Victory Equipment and Supply Company - Rappaport's Bottle Exchange

1948 - 1949
9220 St. Laurent

The Victory Equipment and Supply Company, based in a small office at 422 McGill Street (now 420 McGill) in Old Montreal, was a shell corporation created during Israel's War of Independence in 1948–1949. Its sole purpose was to smuggle weapons to Jews in British Mandate Palestine and then Israel, during the war that followed its declaration of independence. The Victory Company, as well as many similar organizations in the United States and around the world, helped supporters of the new Jewish state skirt arms embargoes.

The Victory Company was founded by several men active in the Canadian Zionist cause, including Samuel Schwisberg, Joe Frank, and Joseph Loewenson, who organized and directed the purchasing and exporting operations in conjunction with fellow Zionists based in New York. Loewenson was eventually replaced as secretary-treasurer – and sole employee – of the company by Joe Baumholz, a McGill engineering student, whose communications and networking abilities made him ideal for the job. Baumholz, in turn, was aided by David Harris, a businessman who had done similar work in the United States until he left under threat of being arrested by the FBI.

Baumholz arranged Victory’s operations so that it could raise money legally from several Zionist organizations and then purchase arms and other necessities from private dealers. With volunteers from local Zionist youth groups, Baumholz collected, packed, and shipped the goods, often at Rappaport’s Bottle and Supply Company at 9220 Boulevard St. Laurent. From the warehouse, the shipment would be taken by rail or by truck to the Montreal harbour, where a freighter would be waiting to take the goods across the Atlantic.

The Victory Equipment and Supply Company was part of a worldwide effort to surreptitiously aid the effort to create a Jewish state in the Middle East. The Montreal Jewish community, though largely ignorant of these illegal activities at the time, was firmly behind the Zionist project, and even unknowingly played a key role in its realization.

Compiled by Richard Kreitner

Links

Liens

Sources

Azrieli, David, Joe King, and Gil Troy. Rekindling the Torch: The Story of Canadian Zionism. Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2008.

Baumholz, Joe. Memory’s Heart. Montreal: Unpublished Memoir, 1993.

Bercuson, David J. The Secret Army. Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1983.

*Image courtesy of IMJM.

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