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An entry from Katsa appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 6 April 2006.

[edit] Wierd

There is no such word "Katsa" in Hebrew that i know of, and im a native speaker. So where does it come from?

Hmmm. I don't speak any Hebrew, I so couldn't comment with any certainty. Victor Ostrovsky uses it in italics, which he does with all of the other Hebrew or Hebrew derived names, so I assumed it was Hebrew as well. Could it be derived from anything similar to "gathering officer"? Joshdboz 18:47, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, i looked at Victor Ostrovsky's article in the Hebrew Wikipedia, and it just says that he was a Mossad agent.....

Anyway, i googled (in Hebrew) "Katsa", "Mossad Katsa", "Katsa Agent", and "Katsa Officer", and there were no results. So, the one who wrote this article should explain!

If you would like to see the definition of Katsa in Ostrovsky's book, here is the link. Considering that the word katsa is used by only the Mossad in this context (at least as far as I know), and the official language of Israel is Hebrew, I would assume that they would be using a Hebrew word. It may be romanticized, but it is certianly not an English word. Joshdboz 20:07, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

For information, Mossad officers are often described as "katsas" in fiction. PeteVerdon 20:34, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I believe that Ostrovsky explains (haven't read the book in a while and don't buy into a lot of his stories) that katsa is a contraction of ktzin isuf, collections officer. As the words are spelled in Hebrew, isuf is spelled with an 'alef' and somewhat analogous to an "A" --not the best explanation of that part of the acronym. Kimwell 02:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

This explanation is correct. The acronym of קצין איסוף (Ktsin 'Isuf) is קצ"א (the double quotes signifying an acronym in Hebrew). The Hebrew letter Alef (א), pronounced in most cases as the glottal stop, is silent at the end of the word. Pachypachy 06:45, 29 May 2006 (UTC)