Tuvia Friling - Biography and Early Academic Career

Biography and Early Academic Career

Tuvia Friling's parents with his elder brother and two sisters immigrated to Israel in 1951 from Bârlad, Romania. Arriving in Israel, the family, which had been prosperous in Romania, was first housed in a maabara (transit camp for new immigrants) in Beer Sheba. A year later they moved to a small apartment in a new neighborhood of the developing town. Tuvia Friling was born in Beer Sheba in 1953, two years after his family's arrival in Israel. In 1967, after completing elementary school in his hometown, he enrolled in the Jerusalem May Boyer boarding school for gifted students.

In 1971 he was drafted into the army and served as a squad commander in the 890 Paratroopers Battalion. In August 1973 he completed officer training and was deployed as platoon commander in the Golani Brigade's training base. During the 1973 Yom Kippur War he participated in two attempts to re-capture Mount Hermon, and fought in other battles on the Golan Heights. During the attrition war that followed and until the end of his regular military service he was deputy company commander in Golani. He continued to do reserve duty, eventually rising to the rank of major.

Friling received his B.A. with honors at the Ben-Gurion University in 1979 in Jewish and General History. For the four following years, 1979–1983, he taught history at a Beer-Sheba High School and worked as instructor for the teaching of history at Ben-Gurion University's teacher training program. He did his graduate studies at the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, where he completed his Masters degree with honors in 1984 (the topic of his thesis was "Ben-Gurion's Role in the Rescue Attempts of Children and in the Absorption Controversy") and received his Ph.D. in 1991 (the topic of his dissertation was "Ben-Gurion and the Destruction of European Jewry 1939–1945"). Both dissertations were supervised by Prof. Yehuda Bauer.