Lieutenant Colonel (retired) Yisrael Amir (born Yisrael Zabludovsky(, the Israeli Air Force's first Commander in Chief, was born in Russia in 1903, and in 1923 emigrated to Mandatory Palestine. The same year he enlisted in the Haganah. In 1924, influenced by pioneering ideology, Amir turned to agriculture, working as a labourer in Mikveh Yisrael, the yishuv's first Jewish agricultural school.