After the war, the valley where the battle took place was littered with hundreds of burned Syrian tanks and was renamed Emek Ha-Bacha - The Valley of Tears.įollowing the conclusion of the war, Kahalani was awarded the Medal of Valor, the country's highest military decoration.Īfter retiring from the IDF in 1992, Kahalani was elected to the Knesset as part of the Labor Party, serving on the Foreign Affairs and Defense and the Education and Culture Committees. The battle proved to be one of the major turning points of the war. The vastly superior Syrian forces had already overrun Israeli positions in the first days of the war, but Kahalani's force - outnumbered and outgunned - managed to keep the attackers at bay long enough for Israeli reserve tank and infantry units to push the Syrians back over the border. It was in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, however, that Kahalani's name would be etched forever into Israeli history.Ĭommanding a tank battalion in the fiercely contested northern region known as the Golan Heights, Kahalani hastily assembled a group of tanks and crews from various armour units to try and repel the Syrians following their surprise assault on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. In 1962, at the age of 18, Kahalani was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces, where he would distinguishly serve as a career soldier for thirty years, achieving the rank of Brigadier-General, and eventually become of Israel's most decorated combat officers.ĭuring the Six Day War in 1967, Kahalani received the Medal of Distinguished Service for his heroism after being badly wounded while fighting the enemy in his Centurion tank.
Kahalani (born June 16, 1944) was born in pre-State Israel in the small but budding community of Ness Ziona. He is most famous for his heroics in the Yom Kippur War. Avigdor Kahalani is a former career officer in the Israel Defense Forces and a former politician in Israel's Knesset.
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