| 5 During this time, he continued to serve in the army reserves for many years, participating in five wars and rising to the rank of major. His passion for arms collecting was sparked at the age of 13 when he received a modest Swiss army knife—a humble beginning to what would become a great arms collection. In the 1960s and 1970s, he primarily collected commando knives and rifle bayonets. Notably, he once purchased such an item from a captive Egyptian officer on the banks of the Suez Canal, who was surprised to be fairly paid for it while in captivity. In 1980, Mr. Shermister co-founded and served as the longtime chairman of the Israeli Historical and Ethnographical Cold Arms Society. After marrying Tsipora Shermister, the focus of his collecting shifted from militaristic to more artistic pieces, naturally drawing attention to Islamic and Oriental arms, which are often more lavishly decorated. In time, antique firearms and suits of armor were added to the collection, including one suit of armor bought directly from the Maharaja of Bikaner in northern Rajasthan. Over the years, they amassed hundreds of items from more than 50 countries, many of which are featured in this catalogue. Each item has a story, some more remarkable than others. For instance, there’s the beautiful Japanese short sword given to General Moshe Dayan during an official diplomatic tour, or the humble commando knife, allegedly involved in more than one deadly encounter. Mr. Shermister passed away prematurely, and now his widow believes that it is time to pass these historic items on, where art and beauty manifest in the iron and steel of weapons of war. Im Laufe der Zeit wurden auch antike Schusswaffen und Rüstungen in die Sammlung aufgenommen, darunter eine Rüstung, die direkt vom Maharadscha von Bikaner im nördlichen Rajasthan erworben wurde. Im Laufe der Jahre sammelte das Paar Hunderte von Stücken aus über 50 Ländern, von denen die meisten in diesem Katalog präsentiert werden. Jedes Stück hat seine eigene Geschichte, einige sind besonders bemerkenswert. So auch das wunderschöne japanische Kurzschwert, das General Moshe Dayan während einer offiziellen diplomatischen Reise überreicht wurde, oder das einfache Kommandomesser, mit dem angeblich mehr als ein Mensch getötet wurde. Herr Shermister verstarb vorzeitig, und nun ist seine Witwe der Meinung, dass es an der Zeit sei, diese historischen Stücke weiterzugeben, bei denen sich Kunst und Schönheit in den Eisen und Stählen von Kriegswaffen manifestieren. Oded Shermister Oded Shermister was born in Tel Aviv in 1938, the third child of a family that had immigrated from Kishinev, then part of Tsarist Russia, to Israel. His father, a police officer in the British Mandate forces, founded one of Israel's first security companies in the late 1930s. Mr. Shermister served in the Israeli Artillery Corps and later studied economics and Islamic studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. After an extended tour of Europe, he joined the family security business, where he worked for nearly 40 years, eventually becoming the CEO of a group of companies and the largest private employer in the country, with over 15,000 employees.
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