is a classical example of a Zionist who loved the country and fought hard to help preserve it, often under extreme pressure.
He was an impulsive man, larger than life with a passionate, wild personality likened to Zorba the Greek and aptly nicknamed the ‘Zionist Zorba’.
Yoffe was born in 1913 in Yavna’el, an agricultural village located southwest of Lake Kinneret in the Galilee.
His parents had made aliyah from Russia in 1906.
He studied at Mikva Yisrael, an agricultural boarding school, where he found a love for agriculture and distinguished himself as the most mischievous of many students, some future leaders of Israel.
Military Heroism
Avraham Yoffe’s military career started when he was 16 years of age.
He joined the Haganah, the Yishuv’s anti-terrorist organisation, and later trained in Orde Wingate’s night battalion protecting Jewish settlements from Arab raiders.
When WW2 started, he formally joined the British Army, serving with distinction for six years.
In 1946 he returned to his kibbutz, but was soon called back by the Haganah for full-time service.
When the War of Independence broke out in 1948, Yoffe was promoted to a Battalion Commander in the Golani Infantry Brigade.
At the completion of the war, he stayed on as a career officer for fifteen more years, retiring at the age of 51 years.
During the 1956 Sinai Campaign, Yoffe commanded an armoured tank corps which charged down the Sinai desert to conquer Sharm el-Sheikh at the southern tip of the desert.
This was a brilliant military manoeuvre as the Egyptian army assumed his tanks could not traverse the thick, soft and rocky dunes in the central Sinai.
Overnight he became a national military hero, an honour which remained with him for the rest of his life.
In 1963, while still on active duty, Yoffe received permission to serve as chairman of the newly formed Nature Reserves Authority Council.
It was a controversial appointment challenged by the environmental community.
In addition to being a military hero, he was also known to be a hunting enthusiast.
After the environmentalists challenged the appointment, in 1964 Avraham Yoffe retired from army service and in 1965 was appointed director of the Nature Reserves Authority Council.
Taking the job as head of the Council changed Yoffe in a very pleasing manner.
His son Danny insists he was born again.
Avraham Yoffe had always felt close to nature from his early days on a kibbutz and after his role in the Council had been confirmed he gave away all his hunting rifles and never shot another animal, even during the hunting season when it would have been permissible.
Our hero was a big man with a huge appetite. As Danny remarked:
“He was not that tall. Just wide. He loved food, truly a carnivore.”
Despite his aggressive, no-nonsense style of leadership, nobody who ever worked with him spoke badly about him.
After a brief illness Avraham Yoffe died in 1983 at the age of 69 years, leaving a legacy of astute military command, environmental stewardship and brief political service.
