No Better Time Read online

  Recruitment into a “good fighting unit” is an almost universal goal among combatants who want to be in the IDF’s voluntary units, and Lewin had his sights on the most elite of them: Sayeret Matkal. Even for Lewin, with his exceptional intelligence and physical prowess, it was an audacious goal. The skills and operations of Sayeret Matkal warriors are the stuff of legend in Israel, and joining its ranks is a rarity—even for the best soldiers. The Unit’s commandos were handpicked—often from the sons, nephews or cousins of former Matkalists—until the 1980s, when the IDF opened its recruitment camps to volunteers.{8}

  By the 1990s the selection process for Sayeret Matkal had expanded significantly, but for soldiers who were not Israeli-born, recruitment to Sayeret Matkal was almost unheard of. Still, Lewin made the first of many decisions in his short life to defy the odds.

  The Israeli army has a reputation for military strikes on some of the world’s most dangerous terrorist organizations. If there’s one unit of the IDF responsible for these daring exploits, it’s Sayeret Matkal, also known as the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit, the Chief of Staff’s Boys, or simply “the Unit.”

  The Unit was formed in 1957 to carry out top-secret intelligence gathering missions in enemy territory without attracting public attention. One of its most decorated soldiers, Ehud Barak, took the reins two years later. Barak is credited with shaping Sayeret Matkal into one of the world’s most deadly and effective counterterrorism forces. Although Sayeret Matkal is often compared to America’s Navy Seals and Britain’s Special Air Service (SAS), military experts put the Unit in a class of its own because of its near mythical status.{9}

  In The Elite, author Samuel M. Katz defines the type of warrior the early leaders of Sayeret Matkal recruited, a tradition that still holds true today: “The commanders of the unit were not looking for cold-blooded killers, nor did they seek robots who would follow orders blindly. They sought innovative men who could, like spies, work alone behind enemy lines, and, like guerrillas, improvise with skill, determination, and well-directed firepower when operating in hostile surroundings.”{10} The soldiers in the brigade must also possess above average intelligence and technological savvy, so they are capable of handling and operating the IDF’s most prized technological equipment.

  Until the 1990s, Sayeret Matkal was so important to Israel’s security that the IDF would not officially acknowledge its existence. Those who knew anything about its inner workings were sworn to a code of silence, and its soldiers are still forbidden to wear its insignia in public. But like many big secrets, some of the most spectacular, action movie-like missions of Sayeret Matkal have come to light eventually, most of them leaked initially by the foreign media. The unit is best known for its 1976 raid on an airport in Uganda’s capital of Entebbe, when commandos rescued 103 hostages from a gang of Arab terrorists. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother, Yonatan, commanded the mission and was killed carrying it out. Today, the IDF officially acknowledges Sayeret Matkal as “the best combat unit,” but the details of its day-to-day operations remain classified; many are intelligence-gathering missions carried out behind enemy lines.

  The IDF’s recruitment process is intense, and begins sometime during the final two years of high school for all Israeli citizens with an initial, daylong screening process. From the tens of thousands who try out, the IDF selects a few thousand recruits who are eligible to participate in a one-day test camp called gibushon. Those who pass proceed to a five-day test camp, called gibbush, held months later. This camp is so grueling that doctors and psychologists constantly monitor the recruits throughout the process, which involves long stretches without sleep and repetitive, exhausting physical and mental tasks. The purpose of the gibbush is to weed out those who lack the mental toughness to withstand the pressures and potential perils of highly secretive missions. From this test, anywhere from 20–40 men are selected for Sayeret Matkal. Of those chosen, only one is promoted to the rank of officer.

  Members of Sayeret Matkal must endure almost two years of intense physical and mental training before they fully qualify to be Matkal commandos, which includes advanced navigation, weapons training and a sniper’s course.{11}

  The Beret March, named for the beret that soldiers earn if they complete the training, is a long, arduous trek through remote terrain between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. All IDF soldiers complete a march to enter their respective army units, each march with varying distances depending on the unit. The regular infantry units—Nahal, Givati, and Golani—march about 45 kilometers. Special units—Oketz and Tzanhanim—march approximately 65 kilometers. And the most elite units, including Sayeret Matkal, march about 125 kilometers (75 miles). The march is one of the most important accomplishments, both physically and psychologically, for soldiers in the Special Forces.{12}

  To complete his own Beret March in 1988, Lewin walked through remote swathes of the country for about twenty-five hours alongside his platoon of about twenty-five. He walked through the night, with only the stars to guide him in territory so dark it was hard to see his own hand in front of his face. He climbed hills and scaled craggy cliffs under the weight of sixty pounds of gear on his back. Several hours into the march, all of the soldiers, including Danny, felt their feet burning from erupting blisters. Twenty hours in some of them began slipping in and out of stages of delirium, walking as if they were asleep and occasionally veering out of the formation. By the time they reached the end of the march, the soldiers were too exhausted to enjoy the fraternity-like reception given by elder commanders at the finish line. That day, or sometime that week, IDF commanders awarded Lewin with the coveted red beret—a symbol of membership in the Unit—and he was welcomed into Sayeret Matkal.

  Even after only a year of service, some of Lewin’s exploits—though almost all of them remain secret—had become legendary to soldiers who served with him. In the most select unit of what is arguably one of the toughest armies in the world, Lewin pushed himself beyond what was expected.

  Lior Netzer, a friend who served with Lewin in Sayeret Matkal and later worked with him, remembered his surprise when he passed Lewin during a training session involving a ten-mile, hilly walk weighted down with full gear of about 50 pounds. Lewin was known as a strong walker in these types of exercises, rarely showing any visible signs of fatigue. On this particular walk, although he completed it on time, Lewin seemed to be struggling, often crouching down to rest and catch his breath. When asked to explain, Lewin confessed that he had voluntarily doubled his load of gear to prove to himself that he could still finish.

  In 1991, three years after earning his spot in the unit, Lewin was promoted to the rank of officer. His unit trained all week when they were not called on missions, departing on Sunday nights and returning on Fridays for Shabbat with their families. Lewin’s younger brothers—who both went on to serve in the IDF—remembered him arriving home covered in dust, sand, and scratches, deeply suntanned from long days of training in the desert, and exhausted from a week of only a few hours of sleep. They also recalled that over time, Danny’s army service ignited in him fervent political ideals; he became what Jonathan Lewin called a “super Zionist,” committed to defending Israel and wiping out terrorism. Prone to hyperbole, Danny was unafraid to express his views, often commanding the dinner table during Shabbat meals with exaggerated rants about destroying Israel’s enemies. “As a soldier he believed that it was his job to risk his life to fight against people who were trying to do evil in the world,” Jonathan said. “Danny had a very clear view that the way to address terrorism was not to sit idly by and let innocent people be killed, but to actively go out and cut the head off the stick.”

  Because of the Unit’s code of silence, the details of Lewin’s missions in Sayeret Matkal are not known. In interviews, veterans of the Unit are reluctant to share their names, even when describing general training. What has been leaked only in recent years is that, during the period in which Lewin served (1988–1991), Sayeret Matkal is believed to have c
arried out two exceptional missions—the 1998 assassination of Abu Jihad, Yasir Arafat’s military commander, and the July 1989 kidnapping of Sheikh Obeid, Hezbollah’s commander in Southern Lebanon.

  It’s also known that the Unit is Israel’s secret weapon when combating terrorism. In a December 2001 article in Vanity Fair, journalist Rich Cohen wrote: “When facing terrorism, especially in the wake of awful events, there is a tendency to despair, to see in the battle a problem without a solution. The functioning of the Unit is therefore more than merely a practical solution; it is a philosophical response. The simple act of resistance is in itself a key victory over terrorism.”{13}

  In addition to almost unmatched counterterrorism skills, those who serve in the Unit are automatically welcomed into an influential old-boys’ club that opens doors in the worlds of politics, business and other areas of Israeli society. In Israel, where one’s academic past is often less important than military past, the mention of service in Sayeret Matkal can act as a golden ticket to top jobs and political positions.

  Of the time he spent with Lewin in the unit, Lior Netzer said, “It is a place where you experience things that I can tell you I have not experienced ever since. You never get to push yourself to those limits. I can’t think [of] anything you can do at that age where you have that much responsibility.”

  When Lewin wasn’t on duty and returned home to Jerusalem, he turned to another passion typical of young men his age: women. He had no trouble finding dates. Dressed in his crisply pressed military uniform, he was often the object of attraction among the young ladies at local bars or clubs. In late 1990, at the apartment of a friend in Jerusalem, Lewin met a pretty, sweet twenty-one-year-old Belgian with green eyes and soft brown curls named Anne Pardes. Like Lewin, Anne had moved to Israel as a teenager with her family, also inspired by a Zionist wave. Their courtship, like all things in Lewin’s life, was impassioned and intense. Lewin almost instantly decided he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Anne, and he began tirelessly wooing her with romantic outings and hand-written poems and notes. Just six months after taking Anne out for the first time for a night of dancing, Lewin borrowed his parent’s car, an old white station wagon, and drove Anne to one of his favorite spots outside Jerusalem. There, on a cliff overlooking a vast expanse of desert, he surprised Anne by asking her to marry him. Anne didn’t hesitate, and the two became engaged. Although Lewin was still spending weeks away from home for army training and missions, he and Anne moved into an apartment together and made plans to wed later that year.

  His service duties intensified in January 1991 with the start of the Gulf War. With U.S. troops positioned at the border of Saudi Arabia, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein declared that if the U.S. launched an attack, Iraq would respond with a missile strike against Israel. Late in the night on January 18, Iraqi forces fired forty-two SCUD-B missiles into Tel Aviv and Haifa, killing two and severely damaging Ramat Gan, a suburb of Tel Aviv. As missiles from Iraq continued to rain down over the course of several weeks, Israeli citizens carried out the routine they had practiced many times over: when the air raid sirens began to wail, they took their gas masks and retreated to the basements of their buildings and homes. At the Lewins’ invitation, Anne stayed with Peggy and Charles while Danny was away, and together they spent weeks on high alert—donning gas masks and hiding in the basement when the air raid sirens wailed.

  Based somewhere in the center of Israel, Lewin wrote to Marco Greenberg during the height of the attacks. With the looming threat of war in the region, Lewin expressed doubts about remaining in the military:

  As you can probably imagine, the general atmosphere here is quite tense. But surprisingly, the army seems to be much more relaxed than the civilian population. The streets of Tel Aviv after five o’clock are about as populated as the deserts of Saudi Arabia, and the nightlife has come to an unanticipated halt. The whole city sits peevishly waiting for the wail of the air raid siren [and] listening to the perpetual newscasts. In comparison, the army is unaffected by the missile attacks. Training continues as usual, and when there is a siren, people calmly file into the sealed rooms, and wait. . . . I personally am a little more disturbed, because my base is in the center of the country. The BOOMs [can] be heard clearly here, and in one case, the windows even broke in some of the buildings.

  I try to get home as often as possible to see Anne. She deals with the situation quite well considering the conditions under which we must carry on our relationship. After we are married (August 20th, to remind you), I should be home more. I am also thinking about requesting a leave from the army in order to go to school. Whether or not I do really depends on what the conclusion of the present situation brings about.

  It’s possible that Lewin believed his situation would be upended at any time. The world was waiting for Israel to retaliate, and rumors circulated in the press and public discourse that the IDF might dispatch Sayeret Matkal to Baghdad to carry out an Entebbe-like mission.{14} The details of a supposed plan, later reported in Newsweek, suggested that the IDF considered sending Sayeret Matkal commandos and agents from Mossad (Israeli intelligence) to infiltrate the Iraqi capital under cover of darkness and execute a number of key individual targets.{15} But Israel didn’t act—at all. American military leaders cautioned against an attack, and sent in U.S. forces to commence Operation Desert Storm.

  On August 20, 1991, Danny, twenty-one, and Anne, twenty-three, were married in a small ceremony in Jerusalem. It was clear to Lewin’s friends that Anne—mild-mannered, smart, and strong-willed—had a grounding effect on him. Greenberg remembered meeting Anne. “She was extremely sophisticated, sensitive, and thoughtful,” he observed. “I did think they were [too] young to get married, but I also knew Danny was serious about everything in his life, and for him, it was the right choice. It was the only choice.”

  Marrying young is also common among native-born, male Israelis whose military experience lends them a heightened sensitivity to the passage of time. In their book Start-Up Nation, Dan Senor and Saul Singer explain: “Since their country’s founding, Israelis have [been] keenly aware that the future—both near and distant—is always in question. Every moment has strategic importance.”{16}

  Months later, Lewin requested leave from the IDF to attend the Technion (Israeli Institute of Technology). He and Anne were expecting their first son, Eitan, and Anne was eager to relocate to the quiet, scenic city of Haifa to begin their life together. But even Haifa couldn’t slow Lewin down. About two years into his studies at the Technion, Lewin came across a textbook at the library on the topic of parallel algorithms. He was so moved by its depth and beauty that he brought it home, pulling it out of his backpack and telling Anne that he’d never seen such incredible research. Lewin became fixated on the book and its author, MIT Professor Tom Leighton, inspired solely on what he’d learned from the pages of the massive tome. He told Anne that he was determined to meet Leighton. At the time, Lewin’s pursuit of the MIT professor must have sounded a bit outlandish to family or friends. For Lewin, however, it was nothing but sincere. He applied to and was accepted to MIT, and after less than four years in Haifa, the young family was packing for Cambridge—Anne pregnant with their second son, Itamar.

  Chapter 3

  Publish or Perish

  “I’ll tell you once, and I’ll tell you again.

  There’s always a prime between n and 2n.”

  —PAUL ERDOS,

  Topics in the Theory of Numbers

  THE MOST CHALLENGING PROBLEMS in mathematics have never frustrated Professor Tom Leighton. He can reel off the names of mathematical mysteries—P vs. NP, the Riemann Hypothesis, and infinity—that have confounded great scientists for centuries. To him, they are exciting and intellectually invigorating—puzzles waiting to be solved in some eureka moment that gives rise to boundless possibility.

  Born October 28, 1956, Leighton grew up in Arlington, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. From an early age, math spoke to him, and he understo
od it so well that even he suspects it was partly hereditary. Leighton can’t trace his gift to any precise origin, but thinks it may have come from his grandmother, a natural mathematician who taught him his multiplication tables as a child. Leighton also credits his parents, both smart and studious. His mother, Helen, was a librarian. And his father, David, was a nuclear engineer with degrees from both the Naval Academy and MIT. Reporting directly to Admiral Hyman Rickover, David Leighton spent twenty-six years designing and constructing nuclear-powered naval warships. Although he wasn’t a mathematician by profession, he loved math and science. With his two sons, Tom and David, he spent time constructing radios and experimenting with chemistry sets.

  By the time Tom Leighton, the eldest, was in high school, he was a straight-A student who preferred burying himself in books and wrestling with math problems to parties and football games. During his junior year at Washington–Lee High School in Virginia, he became fixated on one puzzle in particular: Goldbach’s Conjecture. For centuries, mathematicians have tried, and failed, to prove the conjecture, which was first proposed by eighteenth-century mathematician Christian Goldbach in 1742. At the heart of the conjecture are prime numbers, or integers, that can’t be divided by anything. The conjecture itself, simply put, claims that any even number can be expressed as the sum of two prime numbers. For example:

  3 + 5 = 8

  3 + 3 = 6

  3 + 7 = 10

  This goes on and on. There are an infinite number of prime numbers; the proof of this is not hard. But to date, no one has succeeded in proving the theorem by showing that the pattern goes on forever. All of the even numbers up to 400,000,000,000 have been tested, so far, with no exceptions found. But it has never been proven. The combination is seemingly infinite.