Friday: Rechovot

They served us breakfast on the plane, but with a full day of touring ahead, and most of us operating on 3 hours of interrupted sleep, I thought it best to stop at a cafe on the way to our first site. I ordered a tomato and mozarella sandwich and a capuccino. (Lucky for me my credit card worked the first time; at that point I didn't have any sheckles.)

From second breakfast, we went to the Ayalon Institute in Rehovot, a town once known for its vast citrus groves, which is now almost completely developed. The Ayalon Institute is not an institute at all, but a training farm for prospective kibbutz leaders where a secret bullet factory operated beneath the laundry for three years, from 1945-48. In this time, 40 workers (all volunteers from the Haganah) worked in a noisy basement doing an important but very dangerous task--making sure that the Jews in Palestine had enough ammunition to defend themselves against both the Arabs and the British.

Our guide told us the elaborate ways they had of maintaining the project's secrecy, as anyone involved in making munitions was subject to imprisonment or execution by the British. These included a secret entrance, down a 25-foot long ladder under the laundry machine (seen here), removing metal filings from one's shoes, clothes and hair daily, and making the commitment not to tell anyone, not even one's spouse.

In the end, these brave young people were able to make 2.25 million bullets which were eventually used in the War of Independence. That they did so without being caught and without having an accident in their cramped workspace is a miracle, just one of many we will learn about on this trip.