ناحال
He was conscripted into the Israel Defense Forces and served in the Nahal Brigade. He was deployed to the Israeli security zone in southern Lebanon during the South Lebanon conflict in the late 1990s, spending much of his service at an Israeli position called Outpost Pumpkin, the name of which was to inspire the title of a book he later wrote about his experiences in Lebanon. Following his military service he studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.