Yaakov Dori (8 October 1899-22 January 1973) was Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces from 1 June 1947 to 9 November 1949, preceding Yigael Yadin.
Biography[]
Yaakov Dostrovsky was born in Odessa, Russian Empire in 1899, and his family emigrated to Ottoman Palestine in 1905 following a pogrom. Dostrovsky served in the British Army's Jewish Legion during World War I before joining the Haganah in 1926, becoming its local commander in Haifa. Assuming the Hebrew name "Yaakov Dori", he served as chief of staff of the Haganah from 1939 to 1946 and transformed the self-defense organization into a model army. Dori served as the Israel Defense Forces' first chief of staff, but illness forced him to rely heavily on his deputy Yigael Yadin. He retired in 1949 and later served as a college president from 1951 to 1965, dying in 1973.