 In 1951, he fled as a child with his parents from Iraq in an airlift organised by Israel, where he now lives with his family.At age 18, after graduating high school, he was drafted into the Israeli navy and volunteered to serve aboard destroyer "Eilat".The night in 1967 shortly after the Six days war that "Eilat" was attacked by Egyptian SS-N-2 Styx missiles, he was one of the survivors of the initial attack that sank the ship.