each successive stage as we crossed the Galilee, I realized that it was also

each successive stage as we crossed the Galilee, I realized that it was also something that I was naturally good at. Still, the closest thing to real military activity remained my excurions with Ido and Moshe. Our ammunition trunks were stowed under our beds. But the final piece of our arsenal fell into place in May 1958. For the tenth anniversary of Israel, there was a national exhibition celebrating the achievements of the state. I paid a first visit on my own. I was curious to see what was on show. But as I walked through, I couldn’t help noticing the lack of security. Two days later, I returned with Ido and Moshe. There was a stand devoted to the Israeli military industry. We already had a supply of ammunition for an Uzi submachine gun, courtesy of our raid on the Alexandroni Brigade. Now, when the guy in charge of the stand was chatting with other visitors, we came away with an Uzi. It was then the trouble began. Along with Ido, Moshe and the other older boys, I now lived in a larger dormitory under the cursory gaze of an older metapelet. She was doing routine cleaning when she decided to dust around the boxes under our beds. She’d never given them much thought. But when she tried to move one of them, she was amazed by its weight. She got one her sons- in-law to help. I think the box he pried open first was Moshe’s. But within a few minutes he’d opened Ido’s and mine as well. Inside each were hundreds of bullets and the machine-gun belts. Inside mine was our prized Uzi. It would not exactly have taken the KGB to work out the rest. The kibbutz leaders ordered an inquiry. Ido was summoned first, and attempted a brief show of defiance. “What’s the big deal,” he asked. “It’s just stuff we collected. Why should you care?” But separately questioning Moshe, then Ido again, the inquisitors worked out every detail. The fact that the ammunition had come from the Alexandroni Brigade, the reservists sent to defend us, was bad enough. But the Uzi had been stolen from the National Exhibition. That was even worse. It was left to the core of young men in their late 20s and 30s to figure out how to punish us. Everyone agreed we could not be reported to the police. That would risk a scandal for the kibbutz. They decided to beat some sense into the offenders, in front of all the rest of the teenagers in the dormitory. I wasn’t there. One afternoon each week, I now boarded a bus into Tel Aviv for my piano lesson. But when I returned after sundown, I sensed immediately something was wrong. Yigal was waiting at the bus stop outside the kibbutz. He told me that what I had done was terrible. Not just because it involved weapons, but because it was a breach of trust. Did you really steal ammunition from the 44 HOUSE OVERSIGHT 011515