Historical Dictionary of Israeli Intelligence

KARON, DAVID (1915–?).Born in Russia, Karon went to Palestine in

1931 to study agriculture and then returned home. In the Spanish Civil

War, he fought with the Polish battalion of the International Brigade.

Then he returned to Palestine, where he acquired many friends in the

Arab community and learned Arabic. On the strength of his military

experience and Arab connections, he joined the Arab Department in-

telligence unit established by Ezra Danin. Karon remained a member

of the Arab Department after its incorporation into the Information

Servicein 1940. In Israel’s 1948–1949 War of Independence, Karon

served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as a combat intelligence of-

ficer of the Negev region; from late 1948 to 1949 he commanded the

regional combat intelligence officers’ unit of the IDF.

KASTEL, LILY (?–1970).Kastel joined the Mossadin 1954 after serv-

ing in the Information Service. She spoke excellent English, French,

German, and Hebrew and good Arabic and Italian. Her formal job in

the Mossad was desk director. Her extraordinary talents made Kastel

a legend in the Mossad, and the legend has lived on after her death.

KASTNER, ISRAEL (1914–1957).In 1954 a 71-year-old Hungarian

Jew, Malkiel Greenwald, accused another Hungarian Jew, 48-year-old

Dr. Israel Kastner—both living in Israel—of collaborating with the

Nazis in Hungary in 1944–1945. Greenwald had arrived in Palestine in

1938, and in pamphlets he mailed to members of the Mizrahi political

party he accused Kastner of assisting the Nazis in their extermination of

some 500,000 Hungarian Jews and called for a public inquiry. The Is-

raeli government initiated a libel action against the accuser, Greenwald.

Kastner had held various leadership roles in the Jewish community

in Hungary during the war. He arrived in Palestine in 1946 and joined

the Israeli Workers party (Mapai). After the creation of the State of

Israel in 1948, he occupied several prominent positions, among them

spokesman of the Trade and Industry Ministry; director of Israel Ra-

dio broadcasts in Hungarian and Romanian; editor-in-chief of Uj

Kelet, the Hungarian-language daily newspaper published in Israel;

and chairman of the Association of Hungarian Jews.

On the evening of 4 March 1957, Kastner was shot to death out-

side his house by Ze’ev Ekstein, who was then driven away by Dan

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