2018-04-23 18:58 tumblrgirlactionfigure: In 1945, the Jewish Agency, the pre-state...
girlactionfigure: In 1945, the Jewish Agency, the pre-state Israeli government headed by David Ben-Gurion, created a vast clandestine arms-purchasing-and-smuggling network throughout the United States. The operation was placed under the aegis of the Haganah, the underground forerunner of the Israel Defense Forces, and involved hundreds of Americans from every walk of life. They included millionaires, rabbinical students, scrap-metal merchants, ex-GIs, college students, longshoremen, industrialists, chemists, engineers, Protestants and Catholics, as well as Jews. One group, who remained anonymous and rarely talked about, were men who were tough, streetwise, unafraid, and had access to ready cash: Jewish gangsters. The arms-smuggling operation was centered in a rented two-room suite in the Hotel Fourteen, located at 14 East 60th Street in New York. Teddy Kollek, who later became the popular longtime mayor of Jerusalem, ran the day-to-day operations of the arms procurement efforts, kept tabs on everything and oversaw all the comings and goings. Kollek was careful that those who visited the office not be people who would attract the attention of law enforcement agencies, especially the FBI. According to Leonard Slater in his book The Pledge, Dan Fliderblum, a young electronics engineer from the New York suburb of Yonkers, had been recruited to set up a network of secret radio transmitters in Palestine to link isolated settlements and forewarn them of British search parties seeking illegal arms. He recalled being in the Hotel Fourteen suite in 1947, when a group of Jewish gangsters from Brooklyn came to see Kollek. “The mobsters offered to help in any way they could. One of them said, ‘If you want anyone killed, just draw up a list and we’ll take care of it.’ Kollek politely thanked them, but declined their offer.” Fliderblum later immigrated to Israel, changed his name to David Avivi, and became a leader in the future Israeli electronics industry. After the Holocaust, the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine was seen by Zionists as a matter of life and death. Many Haganah people sent to the United States believed that anyone who could help should be approached regardless of who or what they were. Yehuda Arazi was one of those who held this view. Arazi, a close aide to Ben-Gurion had been a daring and resourceful Haganah underground agent in Romania, Hungary, and Italy during the war. Ben-Gurion sent him to America and authorized him to purchase the kinds of heavy armaments the Haganah had heretofore been unable to obtain. This included aircraft, artillery pieces, tanks, antiaircraft guns and other forms of heavy equipment. Read More: Here
tumblrgirlactionfigure:
In 1945, the Jewish Agency, the pre-state...
tumblrgirlactionfigure:
In 1945, the Jewish Agency, the pre-state...