Israel Dostrovsky was born in Odessa, in 1918 and immigrated to Eretz-Israel as a baby with his parents in 1919, aboard the ship “Ruslan”.
His father, world-renowned dermatologist Arieh Dostrovsky, became a founder of Hebrew University's medical school and of the Hadassah hospital.
[1][better source needed] As a 13-year-old science whiz, he volunteered as a signaler for the Haganah, the corps that was later to become the Israel Defense Forces, clambering up mountains to send military messages across the country with light-reflecting mirrors.
Dostrovsky, then only 30, filled one of the three vacant leadership positions: he was appointed Head of the Isotope Research Department, a post he held for 17 years.
Returning later to the basic aspects of nuclear reactions, he and his colleagues represented Israel at GALLEX, an experiment conducted by an international team in an underground laboratory in Italy’ Gran Sasso region, with the aim of measuring the flux of neutrinos, fundamental particles that reach the earth from the core of the sun.