PEARLMAN, MOSHE

PEARLMAN, MOSHE (1911–1986), author and journalist. Pearlman was born in London where he graduated from the   London School of Economics. During World War II he served in the British army in North Africa and Greece, attaining the rank of major. Concurrent with his army service and after it, he was involved in the organization of "illegal" immigration, Aliyah Bet. Pearlman was at kibbutz Ein Ḥarod for the year in 1936 and returned to the country as an immigrant in 1948. In the War of Independence he was in charge of the Israel army press liaison unit and served as the army's chief spokesman. He remained head of the Press Unit until 1952 and during the same time period was the organizer and first director of the Government Press Office. From 1952 to 1956 he was the director of the Israel Broadcasting Service, Kol Yisrael. He was sent as an ambassador on a special mission to Zaire (then the Belgian Congo) in 1960 and in 1967 served as special assistant to Defense Minister Moshe Dayan during the period of the Six-Day War. His first book, Collective Adventure, described his year on a kibbutz; among his other works are In the Footsteps of Moses, In the Footsteps of the Prophets, and The Capture and Trial of Adolf Eichmann. He also worked as a collaborator with public figures, for example, with David Ben-Gurion on Ben-Gurion Looks Back, and with Teddy Kollek on Jerusalem: A History of 40 Centuries.