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The journey through time experienced at the Palmach Museum takes the visitor back to the 1940s, a stormy decade around the world, and a turning point in the history of the Jewish people.

The virtual tour in the bunker-like museum allows visitors to see history through the eyes of those who were instrumental in creating the State of Israel. Palmach, an abbreviation of Plugot Machatz [Strike Force] sprang from the Haganah, a volunteer military organization that was established in 1920 when the British Mandate ruled pre-State Israel.

By the early 1940s, when the Germans invade Africa, and Syria and Lebanon are under the control of the Vichy regime, the British train and employ the Haganah/Palmach forces to help defeat an Axis invasion. But when Rommell retreats from Egypt in 1942, the British, with no more need of extra forces,
tell the Haganah to return their uniforms and weapons, and disband.

The Haganah and Palmach leaders decide the time has come to go underground. But funds are badly needed. The mutually beneficial plan presented by the kibbutzim to the Palmach and Haganah leaders, whereby Haganah and Palmach members would work and train on kibbutz, proves to be an excellent solution. Over a three year period, from 1942-1945, the Palmach train men and women. The naval platform of the Palmach trains SEALS and brings over refugees from Europe, in defiance of the British Mandate. New settlements are created for the newly arrived Holocaust survivors.

In 1947 the historic vote in the United Nations accepted the Partition Plan, thereby creating the Jewish state side by side with a Palestinian state.

The Partition Plan, however, was not accepted by the neighboring Arab countries, and in 1948 the newly created Jewish state was attacked by Arab armies. The 7000-member Palmach lost 30% of its men and women fighting for the new state.

And when the walk through history is over, and you find tears running down your face, you ask when will the fighting stop? When will two peoples be able to live side by side, in peace? And you pray that day is here.

To visit the museum, advance reservations are required.
Tel: 03-643-6393
Not recommended for children under 14. Minimum age: 9.

Where: 10 Haim Levanon St., Ramat Aviv
Buses: 113, 27, 464, 25
Paid parking in lot of Eretz Yisrael Museum just down the street.

Drive-Israel.com for Explorer Tourists

In the middle of the desert, far from Tel Aviv, in a heavily locked room, there once was a diamond cutting and polishing workshop. Established by one, Avraham Rabinovitch, the workshop can be visited at Kibbutz Gvulot. A certificate of Rabinovitch’s memberhsip in the Israel Diamond Exchange hangs on the wall and the original equipment is on the work table.

The workshop is an example of the ingenuity of the pioneers in the Negev. Close your eyes and imagine a desert with some brush. For miles that is all there is. Drinking water is as remote as the nearest city.

The time is 1943, the place the Negev. The people, a group of young Jewish men seeking to create a settlement in the Negev on land that the Jewish National Fund had bought from the local Beduoin. In the course of learning if the land was suitable for agriculture, these idealistic young men who had come from Europe, learned survival skills through trial and error.

heir sole contact with the established Jewish community living further north, came in the form of a weekly supply van that, in addition to staples, brought mail and visitors. The van would arrive at Kibbutz Gvulot after a five to six hour drive through Gaza and Rafiah and return the following morning.

Located near the Besor stream, the watercourse that drains the Negev, the kibbutz is built on loess, a clay-like earth, and is located 30 km east of the Mediterranean Sea and 35 km south of Be’er Sheva.

Kibbutz Gvulot, together with Kibbutz Revivim and Kibbutz Beit Eshel were the first three communities funded by the Jewish National Fund and the Jewish Agency.

The kibbutzniks at Gvulot found that while the loess was suitable for farming, the lack of water was a serious issue, as it continues to be today.

Then, as today, water collection became an important key to survival and growth. Water was collected in cisterns, which visitors can see today. The meager 100-130 ml of annual rainfall provided drinking water for the kibbutz. The remaining water was recycled and combined with sewage water to grow crops on the experimental farm.

What began as a dream in 1943 grew into a community. Today Kibbutz Gvulot continues to operate in the traditional manner, where the meals, laundry and children’s education all take place in a communal setting.

The original buildings are now restored, enabling visitors to imagine what the original kibbutz looked like.

Among the original buildings was an entrance or receiving hall known as the madafa. Rather than impose European customs on the area, the young men adopted the Beduoin model of hospitality. The madafa
was a sheltered space used to greet visitors and offer refreshment and shade from the desert sun.

The medial clinic, operated by Dr. Diamant, was located there as well. As word of the new kibbutz and the doctor spread, local Bedouin would come for medical treatment. Additionally there was a bakery which was later used to supply bread to the fighting soldiers in the area during the War of Independence. Yeast supplies were dropped onto the grounds of the outpost each day. One of the pilots was none other than Israel’s past president, Ezer Weizman.

Where: Kibbutz Gvulot, Rte 222