How a fake kibbutz was built to hide a bullet factory

Israel's pre-state underground militia knew it had to prepare for war once the British left, and it concocted a brilliant way of doing so without getting caught.

Under the British, any Jew caught carrying weapons or ammunition could expect corporal punishment. So while the Haganah knew it had to prepare for battle, it also knew it had to figure out a way to do so without getting caught. Yosef Avidar, a senior Haganah commander, zeroed in on that hilltop in Rehovot, deeming it the ideal location for an underground bullet factory, because its slope would make digging easy and its proximity to Tel Aviv would simplify transport. Another plus? It was right next door to a British military camp, and he believed the last place the British would ever think to look was right under their noses. The cover story would be the formation of a new kibbutz, and on the surface, that’s exactly what was built: In addition to the laundry and bakery, a chicken coop, dining hall, children’s house, gardens and more were erected on the site. 

The Haganah selected Hatzofim Aleph, a pioneer group, to relocate from its base in Pardes Hannah and set up shop on the kibbutz. And so these young people, most of them barely 20 years old, moved to the site and began seemingly ordinary lives among the citrus groves and communal meals of the kibbutz. A closer look, however, would have revealed a few red flags. To camouflage the high-pitched screeching sound of the bullet machines below, the laundry had to run practically around the clock. To produce enough whites and darks to justify such a demand, the kibbutz opened a branch of its laundry in downtown Rehovot and began handling the washing for most of the region. They even won a bid to handle the laundry for a nearby hospital, and – their reputation for low prices and excellent service having reached the nearby British camp – became the go-to starch and suds provider for many of the soldiers who were being so fantastically duped. A convenient pick-up and delivery service kept the British from ever having to step foot in the laundry.

Down in the bullet factory, in a production line based around World War I-era machines smuggled in via Beirut, some 45 pioneers crafted more than 2.5 million copper bullets by hand. The copper, the Haganah told British customs officials, was needed to create lipstick containers, a storyline they backed up with gifts of lipstick to British officers’ wives. Yehudit Ayalon was 19 when she came to the Ayalon Institute and began working in the clandestine factory. “We had to improvise,” she says. “It was not frightening. It’s very difficult for me to reconstruct the feeling because we were so dedicated and we wanted it to succeed. And we knew the dangers, of course. One little lapse and the British would hang us.”
 

“There is no doubt about it,” says Dr. Motti Golani, a professor of Israeli history at Haifa University. “The Ayalon Institute has two significant historical meanings. The first is that it helped the Haganah and what would become the Israel Defense Forces. But the second meaning is about pre-state Israel, or what we call the yishuv. This was not just an abstract organization. It had a real army and a real arms industry. The quality of what they produced was quite impressive.”