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

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

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

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...

. 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 Lithuanian Jewish family with the surname ''Zabludovsky'' on 11 November 1902 in the city of Vilnius in the Russian Empire (no ...

.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 ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

.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 (, 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-ruled Palestine, ...

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

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

who worked with

Pinhas Rutenberg Pinhas Rutenberg (, Pyotr Moiseyevich Rutenberg; ; 5 February 1879 – 3 January 1942) was a Russian businessman, hydraulic engineer and political activist. In Russia, he was a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and fled due to the Octo ...

on building a power station at

Naharayim Naharayim ( literally "Two rivers"), historically the Jisr Majami area ( literally "Meeting bridge" area), is the area where the Yarmouk River flows into the Jordan River. It was the site of the "First Jordan Hydro-Electric Power House", con ...

, 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 ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...

. 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 (, ''"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 otherwise of little val ...

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 current Constitutions of Constitution of Italy, Italy and of Constitution of New Jersey, New Jersey (both later subject to amendment) ...

. 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 (; 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. Morris was initially associated with the g ...

(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