As a rule, Jews are not recognized as warriors. Yet it was King David who, with five smooth stones, took down a bully.
I am the mother of three and grandmother of nine, and old enough to know about the rebirth of the Jewish State of Israel. Yet I had no idea about the whole story of her rebirth—those who worked behind the scenes, keeping their secrets for decades. Those stories are now being shared, and it is our obligation to teach them to future generations.
A documentary in progress titled “4 Million Bullets: The Untold Fight for Survival” is a timely reminder to Jews all over the world of the fragility of freedom.
And then the phoenix arose as the remnant of Jews returned to their historical and legal home, Israel, to join their brethren. No sooner had the country been declared legal than the armies of five Arab countries attacked.
How did these Jews defend themselves against five armies when they were denied weaponry by the British these Jews? Among other great acts of bravery, they produced their own bullets.
When people think about Jewish soldiers and Jewish armies, there is usually some joke coming next. As a rule, Jews are not recognized as warriors. Yet it was King David who led the greatest Jewish army. He started “small” with five smooth stones and took down a bully. Under King David, Jewish soldiers were considered the best mercenaries; no soldier was better than the Lions of Judah. With the fall of the Second Temple (now just underneath the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem) and the forced exile of the Jewish people from Israel—to be renamed Palestine by the Romans—there were no more stories about Jewish soldiers and their bravery.
We hear and read about the heroics of soldiers and volunteers from Britain and America, and Canada and Australia—great battles fought and won by the Allies. But no stories about Jewish soldiers from a Jewish country.
Until now.
Now there is once again a Jewish state on the same land ruled by King David and protected by the Jewish soldiers. And the Jewish people are blessed with some amazing stories about Jewish soldiers and volunteers—stories that today sound more like myths and legends than fact.
Modern Zionism dates back to people who returned during the first and second waves of aliyah beginning in 1882, and the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The British Mandate for Palestine, May 1923, recognized “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine. Sadly, the British then issued a White Paper in 1939, restricting Jewish immigration and land purchase in Palestine. The White Paper signaled Britain’s readiness to relegate the Jews in Palestine to minority status in a future majority-Arab state. They did this at the same time that Nazism was raging, and Jews were being ethnically cleansed from the British Mandate.
Protecting the modern nascent Jewish state was a group effort that included members of Mahal, international volunteers who trained with the Haganah in the 1940s; sabras, Jews born in British Mandatory Palestine, who were teenagers fighting in the War of Independence; and children of Canadian and American industrialists who secretly raised funds and smuggled ships, arms, weapons and planes to Israel in the interwar period. Altogether almost 4,000 international Jewish and non-Jewish volunteers participated not only producing the bullets, but smuggling in ships and guns despite the attempts by Britain to keep the Jews unarmed. After all, it was British Member of Parliament, Anthony Eden, who said: “If I must have preferences, let me murmur in your ear that I prefer Arabs to Jews.”
If not for the heroic and innovative cooperation between the Jews of Palestine and the international volunteers before, during and after battle, the State of Israel might not have survived past her first month.
Four million bullets were manufactured in a secret ammunition factory: the Ayalon Institute. Built in 1945 and about the size of a tennis court, it was disguised as part of a kibbutz to fool the British back in the 1940s. It was built in about three weeks. Organizers went to extreme measures to establish and sustain this secret factory within the kibbutz. They climbed through a narrow hole in the ground, down a steep spiral staircase, to spend 10-hour days in a hot, air-choked machine shop shaping metal into bullets to be used in the fight for Jewish independence. At its peak, the factory produced about 40,000 bullets a day. Once the bullets were produced, they were smuggled to places all over the country.
The title of the documentary, “4 Million Bullets: The Untold Fight for Survival,” reflects the ability of the Jewish people to survive despite all attempts to wipe them out. Four million bullets to save the state from the attacks of five Arab nations intent on exterminating the new state and its Jews. And nothing has changed. Except that the Jewish people are no longer helpless. The Jewish state of Israel is armed. The people are armed. There will be no more Jewish sacrificial lambs.
Here are the stories of some of these remarkable people:
SHLOMO HILLEL is one of the heroes. He helped build the secret underground bullet factory under a kibbutz/bakery. If caught by the British, he could have received the death penalty.
Shepard Broad, Sonneborn Institute member, Shepard Broad was tasked with acquiring and outfitting boats to be refurbished and sent to Europe to transport the refugees under the guise that they were for shipping bananas from South America to Miami
Elie Schalit shipped illegal arms, dynamite, and ships to Palestine under the noses of the FBI and the British authorities .His son said, “A significant amount of TNT had been stored by Eli and his people on a dock, I think on the upper west side, and it had exploded taking out the pier… that had exposed Eli’s activities in the country to that point, and there was no way he would be allowed to remain under those circumstances. He was very lucky he did not get a jail term.”
Si Spiegelman, a teenage immigrant from Belgium, joined a religious Zionist youth movement and was sent out in the community to gather leftover weapons, ammunition, and any resources that might be useful for the upcoming war in Palestine. “We were given addresses to go pick up weapons that American soldiers had brought back as souvenirs, so Morris was driving the van and I would do all the stops, and I would jump out and collect what they had- and they were pistols and all kinds of ammunition. I picked up a samurai sword.”
Zippy Porath, an American student at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem was clandestinely recruited to the Haganah. She served as a nurse and intelligence officer in the IAF, treating the wounded and smuggling food over hostile territory during the siege of Jerusalem. All the while Zippy continued to write letters home to her family in New York, describing her experiences and events of the time, which she later compiled into the book “Letters From Jerusalem 1947-1948.”
Joe Warner,another Canadian volunteer, was recruited to the army where he joined an anti-tank unit and took part in many ground operations against Egyptian and Sudanese troops in the Falujah area; battles which were instrumental in freeing the Negev roads of Egyptian control. “My friend Jesse Slade, an American Navajo, tamed a captured Arab Chieftan’s wild horse, to the amazement of Ben-Gurion.” He also wore a Cross, Mezuzah and a Navajo Charm. “You just can’t be too careful with all them bombs and bullets flying around.”
Jerry Gross,a Canadian army veteran was recruited to the Haganah and fought in the Givati 52nd Brigade. He carried out missions as a scout and fought battles all over Israel, and was present at Latrun as well as the Altalena incident where he refused to shoot at fellow Jews and spent the night in the brig drinking scotch with the British Warden. “I came out of the army and I thought that would be a great thing to partake in, to get back our homeland.”
Irving Matlow, Canadian volunteer in the signal corps of the fledgling IDF. “Our camp was outside of Haifa, and we walked… we decided at night we’ll take the short way across the fields.” “We got to the other side and there were two guards… they said, ‘Are you crazy? You walked through a mine field.’”
Bill Novick, a Canadian Air Force veteran was recruited to smuggle Messerschmitt 109s built in Czechoslovakia, where he then participated in airlifts to Israel. “The mechanics would disassemble the fighter plane, and put it into the transport plane. And they would then be unloaded in Israel and they would be reassembled again.”
And a note from the Director Jeff Hoffman:
If the story is not told it will be lost to history.
This film puts real people in the struggle and they triumph.
“I can’t let this happen, it’s too important for Israel and the world.”
The battle now is to get the film completed.
We must Never Forget our heroes. What better way to remember and memorialize them than in film. And Jeff Hoffman is asking for help. You can make this film a reality. Visit http://www.squashhouse.net/4-million-bullets
L-R: Canadian Machal Jerry Gross, Co-Producer Divvy Ahronheim, Exodus survivor Riva Fleischman, Producer/Director Jeff Hoffman
Director Jeff Hoffman thanks The Israel Forever Foundation:educational partner and fiscal sponsor in this project:4 Million Bullets: The Untold Fight for Survival
The original version of this article was published in JNS August 14, 2018
From the Ethics of the Fathers: “Rabbi Tarfon used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it.”
