Daniel Avidar (Feinstein)
Daniel Avidar (Feinstein) was born in 1932. He is a retired IDF officer with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, who served as commander of the 213th Artillery Corps in the Yom Kippur War.
Biography
Avidar was born in Vilna to Mordechai and Miriam, one of five children. After the Nazi invasion, the family was sent to the Vilna ghetto, and from there to the Kaiserwald concentration camp, then to Stutthof concentration camp, then on to labor in the shipyards and finally ending up on the death march. Both his parents, two of his sisters and many other members of his close family were murdered in the Holocaust.
In 1947 he came on Aliyah to Eretz Yisrael on the immigrant ship “Exodus 1947”, joined the Haganah and was one of those who accompanied the convoys heading for Jerusalem. In the IDF he served in the Artillery Corps, took part in “Mivtza Shomron” (October 1956) as a Forward Observation Officer in the 88th Battalion under the commanding officer Motta Gur. He was in charge of an officers’ training course, served as Battalion Commander in the 334th Heavy Mortar Battalion, took part in retaliatory operations with the Paratrooper Brigade under the command of Arik Sharon, Motta Gur and Rafael Eitan, and served as Commander of the Luz missile unit. During the Sinai Campaign he served as Commander of an Artillery Brigade in Battalion 402, and provided backing to Brigade 9 in conquering Ras Natzrani and Sharm-El-Sheikh. He served as Battalion Commander of 120 mm Heavy Mortar in the Paratrooper Brigade under the command of Aharon Davidi.
In the Six-Day War he served as Research Officer of the Artillery Corps and, in an emergency appointment, he commanded the 527th Battalion, the Radar Battalion 120 mm that provided artillery backup for the 45th Brigade in the battles of the Dotan Valley (Emek Dotan).
In the War of Attrition he served as Commander of the 215th Artillery Group. In the Yom Kippur War he commanded the 213rd Artillery Group. After their recruitment, the group units went out on half-tracks to the military territories on the outskirts of the Golan Heights. The group forces fought in the territories scoring battles in the Golan Heights and then relocated to the Egyptian front. In the First Lebanon War, he was drafted into the reserves as Commander of a target team (fire center) in the Northern Command.
After his release from the IDF he served in different management roles in the military industry.
Avidar is a graduate of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion and a graduate of Business Administration at Tel Aviv University. Father of four children. In 1999 he was one of the six torch lighters at the Holocaust Day ceremony
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