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

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

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

Mandate Palestine

Mandate Palestine existed while the British Mandate for Palestine, which formally began in September 1923 and terminated in May 1948, was in effect...

 Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

. In the 1930s it was headed by Yisrael Amir

Yisrael Amir

Lt. Col. Yisrael Amir was the first commander of the Israeli Air Force. Amir was born in Russia, moving to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1923. Amir then began his military career by joining the newly created Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary group...

. 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

Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

. "Aleph" had a professional staff of lathe operators, metalworkers, plane operators, milling machine operators and others.

Eliahu Sacharov

Eliahu Sacharoff

Eliahu Sacharoff was a member of the Haganah who on 8 October 1943 was sentence by a military court in the British Mandate of Palestine to seven years' imprisonment after being found guilty of possessing more ammunition than his firearm license allowed....

, one of the heads of the organisation, was responsible for testing the first weapons produced by Ta'as at the Solel Boneh

Solel Boneh

Solel Boneh is the oldest, and one of the largest, construction and civil engineering companies in Israel.-History:Solel Boneh was founded in 1921 during the first conference of the General Histadrut, under the name of Batz , an acronym of Binyan veAvodot Tziburiot . Its first project was to pave...

 quarry at Migdal Tzedek.

Haim Slavin, an engineer from Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 who worked with Pinhas Rutenberg

Pinhas Rutenberg

Pinhas Rutenberg was a prominent engineer and a businessman, a Russian socialist and a Zionist leader. He played an active role in two Russian revolutions, in 1905 and 1917. During World War I, he was among the founders of the Jewish Legion and of the American Jewish Congress...

 on building a power station at Naharayim

Naharayim

Naharayim is a site on the border between Israel and Jordan where an hydroelectric power-plant was established in 1930. The Yarmuk River flows into the Jordan River at Naharayim. The plant, established by Pinchas Rutenberg, produced much of the energy consumed in the British Mandate of Palestine...

, was the general manager from 1937 to 1952. 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

Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...

. Slavin also developed new plants for Ta'as.

During the Arab Revolt Ta'as developed an 81-mm mortar

Ordnance ML 3 inch Mortar

The Ordnance ML 3-inch mortar was the United Kingdom's standard mortar used by the British Army from the late 1920s to the late 1960s, superseding the Stokes Mortar.-History:...

, 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.

The Haganah decided to develop mortars locally in 1934, beginning with a copy of the British 2-inch mortar. 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

Davidka

The Davidka was a homemade Israeli mortar used in Safed and Jerusalem during the early stages of the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. Its bombs were reported to be extremely loud, but very inaccurate and otherwise of little value beyond terrifying opponents; they proved particularly useful in...

 mortar that was used extensively in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War

1948 Arab-Israeli War

The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...

. Leibowitz was assisted by Yisrael Yoshpe, who became Ta'as's expert in metal casting.