Yosef Avidar

Yosef Avidar was born Yosef Rokhel in Kremenets, in what is today Ukraine, in 1906.[1][2] He was the youngest of five children in the Rokhel family.[1] His father was a traditional Jewish merchant and Talmud scholar, and his mother read Hebrew.[1] Avidar attended a Hebrew school where he learned the language with Sephardic pronunciation.[1]

In 1925, Avidar immigrated to the Land of Israel.[1] One week after arriving, he joined the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary organization operating under the British Mandate, and soon became one of its leading members.[1] His wife was the author Yemima Tchernovitz-Avidar.[2] The name Avidar itself was an abbreviation of "Avi Dine and Rama," the names of the couple's two daughters.[1]

Avidar served as a member of the Haganah High Command from 1937 to 1946, with particular responsibility for the supply of military equipment.[4] His underground work began much earlier: in 1929, he participated in defending the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem's Old City during the Arab riots.[1] During a secret training exercise for Haganah members, a grenade exploded in his hand, causing him to lose his right hand.[1][2] He was transferred covertly to a hospital to avoid detection by the British authorities and continued his clandestine activities afterward, using aliases including Yosef Biberman and Finkelshteyn and posing as a building-site merchant.[1] The injury earned him the nickname "the amputee."[2]

A Kremenets community memorial account credits Avidar and other members of his group with helping to establish eleven new outposts in the Negev overnight in October 1946, during a period when the Mandate authorities were restricting Jewish land purchases.[1] The same account states that, as United Nations deliberations over partition began in 1947, he was assigned responsibility for obtaining military equipment for the emerging Jewish state.[1] Shortly before Israel's establishment, he helped bring in the first 20-millimeter cannons for the state's forces, which had to be unloaded in secret.[1] During the siege of Jerusalem, Avidar also took part in efforts to supply food to the city when the road had been cut off.[1]

On June 27, 1948, Joseph Avidar (Rochel) was among the senior commanders who took part in the swearing-in ceremony for department and corps heads of the newly formed Israel Defense Forces, pledging allegiance to the State of Israel, its laws, and the discipline of the IDF.[5] He subsequently served as commandant of the northern front, with headquarters in Nazareth, before being transferred to the IDF's central headquarters.[1] He completed a course for senior officers in England and undertook a military goodwill mission to Yugoslavia.[1] When the State of Israel was established, he received the rank of general in the Israel Defense Forces.[6] A September 1948 Haaretz article identifies him by the Hebrew rank aluf, generally rendered as major general.[7]

Among Avidar's most consequential contributions to the pre-state Jewish military effort was his initiation of the Ayalon Institute, a clandestine ammunition factory established in 1945.[3] Yehudah Arazi assisted by smuggling machinery from Poland, while Pesach Ayalon headed the project on the ground.[3] The factory was built entirely underground at Givat HaKibbutzim, near Rehovot, to produce ammunition without attracting the attention of the British Mandatory authorities.[3]

The underground facility manufactured 9 mm ammunition for a locally produced version of the British Sten submachine gun, which the Haganah's military industry had been producing but for which bullets were in critically short supply.[3] The concealment was elaborate: above ground, the site presented an apparently ordinary kibbutz facility—a laundry, bakery, carpentry shop, and vegetable garden—while the laundry operated continuously to mask the factory's noise.[3] Over three years of operation, the factory produced approximately 2.25 million 9 mm bullets, ammunition described as vital to the Israeli army during the first phase of the War of Independence.[3]

By the end of June 1948, after the British had departed and the immediate threat to central Israel had diminished, the underground factory was no longer needed and its machinery was moved elsewhere.[3] The IDF's Science Corps replaced the workers at Givat HaKibbutzim and maintained the site's secrecy.[3] The story of the Ayalon Institute remained unknown to the public until 1975, thirty years after its founding.[3] On October 29, 1987, the former underground factory was officially designated a national preservation site.[3]

After leaving active military service, Avidar entered Israel's diplomatic corps.[1] He served first as Israel's ambassador to the Soviet Union and then as ambassador or diplomatic representative in Argentina.[1] During the couple's posting in Argentina, he and his wife maintained close ties with the Kremenets community.[1] The Argentine government awarded him a high medal of honor, although the Kremenets account does not identify the decoration or provide a date.[1]

Avidar later served as director of Israel's Government Companies Authority.[6] The Federation council unanimously selected him as its comptroller beginning on August 1, 1968; the same notice stated that he lived in Jerusalem.[6]

Avidar documented his experiences in a memoir titled On the Road to Tsahal, published by Ma'arakhot.[8] The work covered his Haganah activities from their beginning through the establishment of the Israel Defense Forces.[8] A notice in Voice of Kremenets Emigrants stated that the book had received favorable press reviews and responses at gatherings where Avidar discussed his memories. The notice characterized it as rich in historical facts and written in an accessible, captivating style.[8]

Avidar was one of the founders of the Haganah and one of its senior commanders.[2] His role in initiating the Ayalon Institute—a project whose ammunition was described as vital to the Israeli army during the first phase of the War of Independence—is a prominent part of his military legacy.[3][2] Yosef Avidar died in 1995.[2]