Munir Redfa (1934 - 1998)  was an Iraqi Fighter Pilot, of Assyrian origin, who defected to Israel in 1966 by flying a MiG-21 of the Iraqi Air Force. In what is considered as one of the Mossad's most successful operations, Redfa's entire extended family was smuggled safely out of Iraq to Israel. The MiG-21 fighter was evaluated by the Israeli Air Force and was later loaned to the United States for testing and intelligence analysis. Knowledge obtained from analysis of the aircraft was instrumental to the successes achieved by the Israeli Air Force in its future encounters with Arab MiG-21s.Redfa's defection was the subject of the movie Steal the Sky.Redfa was born Munir Habib Jamil Rufa  in 1934 to an Assyrian family belonging to the Syriac Orthodox Church from Mosul. He was the second of nine children. Like many other Assyrians, his family fled to Iraq as part of the Christian migration from southeast Turkey and Iran's northwestern mountains (specifically Urmia, fleeing the upheaval of World War I in what is known as the Assyrian genocide).At the time of Redfa's defection, a press conference was held during which he indicated that he had suffered from religious and ethnic discrimination in Iraq and that he did not feel that it was his home and requested asylum in the United States.Although he was reunited with his family in Israel he did not re-emigrate to the US, contrary to his declaration, and he received Israeli citizenship. He and his family shortly thereafter moved to another western country.Redfa died in 1998 of a heart attack.

THE inside story of a daring mission to steal a Russian MiG21 jet fighter from Iraq has emerged in Israel as the country prepares to mark its stunning victory in the six-day war 40 years ago this week.
The secrets of the plane, which was flown to Israel by its decorated Iraqi pilot Munir Redfa, laid the foundation for a triumph by Israeli pilots during the 1967 war, in which the MiGs flown by the Egyptian, Syrian and Iraqi air forces were crippled.Last week Zeev Liron, the pilot who persuaded the Iraqi to defect, recalled how the whole mission had nearly unravelled when Redfa’s wife, who had been told nothing, threw a fit in Paris on hearing the news that she was going to live in Israel.In 1966 Redfa was a 32-year-old pilot in the Iraqi air force. He was frustrated that his Christian background was blocking prospects of promotion and outraged that he had been ordered to attack Iraqi Kurds. He was beginning to doubt whether he had any future in Iraq.Joseph Shamash, one of Israel’s top agents in Baghdad, befriended Redfa and his wife Betty and persuaded them to join him on a Greek island holiday during which they were introduced to Liron. They knew him only as Josh.“Josh can help you to leave Iraq,” Shamash whispered to Redfa.
“When Munir heard what we wanted – to fly his MiG from Iraq to Israel – he almost fainted,” said Liron. “‘My MiG? To Israel? Are you guys out of your minds?’” He pointed out that his tanks carried insufficient fuel to reach Israel and that he would be shot down as soon as he tried to head for the border.Speaking as a fellow pilot, Liron pulled out a map and showed Redfa that his plan could work. “Finally Munir was convinced,” Liron said, “but by the morning he’d got cold feet.”Urgent action was required. Mossad consulted Yitzhak Rabin, the army’s chief of staff and future prime minister, who ordered: “Bring him to Israel. Show him where he’ll land and let him fly in one of our jets.”Redfa was given an Israeli passport in the name of Moshe Miz-rahi and touched down with Liron in Tel Aviv, where he was taken to the airfield where he would land the MiG. Before he left Israel, Redfa asked Liron not to tell his wife anything about the plan. “I’ll prepare the ground,” he promised. But he did not – and it almost derailed the operation.Back in Baghdad, Redfa was assigned to a long-haul flight and he convinced his ground staff to add an extra fuel tank to his MiG.Meanwhile, the Israelis arranged for Redfa’s entire family to leave Iraq for their summer holiday. The last to leave were Betty and their two children, aged three and five, who flew to Paris.When Liron met her there ina Mossad safe house and told her they were about to fly to Israel, she had hysterics. “Forget it!” she screamed. “Israel? Are you mad? And who are you anyway? I’m going straight to the Iraqi embassy.”“Only then did I realise Munir hadn’t said her a word to her about going to Israel,” said Liron.
Eventually he calmed Betty down, persuaded her not to expose the plot to the authorities, gave her an Israeli passport and got her onto a flight to Tel Aviv. Several hours after they landed, Redfa and his MiG21, escorted by an Israeli Mirage, landed at the airbase.With Redfa’s help, the Israelis immediately began to unlock the secrets of the Russian plane. Their pilots tested it to its limits. They fought mock dogfights with their Mirages and learnt the tactics needed to beat it.After the 1967 war, Redfa and his family left Israel. Betty had told her husband that living with the enemy was out of the question. Mossad arranged for them to adopt new identities – as the proprietors of a petrol station in the West.The MiG was lent to the US, which tested it in the Nevada desert, and it helped develop a new generation of American fighters. In return, for the first time, the US began to supply Israel with modern jets. Redfa died of a heart attack in 1998.(Times)

4Law -Israel Independence Day is celebrated annually, according to the Hebrew calendar, on 5 Iyar, the anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel. This year Independence Day will be celebrated on Tuessday, April 24. The day preceding this celebration is devoted to the memory of those who gave their lives for the achievement of the country's independence and its continued existence. On Yom Hazikaron, Remembrance Day, which will begin on Sunday evening, April 22, the entire nation remembers its debt and expresses eternal gratitude to its sons and daughters who gave their lives for the achievement of the country's independence and its continued existence. It is a day of collective and personal anguish mingled with awe and honor for the fallen. The official events begin on Sunday, April 22, at 8:00 PM with a moment of national silence heralded by a one minute siren. The following morning, ceremonies commence at 11:00 AM at 43 IDF military cemeteries located all over the country and at the Bedouin Soldier's Memorial at Movil Junction following a two minute blast of the siren. Israel's 59th Independence Day celebrations will commence on Monday evening, April 23, when the state flag is raised to full mast at a national ceremony on Mount Herzl, at which twelve torches are lit. At the Independence Day Torch-Lighting Ceremony  Mossad Master Spy in Lebanon SHULA COHEN Lit the Torch in Jerusalem 23/4/07 .In this page the relevant  rare videos and documents of the Mossad biggest spies...

The Girl Who Became a Mossad Spy in Lebanon. SHULA COHEN and story of becoming a spy for Israel in 1948 in Beruit, where her wealthy husband and her acceptance in Lebanese / Syrian social circles gave her unprecedented access to secret intelligence information. In a story reminiscent of Queen Esther in the Bible, she risks her comfortable lifestyle and social life to help her people, but unlike Esther, Shula pays a high price for her choice. Imprisoned in 1960, she endures seven years of torture and abuse before a secret prisoner exchange after the Six Day War in 1967, allows Shula to come home to Jerusalem.Shula Cohen spent seven years in a prison in Beirut, Lebanon because she was an Israeli spy. Only now can Shula Cohen tell the story of how she became a secret agent.In 1947, Shula began to work in her husband’s shop in Beirut. She overheard some Arabs from the village talking about plans to attack Israel. Shula knew this information was important. She decided to ask a client to smuggle a letter to an imaginary aunt in Jerusalem.In the letter Shula hid information about the Arab attack. After a week Shula received an answer. The answer made it clear to Shula how important the information was to the Jewish people. Contact between Shula and the Jews in the “Yishuv” had been established.Shula Cohen was honored by Mrs. Navon at the President’s house. Shula was the only one who did not speak. She was honored for “her services to the Jewish people.” Shula had helped thousands of Jews from Syria and Iraq come through Lebanon to Israel. She found escape routes for them by land, sea and air. She was able to work for fourteen years before she was caught. That was quite a job when you think that Eli Cohen, “our man in Damascus,” a professional spy, was only able to work for two years.In this video report Eli Cohen was hanged in Syria after she met him in jail.The Syrians made confrontation between them in jail to check if they know each other. The Syrians asked to hang her also. Today Shula Cohen lives a quiet life working in a gift shop in Jerusalem. Adapted also  from “Israel’s Mata Hari” by Ruth Seligson.

Joseph Bau born in 1920 is a graphic artist and poet, survivor of the Plaszow Nazi concentration camp of World War II. Bau  Artist and one of the last surviving Jews on Oscar Shindler’s list. Died of pneumonia in Tel Aviv, Israel on May 24, 2002.Bau was trained as a graphic artist at the University for Plastic Arts in Kraków, Poland. His education was interrupted by World War II and he was transferred to the Plaszow concentration camp in late 1941. Having a talent in gothic lettering, he was employed in the camp for making signs and maps for the Germans. While in Plaszow, Bau created a miniature - the size of his hand - illustrated book with his own poetry. He also forged documents and identity papers for people who managed to escape from the camp.After liberation, Bau graduated from the University of Plastic Arts in Krakow. In 1950, he immigrated to Israel together with his wife and three year old daughter, where he worked as a graphic artist at the Brandwein Institute in Haifa and for the government of Israel. For the first time Israeli Mossad  in 13/4/07 confirmed that Bau was an Mossad graphic artist. He  also forged documents and identity papers for Eli Cohen  was a celebrated Israeli spy, and is recognized as one of the most successful spies of modern times. According to his brother and fellow Mossad agent, Maurice Cohen, Eli Cohen was third in line to succeed as president of Syria, at the time he was discovered. Eli Cohen was hanged in Syria. In this video for the first time Joseph Bau`s daughter talks confirmed and presents Eli Cohen`s forged documents.As well as Mossad confirmed that Bau was an agent dealing with Artwork etc. His Art Work is presented now in the Mossad Memorial Institute.

Victor Grayevsky, who died on October 18 aged 82, was a Polish-Jewish journalist, and in 1956 managed to obtain an advance copy of Nikita Khrushchev's speech to the closed session of the Communist Party's 20th Congress; Grayevsky gave the document to the Israelis, who then passed the contents to the CIA.The 26,000-word speech, delivered on February 25 1956, denounced Stalin's regime of terror. Grayevsky had been able to obtain a copy with the help of his lover, Lucia Baranowski, wife of Poland's deputy prime minister. He had come to see Lucia at the headquarters of the Communist Party, where she worked as secretary to Edward Ochab, the party leader. Grayevsky recalled: "I noticed a thick booklet with a red binding, with the words: 'The 20th Party Congress, the speech of Comrade Khrushchev' written on it." The booklet was one of the few top-secret copies sent from Moscow to leaders of the Eastern Bloc countries. Lucia allowed Grayevsky to remove the booklet for a couple of hours, and he took it to the Israeli embassy in Warsaw, where it was photocopied.The document provided a unique insight into the workings of the Soviet leadership. It was also the first official Soviet admission of the horrors perpetrated under Stalin. At the time Grayevsky was not employed as a spy, and he was not paid for his action, which arose from his Zionist convictions.advertisementHe was born Victor Spielman in Cracow on July 29 1925. A week before Germany invaded Poland, the Spielman family fled eastwards to the Soviet Union, but were later exiled to Siberia and from there moved to Kazakhstan, where Victor graduated from high school.In 1946 he returned to Warsaw. After studying journalism at the Academy of Political Science, he worked for the Polish news agency PAP and joined the Communist Party. He also changed his surname to the Polish Grayevsky because he was advised that, as Spielman, "he wouldn't go far".In 1949 his parents and sister emigrated to Israel, but Victor remained in Poland, where he was appointed a senior editor responsible for the department dealing with the Soviet Union. In 1955, when his father fell seriously ill, Grayevsky travelled to Israel to visit him; it was on this trip that he became a Zionist, and two years later he emigrated to Israel. He settled in Jerusalem and worked in the Eastern Europe division of the Foreign Ministry, and as director of Polish-language broadcasting for immigrants on Israel Radio.For many years after coming to Israel Grayevsky also worked as a double agent, posing as a Soviet spy but in fact serving the Israelis by feeding disinformation to Soviet intelligence officers. His Soviet handlers in Israel were KGB officers working under diplomatic cover or posing as clergy from the so-called Russian Orthodox Red Church in Israel. His meetings with them took place in Russian churches in Jerusalem and in nearby forests. Before these meetings his Israeli handlers would often provide him with "authentic" documents to pass to the Russians.Grayevsky left the Foreign Ministry in 1961 and was appointed director of Russian-language radio broadcasts. Four years later he was made director of Israel Radio's overseas broadcasting department with responsibility for all languages. He remained in the post until 1999, continuing his work as a double agent.In 1967 the Soviet Union cut off diplomatic relations with Israel. Shortly before its diplomats left the country, Grayevsky was summoned to a last meeting with his KGB handler, who told him: "You've done great work for the Soviet Union… we have decided to award you the Lenin Medal of Excellence. For obvious reasons, we cannot give it to you now, but it will be kept for you in Moscow." Needless to say, Grayevsky never collected it.Victor Grayevsky was divorced and is survived by two children.
(Victor Grayevsky -  Telegraph 2/11/07)

More detail:

(The man who began the end of the Soviet empire - Theaustralian 27/10/07)
(Our man in the KGB  - Haaretz 11/10/07)