Being a born fighter and a “convinced nonconformist,” the author of this book always accepted the challenge, not shying away from participating in the most desperate battles and the most “HOPELESS WARS,” be it the uncompromising struggle to leave the USSR for Israel, the famous Yom Kippur War , which Yakov Kedmi went through in Ehud Barak’s battalion, in the same tank with the future prime minister, or work in the most secret Israeli intelligence service “Nativ”, which is considered “a kind of closed club of the ruling elite of the Jewish state.” He emerged victorious from all these battles, once again proving that there are no “hopeless wars” and a person “who does not bow to anyone or anything” is capable of accomplishing the impossible. Yakov Kedmi managed not only to escape from behind the Iron Curtain, but also, having become the director of Nativ, to achieve a radical change in Israeli politics - largely thanks to his efforts, a mass exodus of Jews from the USSR took place in the early 1990s. About everything this - about resistance to the Soviet regime and interdepartmental struggle in the Israeli establishment, about the victorious Yom Kippur War and command mistakes that led to unjustified losses, about blatant cases of discrimination against Soviet Jews in Israel and the need for decisive reforms that should lead the country out of the systemic crisis - Yakov Kedmi spoke in his memoirs, not avoiding the most pressing topics and not being afraid to pose the most painful questions, the main one of which: “Is the current Jewish state worthy of its people?”