Overview
	On May 29, 1948, Captain Lenart led the historic first fighter mission with only four planes and four pilots against the massive invading Egyptian army at Ashdod, less than 20 miles south of Tel Aviv.  The pilots included Ezer Weizman, Modi Alon, whose plane was severely damaged, and Edie Cohen, who was killed when his plane crashed and burned.  The historic mission cost twenty-five percent of the pilots and fifty percent of Israel's Air Force planes.  But the advance of the Egyptian army was stopped as they moved east and retreated.  "Right after we took off, I felt it was the most important event of my life", say Lenart.  "To fly and defend the Jewish people in a fighter plane with the Star of David on it, instead of the yellow star my family had to wear during the Holocaust, was the combination of everything I ever dreamt of."
		Lou Lenart, a fighter pilot and a hero in the U.S. Marine Corps during WWII, volunteered for the Jewish underground Haganah in 1948, and was one of the "flying founding members of the State of Israel", who helped create the nucleus of the Israel Air Force.  His story begins in Hollywood, where after months of trying to make contact with Haganah, Lenart attends a Friday night services and meets a Jewish Palestinian guest speaker at a temple. Afterwards, he introduces himself to the speaker and expresses interest in volunteering for the Jewish underground.  Weeks later he receives a phone call which sets into motion some of the most fascinating adventures of his life with Haganah and the Jewish state.  Clandestine operations, covert activities, the search for weapons and aircraft, secret arms purchase in the black market, spying, and sabotage were all activities that Lenart became involved in with the Jewish resistance, that eventually helped paved the way for the creation and establishment of the State of Israel.   On May 29, 1948, Captain Lenart led the historic first fighter mission with only four planes and four pilots against the massive invading Egyptian army at Ashdod, less than 20 miles south of Tel Aviv.  The pilots included Ezer Weizman, Modi Alon, whose plane was severely damaged, and Edie Cohen, who was killed when his plane crashed and burned.  The historic mission cost twenty-five percent of the pilots and fifty percent of Israel's Air Force planes.  But the advance of the Egyptian army was stopped as they moved east and retreated.  "Right after we took off, I felt it was the most important event of my life", say Lenart.  "To fly and defend the Jewish people in a fighter plane with the Star of David on it, instead of the yellow star my family had to wear during the Holocaust, was the combination of everything I ever dreamt of."  After the war, Lenart participated in operation "On the Wings of Eagles" which brought over 100,000 Iraqi-Jews to Israel.  The operation began at the end of 1951 and was carried out for five months, flying constantly between Baghdad and Tel Aviv -- officially records showed the flights to be from Baghdad to Cypress.  The Iraqis didn't allow Jews to be aircrew members, so pretending to be a "tough Christian mercenary", Lenart hired a small crew of mercenary pilots and with them flew the same C-46 planes that he bought for the Hagana in the USA three years before.  The operation was terribly dangerous and the situation extremely volatile, especially since the Iraqi police were suspicious all along and provocateurs tried to trap the pilots by trying to catch them off guard.  It all came to a halt when the Iraqis put a sudden stop to the operation and thousands more Jewish refugees were left behind.