The life and times of a Mossad agent, and what he did after quitting the spy game
Yossi Alpher talks about why he has two passports – American and Israeli – and says that he believes peace with the Palestinians is close to impossible
Overnight Zionist I was born in 1942 in Washington, DC. It is a very political city and if you’re inclined that way you’ll absorb a lot of the political thinking. When I was in high school, I was featured in a Sunday afternoon interview programme that was broadcast nationwide, called Youth Wants to Know. It exposed me to senior political figures, such as JFK (John F. Kennedy) before he became president, and Russian visitors at the height of the cold war. It was an eye-opening experience for a teenager, which I credit with my later interest in strategic issues.
My father was a doctor and my mother an elementary school principal. I have an older brother. I’m the black sheep of the family – I surprised everyone by wanting to go to Israel, because I didn’t grow up in a strong Zionist atmosphere. After my bar mitzvah at age 13, I remember turning to my parents and saying, “I’m done. I don’t see any interest in being in a synagogue any more”. That’s what being Jewish was all about in the diaspora. It was only later, once I was in university, that I realised I could be Jewish as an identity. I remember telling my parents, “I’m going to Israel, I think I’m Israeli, I think that’s my Jewish identity.” An overnight Zionist.
To the promised land I was 20 when I first went to Israel. I spent a year on a kibbutz studying Hebrew, then I came home and finished my senior year at Columbia (University, in New York). In 1964, I went straight into the army (the Israel Defense Forces) because I understood that this was the way to become Israeli. That was a very unusual act for an American Jew at the time because you lost your American citizenship.
It was a few years later, when I showed up at the US embassy and asked for a visa, that they gave me my passport back. I was a citizen again because the (US) Supreme Court had ruled that going into the army of another country was not grounds for taking away citizenship. I’ve had two passports ever since.
In the army, I insisted I wanted to become an officer and go into intelligence. As a new immigrant that isn’t something that necessarily happens, so I had to campaign. It meant signing on for additional time, so I spent a total of four years in the army. I was in a unit that brought me into contact with the Mossad (Israel’s intelligence agency).
