Reclaiming Israel

Chaim Weizmann came to fame not as Israel's first President – that was later – but through his scientific breakthrough of using the bacterium Clostridium acetobutylicum to generate acetone – a key ingredient to explosives. His work gave the Allies a decisive advantage in World War I and from his work, he gained notoriety he later leveraged on behalf of the World Zionist Organization and later the fledgling State of Israel.

However, his work in the area of industrial fermentation – later led to another breakthrough that was important for Israel – water reclamation. Using particular bacterial strains to drive the process, Israel can turn sewage into potable-grade water (although it claims not to actually use it for tap water due to public opinion). Thus a country short on water received one of its many methods of maximizing scarce water from one of its founding fathers.

Not surprisingly, while Israel has taken many opportunities to memorialize Dr Weizmann for his political contributions, it also named one of its top scientific research universities the Weizmann Institute – where incredible advances in chemistry, physics and the bio-sciences continue today.

And there, within its Rehovot campus is a hands-on science learning experience for children, where we went today. Bailey, Hayden, Sennen and Ailyn had the opportunity to freely interact with the many exhibits at the Close Garden of Science by themselves before a guide came to demonstrate some of the exhibits and teach their scientific principles. Bailey and Hayden experienced the gravity of the moon, while Sennen and Ailyn talked across concave sound-wave bouncing dishes – among many other activities.

After a very fun visit at the Weizmann campus, we drove only a few minutes to another important site in Rehovot – the Ayalon Institute which has preserved the kibbutz on which Jewish forces secretly produced more than 2.5 million bullets in preparation for the Israeli War of Independence. In the 1940's, as it became clear that at some point, Britain would eventually relinquish their Palestinian Mandate, Jews formed an underground fighting force called the Haganah, the predecessor to today's Israeli Defense Force (IDF). The British prohibited any trafficking or production of arms in Palestine and officially supported neither Jewish nor Arab claims to independence or post-war sovereignty. However, the British administration in Palestine leaned toward the Arab side.

Thus the Haganah had to solve one of its top problems – supplying sufficient arms to its troops – in secret. And it did – in a small, sleepy kibbutz in Rehovot. Only underneath the laundry and bakery facilities was an ammunition factory operated by 45, later 46 people working in top secret. Even most of the residents of the kibbutz – including some of the workers' spouses – were unaware of the both figurative and literal underground project. Setting up the factory involved smuggling equipment from Warsaw through French controlled Beirut and eventually into Palestine while the noisy production of bullets for 10 hours a day required large and noisy laundry and baking equipment. Ammunition testing even involved waiting until nearby trains were passing to help mask the sound. It went on for years and was a critical factor to the Haganah's successes in 1948 which kept the neighboring Arab states from eliminating the newly born Israeli state.

While most of us found the story of secrecy and the efforts to support a rising Jewish state very interesting, Ailyn was concerned that there could be bullets that would hurt her beloved cousin Bailey. She was worried that soldiers would hurt Bailey and required a lot of reassurance that everything was safe. 

On the ride from Rehovot back to Tel Aviv, the family spent some time discussing the circumstances around Israel's creation as adults and children alike were left with many questions and needing a quick primer.

The afternoon continued with more focus on the creation of the modern Israeli state with Susan, Jack, Molly, Hugo and Bailey going to the Palmach Museum – which focuses on how the Haganah's elite fighting force – Palmach – was formed and played a pivotal role in the formation of Israel. The museum aims to bring visitors inside the experience of the Palmach and the War of Independence. 

Unfortunately, the museum was not an option for Ailyn and didn't make much sense for Sennen and Hayden. Emily desperately needed to get some online work done – so our guide Dina and I took the kids to lunch at a nearby sushi restaurant.

After liberating Jerusalem, our Palmach family members picked up my group and we all went to the very vibrant Rothschild Blvd area where we a birthday gift card for Susan to enjoy an afternoon dessert treat at Max Brenner's Chocolate cafe. In the forms of milkshakes, banana splits on waffles, pan-baked cookies, ice cream and lava cake, we all enjoyed Israeli chocolatier Max Brenner's incredible creations before wandering Boulevard Rothschild for awhile – where we got a feel for Tel Aviv life, architecture and some Independence history.

And so this day planned around the theme of the creation of the modern Jewish state came to an end, to be capped off later with a lovely sunset dinner on the beach.

But for Sennen, a day simply about secular topics was insufficient. Yesterday's tour of Jaffa included one small reference to King David – onto which Sennen's mind latched. On the ride to the Weizmann Institute he sat himself in the second row of the bus to ask questions of Dina, starting with "What good things and what bad things did King David do?" This launched a conversation around King David and related stories and history. When Dina digressed to focus on Weizmann and to set the stage for what we would experience ahead at the Weizmann Institute, Sennen waited, listened patiently and as she came to a pause, said, "So, back to King David…" extracting information until he was satisfied enough. Dina also deferred more about King David for our days in Jerusalem where there would be direct context for those stories.

It was of course a good reminder that defining the story of the modern state of Israel is a tricky business. Because depending on who you are and how you view it, it began when David conquered what is now Jerusalem and then insisted on paying its inhabitants so that he had legal rights to the land. Or when the Ottoman Empire allowed the building of Jewish settlements in its neglected Palestine province. Or when the British signed the Balfour Declaration (and of course when they created conflict via the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence). There are ancient and modern arguments and moments alike that form the Israeli's state story and today we touched on just an important few of them.