Gallery
1947 in the British Mandate of Palestine
Aviron Palestine Aviation Company [1] was established in April 1936 in Mandatory Palestine. The company was intended to train pilots and then operate a mainly internal airline, which would serve the security needs of the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine. [2] [3]
Aviron is the word for airplane invented in 1908 either by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda or by his son Itamar Ben-Avi, the first native speaker of Modern Hebrew. In the second half of 20th century, it fell out of use in favour of matos, invented in 1928 by Hayim Nahman Bialik. [4]
The Aviron airline company was established in 1936 by Dov Hoz and Yitzhak Ben Ya'akov, [2] one of the first members of Degania, at the initiative of the Histadrut trade union association and the Jewish Agency. [3] At its beginnings, Aviron was based in three kibbutzim in the northern Jordan Valley, with the flight school in the attic of the cowshed at Degania Alef, an improvised airstrip at Afikim, and a hangar at Ashdot Ya'akov. [3] In 1938, Aviron opened a flight school and held its first graduation ceremony of fifteen Jewish pilots on 21 April 1939.
Two years previously, in 1934, Zionist officials who dealt with Jewish immigration from Poland obtained from David Ben-Gurion, who acted on behalf of the Jewish Agency, the money for buying a de Havilland Tiger Moth. [5] The airplane arrived in October that year, flown by a British instructor-pilot. [5]
During the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, Aviron assisted the Haganah in reconnaissance missions and the transfer of supplies and medical aid to otherwise inaccessible settlements. [6]
Besides two teaching planes, the company operated two aircraft with three passenger seats and two with two passenger seats, offering a daily service between Lydda, Haifa and Tiberias.
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war became a war of separate states with the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948, the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight, and the entry of a military coalition of Arab states into the territory of Mandatory Palestine the following morning. The war formally ended with the 1949 Armistice Agreements which established the Green Line.
Haganah was the main Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the region, and was formally disbanded in 1948, when it became the core force integrated into the Israel Defense Forces shortly after the Israeli Declaration of Independence.
Dov Hoz was a leader of the Labor Zionism movement, one of the founders of the Haganah organization, and a pioneer of Israeli aviation.
Sde Dov Airport, also known as Dov Hoz Airport was an airport in Tel Aviv, Israel that mainly handled scheduled domestic flights to Eilat, northern Israel, as well as having served as a base for the Israeli Air Force (IAF). It was the largest airport in Tel Aviv proper, and the second largest in the area, after Ben Gurion Airport on the outskirts of Lod. The airport opened in 1938 and was named after Dov Hoz, one of the pioneers of Jewish aviation. It ceased operations on 30 June 2019 after a controversial, long-delayed plan came into effect to close the airport in order to build high-end residential apartments on its valuable beachfront property. Commercial flights were moved to Ben Gurion Airport and military flights were moved to other IAF bases. The airport was a focus city for Arkia Israel Airlines and Israir Airlines.
Degania Alef is a kibbutz in northern Israel. The Jewish communal settlement (kvutza) was founded in 1910, making it the earliest socialist Zionist farming commune in the Land of Israel. Its status as "the mother of all kibbutzim" is sometimes contested based on a later distinction made between the smaller kvutza, applying to Degania in its beginnings, and the larger kibbutz.
Mahal, more often spelled Machal, refers to the group of overseas volunteers who fought alongside Israeli forces during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Some 4,000 volunteers, mostly Jews but also non-Jews, arrived from all over the world. Mahal is an acronym of מתנדבי חוץ לארץ.
The Mossad LeAliyah Bet was a branch of the paramilitary organization Haganah in British Mandatory Palestine, and later the State of Israel, that operated to facilitate Jewish immigration to British Palestine. During the Mandate period, it was facilitating illegal immigration in violation of governmental British restrictions. It operated from 1938 until four years after the founding of the State of Israel in 1952. It was funded directly by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, and was not subject to the control of the Jewish Agency who operated their own Aliyah department headed by Yitzhak Rafael.
The Sherut Avir was the air force of the Haganah and the forerunner of the Israeli Air Force.
During the 1948 Palestine war in which the State of Israel was established, around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs or 85% of the total population of the territory Israel captured fled or were expelled from their homes by Israeli forces. The causes for this mass displacement is a matter of great controversy among historians, journalists, and commentators.
Shlomo Hillel was an Iraqi-born Israeli diplomat and politician who served as Speaker of the Knesset, Minister of Police, Minister of Internal Affairs, and ambassador to several countries in Africa. As an agent of the Mossad LeAliyah Bet in the late 1940s and early 1950s, he arranged the mass airlift of Iraqi Jews to Israel known as Operation Ezra and Nehemiah.
The Battles of the Kinarot Valley, is a collective name for a series of military engagements between the Haganah and the Syrian army during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, fought between 15–22 May 1948 in the Kinarot Valley. It includes two main sites: the Battle of Degania–Samakh (Tzemah), and battles near Masada–Sha'ar HaGolan. The engagements were part of the battles of the Jordan Valley, which also saw fighting against Transjordan in the area of Gesher.
Mordechai Ben-Porat was an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset in two spells between 1965 until 1984, and as Minister without Portfolio from July 1982 until January 1984. During his four terms in the Knesset, he represented five different parties.
The Palavir, an acronym for Plugat HaAvir was the air force for the Palmach, based in Tel Aviv. Little is known about the Palmach's flying platoon due to its short life and its secrecy during the British Mandate. Like the rest of the Palmach it was made up entirely of Jewish fighters.
Pinchas ("Pini") Ben-Porat was one of Israel's first aviators. He was involved in the Palavir, Sherut Avir, the IAF's 101 Squadron, and EL AL.
Yosef Baratz was a Zionist activist and Israeli politician.
Avraham Shekhterman was an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Gahal and Likud between 1969 and 1977. He was the older brother of Herzl Shafir, a former IDF general.
Events in the year 1940 in the British Mandate of Palestine.
Events in the year 1919 in British-administered Palestine.
Ihud was a small binationalist Zionist political party founded by Judah Leon Magnes, Martin Buber, Ernst Simon and Henrietta Szold, former supporters of Brit Shalom, in 1942 as a binational response to the Biltmore Conference, which made the establishment of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine the policy of the Zionist movement. Other prominent members were David Werner Senator, Moshe Smilansky, agronomist Haim Margaliot-Kalvarisky (1868–1947), and Judge Joseph Moshe Valero.
Palestine Airways was an airline founded by Zionist Pinhas Rutenberg in British Palestine, in conjunction with the Histadrut and the Jewish Agency. In 1937 the airline was taken over by British Government's Air Ministry, with the intention of it eventually being transferred back into private hands.
