Ta'as, an abbreviation of the Hebrew for "Military Industry" (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

: ''Ta'asiya Tzvait''), was the clandestine arms industry of the Jewish settlement in

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...

. In the 1930s, it was headed by

Yisrael Amir Yisrael Amir (; – ) was the first commander of the Israeli Air Force. Early life and biography Amir was born into a Russian Jewish family with the surname ''Zabludovsky'' on 11 November 1902 in the city of Vilnius in the Russian Empire (now L ...

.Milstein & Sacks, 1997, p. 32. Ta'as was based on a number of small workshops and factories, the first one being hidden in a tannery ("The Aleph Institute") on the north beach of

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

.Sacharov, 2004, p. 20. "Aleph" had a professional staff of lathe operators, metalworkers, plane operators, milling machine operators and others. Eliahu Sacharov, one of the heads of the organisation, was responsible for testing the first weapons produced by Ta'as at the

Solel Boneh Solel Boneh ( he, סולל בונה, lit. ''Paving and Building'') is the oldest, and one of the largest, construction and civil engineering companies in Israel. History During British rule (1921-1948) Solel Boneh was founded in 1921 in British ...

quarry at Migdal Tzedek.Sacharov, 2004, p. 19. Haim Slavin, an engineer from

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

who worked with

Pinhas Rutenberg Pinhas Rutenberg (russian: Пётр Моисеевич Рутенберг, Pyotr Moiseyevich Rutenberg; he, פנחס רוטנברג: 5 February 1879 – 3 January 1942) was a Russian Jewish engineer, businessman, and political activist. He pla ...

on building a power station at

Naharayim Naharayim ( he, נַהֲרַיִים literally "Two rivers"), historically the Jisr Majami area ( ar, جسر المجامع literally "Meeting bridge" area), where the Yarmouk River flows into the Jordan River, was named by the Palestine Ele ...

, was the general manager from 1937 to 1952.Sacharov, 2004, p. 58. Under Slavin's leadership Ta'as was reorganised and thereafter reached new heights of production such that it became the primary supplier of weapons to the

Haganah Haganah ( he, הַהֲגָנָה, lit. ''The Defence'') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the ...

. Slavin also developed new plants for Ta'as. During the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine, Ta'as developed an 81-mm mortar, the Haganah's heaviest weapon at that time, and manufactured mines and grenades, 17,500 of the latter being produced for use during the revolt.Adelman, 2008, p. 156.Morris, 1999, p. 160. The Haganah decided to develop mortars locally in 1934, beginning with a copy of the British

2-inch mortar The Ordnance SBML two-inch mortar, or more commonly, just "two-inch mortar", was a British mortar issued to the British Army and the Commonwealth armies, that saw use during the Second World War and later. It was more portable than larger mort ...

. This task was given to David Leibowitz, one of the founders of Ta'as, who was later to win fame as the developer of the

Davidka The Davidka ( yi, דוידקה, ''"Little David"'' or ''"Made by David"'' ) was a homemade Israeli mortar used in Safed and Jerusalem during 1947–1949 Palestine war. Its bombs were reported to be extremely loud, but very inaccurate and otherwi ...

mortar that was used extensively in the

1948 Arab-Israeli War Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The Constitution of New Jersey (later subject to amendment) goes into effect. ** The railways of Britain are nationalized, to form British ...

. Leibowitz was assisted by Yisrael Yoshpe, who became Ta'as's expert in metal casting.

Notes

References

*Adelman, Jonathan R. (2008). ''The Rise of Israel: A History of a Revolutionary State''. Routledge. *Allon, Yigal (1970). ''Shield of David: the story of Israel's Armed Forces. Random House''. *Mardor, Munya (1966). ''Haganah''. New American Library. *Milstein, Uri and Sacks, Alan (1997). ''History of the War of Independence: The First Month''. University Press of America. *

Morris, Benny Benny Morris ( he, בני מוריס; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. He is a member of t ...

(1999). ''Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999''. John Murray. * Sacharov, Eliahu (2004). ''Out of the Limelight: Events, Operations, Missions, and Personalities in Israeli History.'' Gefen Publishing House Ltd. {{ISBN, 978-965-229-298-8 Arab–Israeli conflict 1948 Arab–Israeli War 1930s in Mandatory Palestine