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The Palyam, established in 1943 and disbanded in March of 1948 following the establishment of the Naval Service (the precursor of the Israeli Navy), was the naval company of the Palmach/Hagana. Its members commanded the ships of post WW-II Aliya Bet - the organized clandestine immigration of Jews to Eretz Israel between 1945 and 1948
during the British rule in Palestine/Eretz Israel, carried out sabotage operations against the British Navy in support of Aliya Bet, fought and lost 70 of their members in the battle over
besieged Jerusalem,
escorted the arms ships that brought badly needed weapons to Israel before & during the Independence War, and comprised the ranks and files of the newly-born Israeli Navy.
Three Palyam veterans -- Yehuda Ben-tzur, Pini Ashuach and Yoske Rom -- took an initiative in mid-2006 and established a website to preserve the heritage of the Palyam, but due to lack of resources their website (www.pbase.com/palyam - 'The Palyam Website') was
based on inadequate technology and eventually was abandoned. The initiative and technical know-how of Tzvi Ben-tzur enabled him to establish, in early 2007, a substitute website - 'The Palyam & Aliya Bet Website' that you are currently visiting. Yehuda & Yoske
joined the development effort (note: Yoske, who had a significant contribution to the development of the website, ceased his activity in May 2010).
The people who are active nowadays in developing and maintaining the website are Yehuda ("Pere") Ben-tzur (research, content & editing, communication with the general public),
Tzvi Ben-tzur (website design, content & editing, webmaster), Aryeh Malkin and Nava Goren (translation and readproofing).
Feel free to contact us by clicking here.
All work related to the development of this website is done on a volunteering basis.
From the beginning, we enjoyed the support of many Palyam veterans and we thank them for that.
We thank The Hertzl Institute for Research & Study of Zionism at the University of Haifa for sponsoring the website (with special thanks to Prof. Yoav Gelber). We also deeply thank other voluneers and the people who have prepared and/or contributed
material to the website.
Our goal is to preserve the heritage of Aliya Bet (Ha'apala) and the Palyam.
We provide a media for the veterans of Aliya Bet and the Palyam to publish their individual stories. As a repository to hundreds of stories, research articles, maps, and testimonies, this website should be of great
value to those who have interest in some of the most important and exciting events leading to the establishment of the
State of Israel in 1948.
We acknowledge and respect the contribution to Aliya Bet of all organizations, groups and individuals, including the immigrants (ma'apilim) themselves. We invite people to submit relevant stories/articles, and we would be glad
to publish them (subject of course to our judgement that stories are genuine
and accurately reference historical events).
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