PHOTO of Israeli Soldier with Auschwitz Number on Arm
Original caption: 1948- Jaffa, Israel- : He used to be No. 80620 in the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp. The number is indelibly stamped in his forearm for the world to see. But now he is a free man and he has a gun to defend his freedom. He is Aaron Stern, fighter with Israel’s Haganah, who is shown on guard at Jaffa’s Manshiem Quarter. Hundreds of other ex-numbers fight in Haganah for the precious thing whose value they learned behind barbed wire.

The most recent issue of The Quarterly Journal of Military History has as its feature story a piece by Benny Morris on Israel’s 1947-1948 Civil War. It was an instructive read.
This summer I am hoping to find time to read his recent major work, 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War (It is in hardcover as well).