The first native-born Israeli to become prime minister, Yitzhak Rabinwas born March 1, 1922, in Jerusalem, Palestine (now in Israel). His parents, Nehemiah and Rosa (Cohen) Rabin, had both immigrated to Palestine from Russia. Yitzhak and his younger sister were raised in Tel Aviv, where their father was a trade-union organizer and their mother was a political activist. From his earliest boyhood, Rabin was steeped in the secular-oriented Zionist and Socialist beliefs of his parents, and it was those two philosophies that shaped the man he would become.
Rabin grew to adulthood during this period of violence and uncertainty. Early on, he decided that he could best serve his largely undeveloped country by becoming a farmer, and to that end he attended Kadourie Agricultural School in Kfar Tabor. The outbreak of World War II, however, presented the young man with an altogether different avocation. Rabin postponed his plans to study hydraulic engineering at the University of California and instead joined the Jewish underground army known as the Haganah. Military life suited him, and in 1941, his courage and tactical skills were rewarded with an invitation to join the Palmach, an elite commando unit under the leadership of the charismatic Moshe Dayan.
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