At this time, he began to go by the first name "Amitai" instead of Werner, since the principal of Etzioni's new school strongly encouraged Etzioni to introduce himself by a Hebrew name. He was given the name Amitai based on the Hebrew word for truth ("emet") and the name of Jonah's father in the Old Testament ("Amittai"). Etzioni moved with his family to a small village, Herzliya Gimmel, which served as a base for an emerging community called Kfar Shmaryahu. When Etzioni was eight, he moved to the new village, where his family was assigned to a small, boxlike new house and a small farming lot. In the spring of 1941, Etzioni's father left to join the Jewish Brigade, which was a Jewish unit formed within the British army. Etzioni, at the age of thirteen, was struggling at school, which then caused his mother to send him to a boarding school in Ben Shemen.