Paul Shulman

Paul Nahman Shulman (פול נחמן שולמן, 1922 – 16 May 1994), also known by his Hebrew name, Shaul Ben-Tzvi, was the second commander of the Israeli Navy.

Biography
Born in 1922 in Connecticut and raised in New York, Shulman graduated from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. During World War II he fought in the Pacific front and was discharged from the US Navy in 1945 after the surrender of Japan. Shulman was very affected by the Holocaust, and decided to help smuggle Jews from post-Holocaust Europe into Mandate Palestine. In 1948 Shulman emigrated to Israel.

In November that year he was asked by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to help establish an Israeli Navy. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War he commanded a blockade of the Gaza Strip and the capture of Ein Gedi on the Dead Sea. In 1949 he became its second Commander, after Gershon Zak decided to return to a career in education. However, he retired from the Navy in 1949, becoming an advisor to Ben-Gurion on Naval issues.

In 1994 he died in his home in Haifa at the age of 72.