ATA Textile Company

ATA was an Israeli textile and clothing company whose industrial plant operated from 1934 until 1985. It combined spinning, weaving, dyeing, and finishing with ready-to-wear manufacturing and retailing, supplied Allied and British forces during World War II, and later became a principal supplier to the Israel Defense Forces.[1][2]

The original factory also sold civilian clothing through an extensive retail network. Although its industrial operations ended in 1985, businessman Shahar Segal revived the ATA name as a separate fashion label and opened a Tel Aviv store in April 2016.[3]

ATA's roots lie in a Bohemian textile dynasty. Textile industrialists and cousins Hans Moller (1896–1962) and Erich Moller (born 1895) came from a family with several generations of experience in the trade; their ancestors had owned a cotton-spinning mill founded in Bohemia in 1865.[1] The cousins traveled to Palestine in 1933 and established the Ata Textile Company at Kefar Ata in 1934, with the family settling permanently in Palestine by 1938.[1]

The company's name was taken directly from the village of Kfar Ata — a name that was also easy for immigrants of varying linguistic backgrounds to pronounce.[2] After visiting the factory and Erich Moller's home, the celebrated Hebrew writer S. Y. Agnon suggested an additional interpretation: that "ATA" could stand for "Arigim Totzeret Artzeinu," meaning "fabrics produced in our land."[4] This acronym became widely associated with the brand, although sources vary slightly in how they render the Hebrew phrase and whether they present it as the name's origin or a later interpretation.[4][2]

The factory was built on a 100-dunam site (approximately 25 acres) in what was then Kfar Ata.[5] Because local facilities were not adequate to assemble a project of that scale, construction components, sewing machines, and other industrial equipment were imported from Czechoslovakia and elsewhere in Europe.[2] Technical training also had to be organized from abroad, since local textile expertise was limited at the time.[2] The first workers lived communally in a hut in the factory yard, and Czech was initially the language spoken on the shop floor.[2] By 1936 the workforce had reached 115 employees; it surpassed 200 by 1938 and approached 1,000 on the eve of the 1948 War of Independence.[2]

ATA was described as the country's first integrated cotton plant, handling every stage from raw fiber through spinning, weaving, dyeing, and finishing to finished garments.[1] By the end of 1935 it had become the largest textile factory in the Middle East, and it began exporting to Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon in 1936.[6] The factory's establishment also shaped the surrounding community: it created jobs, attracted workers and their families, prompted the construction of a road connecting it to the settlement center, and drove the development of additional neighborhoods — marking Kfar Ata's transition from a small agricultural community toward an industrial one.[7]

During World War II, ATA expanded rapidly. Wartime conditions severed its supply connection with the Skoda factory in Czechoslovakia, forcing the company to expand its own production capacity.[2] ATA became a leading supplier of tents, military uniforms, seasonal clothing, underwear, undershirts, and socks to tens of thousands of British troops stationed across the Middle East, at a time when those forces could not obtain equipment from Britain.[2]

The factory simultaneously served a clandestine security function. Most Haganah members in the settlement, including all of its commanders, worked at ATA.[7] Weapons were concealed in hidden basements and hollow machine legs, and damaged weapons were repaired in the factory workshop.[7] The factory's water tower served as an observation and signaling point used to warn Haganah trainees exercising in a nearby forest of approaching British vehicles.[7]

A subsidiary, Kurdaneh Textile Works Ltd., was founded in 1948.[1] That same year, as the War of Independence drew near, the factory's workforce stood at roughly 1,000; by 1949 it had grown to approximately 1,130.[2] Erich Moller departed ATA in 1949 to establish Moller Textile Ltd., a spinning, twisting, and dyeing plant in Nahariyyah, and both enterprises subsequently contributed significantly to Israeli exports.[1]

After Israel's establishment, ATA became the country's principal supplier of clothing and textiles to the IDF, providing uniforms, tents, machine-gun straps, and warm underwear.[2] Its role in civilian life was equally central. During the austerity period of the early 1950s, families received clothing points — ration tickets — that could be redeemed at ATA's expanding retail network.[2] The company's products were sturdy, reliable, and reasonably priced, and different communities remembered them differently: city residents associated ATA with school uniforms, while villagers linked the brand with work clothes.[8]

The clothes that defined ATA's public image were steeped in the Zionist and socialist ethos of the time. Khaki trousers, dark-blue workwear, white Sabbath shirts, embroidered shirts, and the tembel hat became symbols of Israeli identity.[2] The company's khaki clothing was associated with simplicity, modesty, and the ethos of workers and agricultural pioneers, and Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion was frequently photographed wearing ATA khaki.[4] Moshe Dayan also wore the brand.[9] Researcher Dalia Bar-Or has characterized ATA's contribution as central to the formation of Israeli national identity, combining fashion, nationalism, pioneering, and Zionism into everyday dress.[9]

The brand also carried social pressure: people who did not wear ATA clothing could be treated as outsiders or called snobbish.[2] The factory's advertising slogan, "Tradition in quality and momentum in fashion," captured the dual ambition of reliability and relevance.[2]

At its height, ATA ran three shifts around the clock and had roughly 3,700 people connected with the company, including outside sewing workers and retail staff.[5] Sewing was outsourced across the country, including to workers in Nablus and Druze villages in the Galilee.[5] ATA opened employee shops, provided bonuses, established a kindergarten for workers' children, and built housing areas known as Ata A, Ata B, Ata C, and Battei Hannah.[2] Former workers later summed up the atmosphere: "We were one big family."[2]

Exports reached approximately one million dollars annually in foreign currency by the mid-1950s.[2] ATA also began producing corduroy clothing in 1956 and catered to a more formal market with gabardine trousers.[2] By 1967 the company employed 1,861 people.[1]

ATA's dominance began to erode in the mid-1950s as additional textile factories opened in Israel and competition increased.[2] A dispute began in April 1956 after factory manager Hans Moller proposed layoffs and a wage freeze.[2] In May 1957, all ATA workers went on strike for three months.[2] The strike received national attention and was debated in the government; Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion intervened, and the dispute ended in a compromise under which fewer workers were dismissed than originally planned and a small wage increase was granted.[2]

The 1960s brought a more fundamental challenge: shifting consumer preferences. As Israelis encountered more overseas travel and foreign fashion, they gradually turned away from ATA's traditional palette of khaki and workers' blue.[10] The company attempted to adapt: photographer Anna Riwkin-Brick documented the factory in 1962, by which time the women's clothing department had become more open to international fashion, producing colorful printed dresses cut specifically for women — a departure from what had previously been essentially identical cuts for men and women.[4] After the Six-Day War, ATA sought entry into more fashionable markets, adding clean-cut suits, a wider range of trousers and shirts beyond its traditional checked styles, bed linens, and other household goods.[5] A nationwide retail network supported these expanded offerings.[5]

Ownership shifted as well. Africa-Israel acquired some of ATA's shares in 1949.[2] After Hans Moller's death in 1962, a group of investors led by Swiss businessman Tibor Rosenbaum acquired the factory.[2] New management, however, failed to compete effectively with fashions from abroad or to adapt quickly enough to Israeli consumers.[4] After Rosenbaum's subsequent business collapse, a Swiss receiver sold ATA in 1977 to Israel Corporation, then owned by Shaul Eisenberg.[2]

By the late 1970s, ATA's plant and retail network still employed approximately 3,000 people.[10] During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the factory had been working almost entirely on IDF uniforms, demonstrating the extent of its defense role even in its later years.[11] The company continued to supply the Ministry of Defense and maintained its retail presence, but the competitive environment was becoming increasingly hostile.

The decisive blow came in July 1983, when Marks & Spencer stopped purchasing ATA products.[2] The British retailer had been buying 85 percent of the company's output, and its withdrawal immediately cost ATA approximately $1.5 million per month.[2] In the aftermath, 550 of the company's 2,600 employees were laid off.[2] By 1983 and into 1984, ATA also faced intensifying competition from producers in Jordan and the Far East, as well as from lower-cost sewing workshops in Druze villages in the Galilee.[5] The factory ran out of cotton and was operating with outdated machinery.[2] In 1984, Shaul Eisenberg and the government injected $10 million into the enterprise, but losses continued and no buyer could be found.[2]

Worker leader Pini Grov led hunger strikes, a factory occupation, and large demonstrations.[2] His slogan — "Today it is ATA — tomorrow it is you" — became a slogan of the protest.[2] Grov also appeared frequently on the television news program Mabat during the heated and sometimes violent exchanges around the plant.[5] Finance Minister Yitzhak Moda'i assured workers that the company would be saved, but the assurances did not materialize.[5] Grov described the final closure as "a black day for Israel's workers."[2]

ATA's gates closed in 1985; Ynet dates the closure to June 2, 1985.[2] It was later described as the first large enterprise of the Histadrut's workers' company to undergo privatization.[12] The former factory site was redeveloped into the Beit-VeGan residential neighborhood and a commercial center, while the former Kurdani site became the Kiryon.[2] The original workers' hut and the factory water tower were designated for preservation, and some of ATA's old sewing machines were subsequently acquired by a merchant from Gaza.[2]

ATA's half-century of operation left a mark on Israeli culture that outlasted its factory gates. The tembel hat, khaki trousers, workwear, and white Sabbath shirt became touchstones of the founding generation's self-image — practical, egalitarian, and rooted in the land.[2][9] Researcher Dalia Bar-Or has argued that ATA's clothing contributed to the formation of Israeli national identity by fusing fashion, nationalism, pioneering, and Zionism into everyday dress.[9]

In December 1984, writer Amos Kenan published an article titled "The State Is ATA," reflecting the broader sense that the threatened closure marked the end of an era.[2] The factory was also notable in industrial terms: it was described as the country's first integrated cotton plant, handling spinning, weaving, dyeing, and finishing, and it had grown by the mid-1930s into the largest textile factory in the Middle East.[1][6]

The ATA brand was revived decades after the factory's closure. Businessman Shahar Segal, inspired by an ATA museum exhibition, acquired the rights to the name and logo and opened a new store at the corner of Allenby and Montefiore streets in Tel Aviv on April 12, 2016.[3] Working with designer Yael Shenberger, the relaunch produced near-replicas of classic ATA items — Shabbat shirts, work shirts, jackets, and "shiber" shorts — alongside a second group of Shenberger's own designs, including sweatshirts, jeans, dresses, and long coats.[8] The historic patterns had been cut square to save fabric, and scraps had been used for children's clothing; the relaunch adapted designs with larger pockets and tested them on bicycles for contemporary practicality.[8]

By 2023, the relaunched ATA label continued to release clothing including blue cargo pants, sarfan dresses, festive Shabbat shirts, and bucket hats, presented as a continuation of a distinctively Israeli style.[13]

Several details surrounding ATA's history rest on sources that do not entirely agree with one another. The 2011 Jerusalem Post account names cousins Erich and Hans Moeller as co-founders.[5] A 2018 Jerusalem Post article names Erich Moller alone,[14] while an Israeli Ministry of Education resource attributes the factory's establishment to the Muller family collectively.[7]

Ownership chronology also varies: one account places the acquisition by Tibor Rosenbaum's investor group in 1962 following Hans Moller's death, while Globes dates the sale of control to a Swiss businessman to 1964.[2][11] Similarly, Ynet gives the precise closure date as June 2, 1985, whereas Globes describes it as occurring in May 1985.[2][11]

The Israeli Ministry of Education resource contains internally inconsistent dates and figures that are difficult to reconcile with one another or with the better-documented record from other sources; its account should be read with that caveat in mind.[7] A Ynet account also notes that ATA's sale of uniforms to Germany in the 1960s was regarded as controversial, though the available sources do not elaborate on the nature of that controversy.[2]