Day 9 - Independance Hall and a tour of a bullet factory

New day, new tour and new tour guide with more interesting facts about Israel (and some conflicting facts from the first guide we had. So let’s start with the conflicting facts:

• Conflicting fact #1 – So we were originally told that Israel was the number 2 largest technology country in the world. Well apparently some other up and coming country called China took second spot this year moving Israel to the number 3 spot.
• Conflicting fact #2 – Our new guide says that it is 65% of the worlds diamonds that go through Israel, not 70%. I’m going to go with 67.5% to be safe

And now on to some new facts:

• Israel has the 4th largest military airforce in the world
• Israel makes their own tanks
• Israel recycles 80% of it’s water. Spain is number 2 in the world at 20%
• 6.3 million Jews live in Israel
• Tel Aviv has more shopping malls than Houston, Texas (who researches this stuff?)

Enough for today.

So after a great breakfast we set out to tour Independence Hall, where on May 14, 1948, Israel declared itself an independent nation. The following day Arab armies from 5 countries surrounding Israel attacked. A year and a half later after the loss of 1% of the Israeli population, an armistice agreement was signed.

At the hall we saw photographs and an audio recording of the events of that day in May.

From Independence Hall,  we trucked off to a kibbutz which was used to camouflage a bullet factory for the Israeli Hagana (army). 2 ½ million bullets were produced here prior to 1948 in an underground bunker below the laundry and bakery buildings on the kibbutz and under the noses of the British authorities at the time. Workers would sneak into the laundry building and slip down a couple stories into the factory (something similar to what some of us have seen on Hogan’s Hero’s – but more serious). While the people in the Kibbutz were washing the British army’s clothing, below the washing machine, people were making bullet’s for the upcoming war with the Arab’s. The ingenuity of the Israelis has to be admired (they even had a tanning bed in the bunker so that the British would be convinced the workers had been in the fields all day - note to my Irish buddy, Andy, I’m sure the Irish would not have fallen for this).

After the tour of the bullet factory, the kids in our group attended a dig (of course kids forget to take photographs) and the adults went to the Diaspora Museum to explore more about the history of Israel.

Dinner tonight was again fantastic with a little bit of dancing as well. Tried to video it but no success (lighting, actors etc.) so called it a night at 10:00.