On this day in 1918, former Palmach parachutist and El-Al co-founder, Yoel Palgi, was born.Born Emil Nussbacher in Cluj, Austria-Hungary (present-day Romania), he made Aliyah in 1939 and joined the Kibbutz Afikim in northern Israel. Like many Jews moving to British-occupied Palestine at the time, Nussbacher decided to Hebraize his name and therefore adopted ‘Yoel Palgi’.Shortly after arriving, Palgi joined the Palmach, the elite fighting force of the Haganah. One of Palgi’s first Palmach missions was to parachute into Nazi-occupied Europe to save Jews from extermination. The mission was personal since his own family was still behind enemy lines in his hometown of Cluj. Once inside Hungary, Palgi was closely monitored by Hungarian counterintelligence.In June 1944, Palgi was arrested by Hungarian authorities and turned over to the Gestapo, who tortured him nearly to death. Allegedly, Palgi was placed near fellow parachutist and Israeli poet Hannah Szenes’ cell; Palgi was able to communicate with her inside the prison to learn about her experiences. Eventually, he was placed on a train to the Kistarcsa internment camp and, en route, managed to jump off to join the Jewish partisans and other underground Zionist fighters. On the eve of the war for Israel’s independence in 1948, Palgi was sent on a mission to South Africa along with Boris Senior, a Johannesburg-born Jew and pilot, to obtain airplanes that would be used for Israel’s air force. Palgi was successful in obtaining 13 planes and managed to bring them back in time for the outbreak of war that May.In 1949, Palgi co-founded El-Al, which soon became Israel’s national airline, and served as the deputy director until 1960. In December 1957, he was onboard the first nonstop flight between the United States and Israel. Palgi went on to serve as Israel’s Director of Civil Aviation until 1964, when he was appointed as the ambassador to Tanzania. In 1966, he returned to Israel and, for the remaining 12 years of his life, joined the board of the Histadrut Sick Fund (Israel’s national healthcare organization).