Ron Huldai

Ron Huldai (; born 26 August 1944) is the current Mayor of Tel Aviv, since 1998. Before he entered his role as Tel Aviv mayor, Huldai served as a fighter pilot and a commander in the Israeli Air Force. After leaving the army as a brigadier general, he entered the business world and was later headmaster of the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium in Tel Aviv. Early life He was born in 1944 in Hulda (his surname is taken from the name of the kibbutz), one of three brothers born to Polish Jewish immigrant parents who moved to Palestine from Łódź. His father Ozer Obarzański was among the founders of the kibbutz and the principal of its school, while his mother Hana was a teacher and headed the organization of performances at the kibbutz. Huldai grew up on the kibbutz. He studied at Tel Aviv University, Auburn University at Montgomery, the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, and the Advanced Management Program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Military service Huldai was conscripted into the Israel Defense Forces in 1963, and joined the Israeli Air Force, serving as a combat pilot and becoming a career officer. During the Six-Day War, he participated in Operation Focus, and he shot down three enemy aircraft and participated in numerous missions. He subsequently participated in the War of Attrition and after that, he was appointed as the deputy commander of the 105 Squadron. When the Yom Kippur War erupted, he assumed the role of acting commander for the 201 Phantom Squadron, filling in for Yiftach Zemer, who was temporarily in the United States. Huldai led the Squadron in Operation Model 5, a mission that resulted in significant damage to the unit, until he was replaced by Eitan Ben Eliyahu. On the thirteenth day of the war, he led an attack against an Egyptian SAM battery, and during this mission, his aircraft was hit by a missile, leading to an emergency landing at Rephidim Airbase. On the eighteenth day of the conflict, Huldai led a quartet of covert aircraft in a mission targeting fuel facilities in northern Syria. During this operation, he engaged in a dogfight and successfully shot down a MiG-21. In total, he shot down three enemy aircraft during the war.