Gideon Shochat

[1] Shochat's daughter Alona was married to Israeli singer Arik Einstein.

He grew up in Kfar Giladi, a kibbutz founded in part by his parents, and was educated at the Mikveh Israel boarding school near Tel Aviv.

[2] In 1941, Shochat volunteered for the RAF and was sent to Asmara and Eritrea to work as a machinist, and after a few months, returned to Mandatory Palestine.

Near the end of World War II, he served in Karachi as a commander for a squadron of B-24 Liberators.

He was involved in Operation Velvetta to smuggle aircraft to Israel from Czechoslovakia for the Israeli War of Independence.