My Father, His Daughter

Book excerpt: A life of one of Israel’s greatest heroes, as seen through his daughter’s eyes Moshe Dayan was one of the greatest military leaders in Israel’s short history. A child of the first kibbutz movement in British Palestine, he went on to lead Israel to victory in the 1948 War of Independence and to liberate Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War. Dayan was not only a soldier but a politician, an archaeologist, and a larger-than-life figure who helped shape the state of Israel. In My Father, His Daughter, Yaël Dayan, who herself served in the Israeli Parliament, shares an uncensored look into her father’s life and her own conflicted relationship with him. With poignancy and candor, Dayan creates a profound yet nuanced profile of her father. She relates his strong national pride, his boldness in dealing with other world leaders, and his troubles at home to his disintegrating marriage and multiple affairs. As revealing as My Father, His Daughter is of the man behind the myth, it is also a snapshot of a loving relationship between Yaël and Moshe Dayan, and of a daughter’s admiration and respect for a complicated but loving father.