IDF History Department (1952 - present ; המחלקה להיסטוריה צה'ל)

IDF History Department (1952 - present ; המחלקה להיסטוריה צה"ל) is a department within the Training Division (אגף ההדרכה) of the Israel Defense Forces. The department conducts research on the history of IDF operations to inform present-day commanders as well as write official histories of said military operations. The department was initially headed by partisan, historian, diplomat, and politician Nathaniel Lorch (1925 - 1997), who published a history of the War of Independence (First Arab-Israeli War). Given the nature of its work, the department's research is not always without controversy, as a spat over the department's history of the Yom Kippur War revealed.