www.machal.org.il
During Israel’s War of Independence, over 4500 overseas volunteers from 58 countries - men and women; Jews and non-Jews - rallied to the defense of the nascent Jewish State.  They were known as MACHAL (Mitnadvei Chutz L’Aretz), the Hebrew acronym for Overseas Volunteers.

An annual ceremony is held at the Machal memorial on the Burma Road in the Shaar Hagai forest to honor the 123 Machalniks who were killed or went missing-in-action during the war.  Many others were wounded, and some were taken prisoners-of-war. 

Inspired by Smoky Simon, chairman of World Machal, and making liberal use of the extensive material accumulated by David (Migdal) Teperson in his home museum, a small dedicated team of volunteers has been working for over a year on the creation of the World Machal website. The objective is to record for posterity authentic personal stories of participants in Aliyah Bet, the 1948 War of Independence, and the 1956-1967 period as seen through the eyes of Machal volunteers from overseas. 

Whereas the available history books depend on interpretation of archival documents, the Machal website contains a wealth of factual material by persons directly involved in the events, much of it disproving the distortions perpetrated by the New Historians.

It has been and continues to be a very moving experience for me, as project leader of the team that created and is still working on this site, to receive contributions containing spellbinding details that are not recorded in any history books. They include personal experiences not only in the War of Independence, but also in the pre-state clandestine operations in Europe, smuggling Holocaust survivors into what was then still Palestine, the illegal acquisition of arms and aircraft and stories by people who served on the Exodus and the Altalena, as well as those who assembled decrepit Avia (Messerschmitt) aircraft in Czechoslovakia, and the hazardous manner in which they brought them to Israel.  

The stories make educational and absorbing reading. For samples I suggest you read a speech by Smoky Simon, formerly Chief of Air Operations in Israel's War of Independence, summarizing the Machal story; how Lou Lenart, Ezer Weitzman, Modi Alon and Eddie Cohen, manning our entire fleet of fighter aircraft comprising four newly assembled and untested Avia planes, halted the Egyptian advance on Tel Aviv by attacking them at Ashdod (sadly Eddie Cohen was killed in that battle); how Israel's first radar was created from bits and pieces of scrapped equipment  and how the antenna was rotated by means of bicycle pedals; about non-Jewish South African Machalnik Butch Bottger, who changed his name officially to Butch Ben-Yok; Zipporah Porath's letters written from Jerusalem during the harshest days of the siege; Michael Brecker's detailed account of the traumatizing Altalena Affair as seen by a volunteer aboard the ship; about David Teperson, who established the Machal Museum and has served continuously in the Israel army since 1948; how Al Schwimmer was eventually pardoned by President Clinton for his "crime" of acquiring aircraft for the nascent Israel Air Force in 1948; about The War of Independence in a nutshell; about  Charles Weiss  who played an active role in Aliya Bet on board a tiny ship (600 tons, 205 feet long), built for the Spanish-American War and how, in an operation that took all of 20 minutes, they loaded 700 refugees. "Then three fishing boats tied up to port, starboard and stern. Without a word, hundreds of mysterious figures tumbled out onto the deck and were quickly shown where they were to bunk. Now they had over 1400 people on board and were setting out for Eretz Yisrael," Weiss writes. "This was the first time I had come directly in contact with the people who had lived through the atrocities I had seen on newsreels and read about in the papers.  How do you relate to them?" 

The site is still under construction and new material is added continuously.

I take this opportunity to thank the team members who have been working on the material for the site, comprising editors of the 1947 – 1949 section: Zipporah Porath, Joe Woolf, Doreen Bliss and Meera Jacobson, as well as editors of the 1956 - 1967 section: Doddie Gordon, Tzemach Bloomberg and Harry Shaer.  Doddie was also responsible for the graphic design. Thanks too, to our valued technical consultant, Dave Bloom.