As a child, Ziva took ballet, though her father never came to any of her performances. At some point, he also taught her how to play baseball. Since her early childhood, Eli trained her in combat tactics and espionage (according to Ziva, one of her earliest memories of childhood was her father leading her and her sister into a forest, blindfolded, then leaving them there to find their way out again). She commented in "Tribes" that her childhood best friend, a Muslim, was killed in a retaliatory Israeli air-strike when she was twelve. She explains her upbringing to Tony: "You and I come from two totally different places. In my world, you grow up "fast". You have no choice."