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Advertising in The Jewish News Gets Results
Place Your Ad Today. Call 354-6060

1

78

Friday, October 3, 1986

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

NEWS

Burma Road, Lifeline
To Jerusalem, Reopens

SHIMON BEN NOACH

Special to The Jewish News

he stretch of highway
by the Latrun Monas-
tery is a favorite
haunt for police on the look-
out for motorists breaking
the speed limit on the road
between Jerusalem and Tel
Aviv. Back in 1948 travelers
were threatened by a more
sinister menace around Lat-
run: Arab gunmen would
often ambush Jewish con-
voys. As a consequence, the
road was closed in 1948 and a
new winding route to
Jerusalem was constructed in
its place.
Those who today drive be-
tween Israel's two principal
cities take the 45 minute
journey for granted. The sec-
tion near Latrun is particu-
larly attractive with pine for-
ests sloping up towards the
foothills of the Judean Moun-
tains. Winding through the
forest is the Burma Road, a
track which enabled the Is-
raeli Army to lift the siege of
Jerusalem in 1948 and
ensure that the city would be
a part of the newly-born
Jewish State.
Now the Burma Road has
been reopened. Indeed, it has
been rediscoverd. For though
all Israelis know the vital
strategic importance that the
road played in the War of In-
dependence, very few knew,
until recently, exactly where
the road actually is.
As part of a course in Is-
rael's battle history, an IDF
Cadet School near the Burma
Road decided to retrace the
famous route. Concerned by
the anonymity and disrepair
of the ten mile stretch of dirt
track, local army instructors
turned to the JNF, who
agreed to repair parts of the
track and erect signs indicat-
ing where the Burma Road
ran.
The recent ceremonial
opening of the renovated
Burma Road brought back to
the public eye the three Pal-
mach reconnaissance experts
who discovered the vital pas-
sage to Jerusalem. They were
Arye Tepper, a retired soldier
now living in Ramat Hasha-
ron, Yair Mundlak, a profes-
sor of agricultural economics
at the Hebrew University,
and Shlomo Ish-Shalom, a
member of Kibbutz Bet
Alpha.
Tepper recalled that at the
beginning of May 1948 a
large convoy was attacked
near Latrun and Prime
Minister David Ben Gurion
ordered that all vehicles were
to cease using the road. Thus
Jerusalem was completely cut
off from the rest of Israel.
Tepper himself was in
Jerusalem, dismayed by the
situation. An intelligence
officer in the Sixth Brigade of
the Palmach, he had learned
the tricks of the reconnais-
sance trade when serving

T

with Maize in the Galilee. He
was a hardy soul who was
familiar with the terrain be-
tween Jerusalem and Tel
Aviv. Once he had even
walked at night from Tel
Aviv to Jerusalem because he
had no money for bus fare.
"I went with Yair and
Shlomo," Tepper recollects,
"to see Yitzhak Rabin, who
was then commander of the
Harel Brigade. We told him
that we were fed up with
hanging around Jerusalem
and we wanted to attempt to
find a way through to Tel
Aviv. He asked us to wait for
two days and if Jerusalem
remained under siege we had
his permission to try."

"We told the
people we had
arrived from
Jerusalem .. .
(They thought) we
were pulling their
legs."

When Jerusalem was not
relieved, the trio set out
towards the coast. A full
moon helped them see where
they were going but also left
them more vulnerable to
Arab Legion snipers who had
infiltrated into the area. In
fact as they entered the first
part of what was to become
known as the Burma Road,
Arab soldiers passing nearby
heard them and began shoot-
ing in their direction. They
headed for cover and then
stole past unharmed. The rest
of the journey was completed
without incident, as they dis-
covered a path large enough
for jeeps which wove around
the hills past what is today
Kibbutz Harel and Kibbutz
Nachshon.
"Eventually we reached
Kibbutz Hulda," Tepper says.
"We entered the southern
gate and told the people that
we had arrived from
Jerusalem. They gave us
some strange looks, thinking
we were pulling their legs. I
then left Yair and Shlomo
and continued to Tel Aviv
where I went straight to
Palmach headquarters to re-
port our discovery."
From there a telegram was
sent to Yitzhak Rabin in
Jerusalem that Tepper had
arrived safely. Rabin replied
immediately that supplies
should be sent urgently via
the new route to Jerusalem.
On May 28, 150 soldiers
and civilian volunteers car-
ried sacks of flour and
badly-needed ammunition to
Jerusalem and within a few
weeks IDE' . engineers con-
structed a road capable of
supporting jeeps. When the
ceasefire was agreed on with
the Arab Legion in June, it
meant that Israel did not
have to negotiate for the