Borders of Jerusalem
Today's post is purely informative; we'll leave any and all narrative to the readers.
Below is a section of a map which was drawn in 1949, and is filed in ג-3013/12, which comes from Ben Gurion's office and deals with matters of mass immigration in 1949-1953. The full map contains proposals for settling the large numbers of new immigrants. The section we're presenting, however, isn't about that; it's about the lines of 1947 and 1949 in the Jerusalem area.
The blue line is the intended border of the Corpus Separandum, the section of Mandatory Palestine which the United Nations didn't allocate to either side, Jews or Arabs, in the partition plan it adopted on November 29th 1947. The red line is a reasonable approximation of the 1949 armistice lines, referred to these days as the Green Line of 1967.
The little-known fact demonstrated by this map is that more than two thirds of the intended Corpus Seprandum lies outside the Green Line, in territory controlled between 1949-1967 by Jordan; and it includes the town of Bethlehem, as well as the area which today contains Maaleh Adumim.
Below is a section of a map which was drawn in 1949, and is filed in ג-3013/12, which comes from Ben Gurion's office and deals with matters of mass immigration in 1949-1953. The full map contains proposals for settling the large numbers of new immigrants. The section we're presenting, however, isn't about that; it's about the lines of 1947 and 1949 in the Jerusalem area.
The blue line is the intended border of the Corpus Separandum, the section of Mandatory Palestine which the United Nations didn't allocate to either side, Jews or Arabs, in the partition plan it adopted on November 29th 1947. The red line is a reasonable approximation of the 1949 armistice lines, referred to these days as the Green Line of 1967.
The little-known fact demonstrated by this map is that more than two thirds of the intended Corpus Seprandum lies outside the Green Line, in territory controlled between 1949-1967 by Jordan; and it includes the town of Bethlehem, as well as the area which today contains Maaleh Adumim.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Can We Substitute for Jerusalem? Pretty Pretty Please?
It's December 1947. The UN General Assembly has just adopted its resolution about the partitioning of Mandatory Palestine into three parts: a state for the Jews, a state for the Arabs, and Jerusalem and Bethlehem to be internationalized. The good burghers of Herzliya see a golden opportunity for their town, and they send off a proposal to the Jewish Agency, the effective government of the nascent Jewish state. Signed by one B.Z. Michaeli, the head of the local council, it starts off in a solemn but businesslike matter: "With great care and humility, aware of the gravity of the issue, in all due respect, we would like to suggest that our town be the capital of the new Jewish State."
Then there's a hurried retreat: "Of course the capital must be Jerusalem, our eternal capital and the city of our kings and Temple. If I come to speak of the capital, it's only as a temporary measure, specifically temporary, until the day when Jerusalem takes its rightful place..."
But still, the letter continues, look, if it can't be Jerusalem, Herzliya really would be a great alternative. We paraphrase the ensuing points:
1. We're named after Herzl!
2. We're in a quiet area, and even during the events [of 1936-39] there were no significant security issues here.
3. The city: Herzliya is outside the hustle and bustle of Tel Aviv, only a 20-minute ride. We're not even far from Jerusalem - 80 minutes - in case some institutions do remain there.
4. We're a progressive place, and various political factions live here with no tension.
5. There are open areas which could serve for future development.
6. A brief history: founded in 1924, four neighborhoods, lots of growth underway, we've got a school, nurserys, two banks, a labor committee, a water company; the town's budget in 1947 was 8,000 Pounds.
We're really serious about this. Did I mention Theodore Herzl?
Signed,
B.Z. Michaeli
Apparently no-one ever paid much attention. The consolation prize, however, seems to be that half a century later Herzliya became, and perhaps remains, the epi-center of Israel's large hi-tech industry. So also a capital of sorts.
Then there's a hurried retreat: "Of course the capital must be Jerusalem, our eternal capital and the city of our kings and Temple. If I come to speak of the capital, it's only as a temporary measure, specifically temporary, until the day when Jerusalem takes its rightful place..."
But still, the letter continues, look, if it can't be Jerusalem, Herzliya really would be a great alternative. We paraphrase the ensuing points:
1. We're named after Herzl!
2. We're in a quiet area, and even during the events [of 1936-39] there were no significant security issues here.
3. The city: Herzliya is outside the hustle and bustle of Tel Aviv, only a 20-minute ride. We're not even far from Jerusalem - 80 minutes - in case some institutions do remain there.
4. We're a progressive place, and various political factions live here with no tension.
5. There are open areas which could serve for future development.
6. A brief history: founded in 1924, four neighborhoods, lots of growth underway, we've got a school, nurserys, two banks, a labor committee, a water company; the town's budget in 1947 was 8,000 Pounds.
We're really serious about this. Did I mention Theodore Herzl?
Signed,
B.Z. Michaeli
Apparently no-one ever paid much attention. The consolation prize, however, seems to be that half a century later Herzliya became, and perhaps remains, the epi-center of Israel's large hi-tech industry. So also a capital of sorts.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
29th of November
It's no coincidence the the Palestinian Authority has chosen the 29th of November to launch its bid for recognition at the United Nations. The 29th of November, after all, is the anniversary of the day in 1947 when the UN adopted the plan to replace the British Mandate with a partition of the land between two states, a Jewish one and an Arab one.
The Israel State Archives has an interesting copy of the original scorecard of the General Assembly vote that day. It's a copy on which all the major actors later signed: Harry Truman, Haim Wiezman and many others. See if you can identify any of them, and tell us in the comments.
13 July 1953, Creating Facts: The Israeli Foreign Ministry Moves to Jerusalem
In July 1953 the Israeli Foreign Ministry was about to move its offices to Jerusalem. Israel's leaders knew that this was a controversial move, since, on 9 December1949, the UN General Assembly had passed Resolution 194 on the internationalization of Jerusalem under UN control. In 1947 Israel had accepted internationalization of Jerusalem as part of the Partition Plan. But after the Arabs rejected the plan and tried to prevent its implementation by force, Israel no longer felt bound by it.
On 5 December 1949 Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion declared in the Knesset that Jewish Jerusalem was an organic and inseparable part of the State of Israel. At that time Israel agreed to international supervision of the Holy Places, most of which were in any case under Jordanian rule. We've already shown here the draft of his statement Ben-Gurion sent to Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett, in which he threatened that Israel would leave the UN if the resolution was adopted.
On 5 December 1949 Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion declared in the Knesset that Jewish Jerusalem was an organic and inseparable part of the State of Israel. At that time Israel agreed to international supervision of the Holy Places, most of which were in any case under Jordanian rule. We've already shown here the draft of his statement Ben-Gurion sent to Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett, in which he threatened that Israel would leave the UN if the resolution was adopted.
After the resolution passed, despite opposition from Britain and the US, Ben-Gurion announced the transfer of the Knesset and the government ministries to Jerusalem. Sharett opposed the announcement and believed that there was no real danger of steps to carry out internationalization. He even threatened to resign – see his reaction here.
The Knesset and the Prime Minister's Office were transferred to Jerusalem immediately, but other government offices followed gradually. A complex of one storey bungalows in the Givat Ram area of Jerusalem was built to house the Foreign Ministry. Meanwhile Sharett ran the office from the Kirya government buildings in Tel Aviv. In May 1952 the move was announced, to be carried out in the summer of 1953.
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| Ben-Gurion, Sharett and Minister Moshe Shapira in the first Knesset building in Jerusalem (Frumin House), 1952 Photograph: Wikimedia |
In May 1953 the new US Secretary of State J.F. Dulles visited Israel as part of a tour of the Middle East. He hoped to organize an anti-Soviet defence organization similar to NATO but found little enthusiasm among the Arab states. During the trip he met Sharett, and, according to a letter sent to the secretary in July, the foreign minister told Dulles about the imminent move to Jerusalem, and the secretary did not protest. He asked that the move not take place while he was in the area, and suggested that Sharett repeat previous statements on Israel's attitude to the Holy Places. Sharett gave a statement in the Knesset recognizing Israel's obligations to protect the Christian Holy Places under its control.
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| Nuns crossing into Jordan at the Mandelbaum Gate Photograph: Fritz Cohen, Government Press Office |
On his return to the US, Dulles gave a radio speech on his tour. He said that the new Republican Administration should act to allay the fears of the Arabs and to restore the reputation of the US, which they believed was giving one sided support to Israel. He described his feelings on seeing Jerusalem, which was split into armed camps, but was above all a Holy Place. Dulles, son of a Presbyterian minister, said that the link to Jerusalem felt by religious groups all over the world was a claim preceding the political claims of Israel and Jordan. Headlines in the Israeli press claimed that he had supported the internationalization of the city, the return of some of the Arab refugees and the strengthening of the Arab League.
On June 7 the government discussed the speech. In Sharett's references to Jerusalem (pp. 5-9) he emphasized that there was no change in US policy. Israel could gain if the Holy Places were put under international control, as it might get access to the Western Wall and to Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem. He warned his colleagues against the illusion that unilateral action by Israel, and faits accomplis such as moving the government offices, could actually solve the problem of Jerusalem. The rest of the world, and especially the Catholic church, which had much influence in France and Latin America, did not accept Jerusalem as Israel's capital. The unclear situation could be exploited by the Arabs, even though they cared for the Holy Places "as the snows of yesteryear'. Ben-Gurion also commented on Dulles' speech but his comments centered on other issues.
In the guidelines he sent Israel's diplomatic representatives to explain the coming move, Sharett asked them to emphasize the practical reasons involved. He described at length the difficulties suffered by the Ministry staff, and especially the minister himself, in commuting between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and the harmful effects of their remoteness from the centre of decision making.
Sharett knew that the embassies would not leave Tel Aviv but did not expect any particular problem with official visits to the Ministry in Jerusalem. Arab protests were loud, as can be seen below.
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| The Foreign Ministry moves in, 9 July 1953. Photograph: Yehuda Eisenstark , Israel State Archives |
Gradually the ban was relaxed, and on Independence Day, 1954, most of the diplomatic corps attended the president's reception in Jerusalem.
Most diplomatic representations in Israel remain in the Tel Aviv area, but today all official visits by heads of state are received at the Foreign Ministry . The ministry remained in the hut complex for 50 years, until an impressive new building was opened in 2003 near the Supreme Court in Givat Ram.
Most diplomatic representations in Israel remain in the Tel Aviv area, but today all official visits by heads of state are received at the Foreign Ministry . The ministry remained in the hut complex for 50 years, until an impressive new building was opened in 2003 near the Supreme Court in Givat Ram.
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| The Foreign Ministry today Photographs: The Israeli Association for Diplomacy |
Sunday, June 23, 2013
89 New Settlements, and Another 77
There are a few important corners of Israel's state bureaucracy where one can get awesome things done quickly. The invention, development and deployment of the Iron Dome anti-projectile systems, for example, happened very quickly by the standards of any government project. Most of the time, however, executing large projects inside the official sphere is, how to put this, challenging.
All the more reason to observe with incredulity the rate at which Israel in its infancy managed to get things done. Today's document, for example, is a report by Raanan Weitz, head of the Settlement Department in the Jewish Agency, from June 14, 1949. (File ג-3013/12).
In the first six months of Israel's independence, according to Weitz, 35 settlements were founded. Then, in the ensuing 10 months or so, his department had created 54 settlements, in what was called "Series A". The cost of this activity had been 4,705,100 Lira (IL), and about 11,700 immigrants had been settled.
Just recently his officials had begun settling 1,010 families of new immigrants in 13 abandoned villages. He had "borrowed IL 250,000 for this from the next budget he was about to request, along with IL 171,750 which he had already used for series A, above the original allocation. (And note that he seems to have been informing that he'd already done this, not requesting permission. As in "I've already spent the money, now find a way to cover it.")
Having completed that, he was now requesting funds to launch "Series B". The plan here was to create 77 new settlements, for at least 3,000 families. The cost would be IL 3,676,750 (including the two above sums which had already been spent). The Series B settlements would be made up as follows: 22 settlements of pioneering youth; 22 settlements of demobilised soldiers (many of whom would have been new immigrants); 13 settlements for immigrants in abandoned villages; and 20 founded especially for their immigrant settlers.
The document then goes on for another 30-some pages with details about funds, expenditures, brief descriptions of each of the new settlements, and so on.
It might also be interesting to note that Weitz had no complexes about the abandoned villages. He's quite straightforward in talking about them and naming them, and he also doesn't agonize about how they came to be abandoned. Like everyone else at the time he was aware that the way of the world in the 1940s was that during and after wars populations were transferred from place to place; he remembered how the Arabs had trumpeted their intention to get rid of the Jews, and once the tables had been turned, he was getting on with life; his urgent task was to find somewhere to put the large numbers of Jews who were being transferred out of their homes and coming to Israel.
All the more reason to observe with incredulity the rate at which Israel in its infancy managed to get things done. Today's document, for example, is a report by Raanan Weitz, head of the Settlement Department in the Jewish Agency, from June 14, 1949. (File ג-3013/12).
In the first six months of Israel's independence, according to Weitz, 35 settlements were founded. Then, in the ensuing 10 months or so, his department had created 54 settlements, in what was called "Series A". The cost of this activity had been 4,705,100 Lira (IL), and about 11,700 immigrants had been settled.
Just recently his officials had begun settling 1,010 families of new immigrants in 13 abandoned villages. He had "borrowed IL 250,000 for this from the next budget he was about to request, along with IL 171,750 which he had already used for series A, above the original allocation. (And note that he seems to have been informing that he'd already done this, not requesting permission. As in "I've already spent the money, now find a way to cover it.")
Having completed that, he was now requesting funds to launch "Series B". The plan here was to create 77 new settlements, for at least 3,000 families. The cost would be IL 3,676,750 (including the two above sums which had already been spent). The Series B settlements would be made up as follows: 22 settlements of pioneering youth; 22 settlements of demobilised soldiers (many of whom would have been new immigrants); 13 settlements for immigrants in abandoned villages; and 20 founded especially for their immigrant settlers.
The document then goes on for another 30-some pages with details about funds, expenditures, brief descriptions of each of the new settlements, and so on.
It might also be interesting to note that Weitz had no complexes about the abandoned villages. He's quite straightforward in talking about them and naming them, and he also doesn't agonize about how they came to be abandoned. Like everyone else at the time he was aware that the way of the world in the 1940s was that during and after wars populations were transferred from place to place; he remembered how the Arabs had trumpeted their intention to get rid of the Jews, and once the tables had been turned, he was getting on with life; his urgent task was to find somewhere to put the large numbers of Jews who were being transferred out of their homes and coming to Israel.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Borders of Jerusalem
Today's post is purely informative; we'll leave any and all narrative to the readers.
Below is a section of a map which was drawn in 1949, and is filed in ג-3013/12, which comes from Ben Gurion's office and deals with matters of mass immigration in 1949-1953. The full map contains proposals for settling the large numbers of new immigrants. The section we're presenting, however, isn't about that; it's about the lines of 1947 and 1949 in the Jerusalem area.
The blue line is the intended border of the Corpus Separandum, the section of Mandatory Palestine which the United Nations didn't allocate to either side, Jews or Arabs, in the partition plan it adopted on November 29th 1947. The red line is a reasonable approximation of the 1949 armistice lines, referred to these days as the Green Line of 1967.
The little-known fact demonstrated by this map is that more than two thirds of the intended Corpus Seprandum lies outside the Green Line, in territory controlled between 1949-1967 by Jordan; and it includes the town of Bethlehem, as well as the area which today contains Maaleh Adumim.
Below is a section of a map which was drawn in 1949, and is filed in ג-3013/12, which comes from Ben Gurion's office and deals with matters of mass immigration in 1949-1953. The full map contains proposals for settling the large numbers of new immigrants. The section we're presenting, however, isn't about that; it's about the lines of 1947 and 1949 in the Jerusalem area.
The blue line is the intended border of the Corpus Separandum, the section of Mandatory Palestine which the United Nations didn't allocate to either side, Jews or Arabs, in the partition plan it adopted on November 29th 1947. The red line is a reasonable approximation of the 1949 armistice lines, referred to these days as the Green Line of 1967.
The little-known fact demonstrated by this map is that more than two thirds of the intended Corpus Seprandum lies outside the Green Line, in territory controlled between 1949-1967 by Jordan; and it includes the town of Bethlehem, as well as the area which today contains Maaleh Adumim.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Map of a Euphemism
No two languages share a complete overlap of vocabularies. English, for example, doesn't have a word for the crucially important Hebrew word "dugri," which may actually have been imported from Arabic. Nor "chevre," which was imported from nowhere.
Hebrew, on the other hand, only recently invented a word for "accountability," and the invention is an unwieldy and unhelpful "achrayutiut," which sounds as bad in Hebrew as you think it does. Oddly, Hebrew also lacks a word for a universally common phenomenon: euphemism. We get along without the term, but we use the linguistic tool all the time, as you'd expect in society with officials, elected and otherwise, who are supposed to have accountability for stuff.
This isn't new. Today's document is, for a change, a map, and it's part of the same file we used yesterday, in which an aide to Ben Gurion collected documents about the mass immigration between 1949-53. (Those are the years of the file, not the immigration, which started earlier and kept on going.)
The map itself is considerably larger than the segments we've scanned. Dated April 26, 1949, it purports to show where the "Department of Transit Camps" proposed to build camps for 15,250 families. Most of them were to cluster around Haifa and Tel Aviv, the two sections we scanned. the euphemism, of course, is in the moniker of the camps. Transit sounds temporary, short-termed, and at least minimally comfortable; it raises the image of orderly wooden shacks, perhaps. It isn't the obvious word to depict large fields with tents in which entire families spend months or even a few years. Those we call, in Hebrew, maabarot, and while present day politicians like to take pride in their childhood years in them, their parents found little to like about them at the time.
Though, come to think of it, transit camps (machanot maavar) and maabarot are actually closely related words, both from the root a-v-r, to move.
Another point of interest about the map is how much has changed since 1949. Look at the map of Tel Aviv and the 18 proposed camps surrounding it. Lots of camps, in an area which was near the center and thus eased all sorts of logistical issues, but where there was lots of empty space. In 2013 (and also much earlier), that entire area, from Herzlia to Petach Tikva to Rishon Lezion, is all built up. It's all one single conurbation. Many of its denizens once lived in those maabarot. Or their grandparents did.
Hebrew, on the other hand, only recently invented a word for "accountability," and the invention is an unwieldy and unhelpful "achrayutiut," which sounds as bad in Hebrew as you think it does. Oddly, Hebrew also lacks a word for a universally common phenomenon: euphemism. We get along without the term, but we use the linguistic tool all the time, as you'd expect in society with officials, elected and otherwise, who are supposed to have accountability for stuff.
This isn't new. Today's document is, for a change, a map, and it's part of the same file we used yesterday, in which an aide to Ben Gurion collected documents about the mass immigration between 1949-53. (Those are the years of the file, not the immigration, which started earlier and kept on going.)
The map itself is considerably larger than the segments we've scanned. Dated April 26, 1949, it purports to show where the "Department of Transit Camps" proposed to build camps for 15,250 families. Most of them were to cluster around Haifa and Tel Aviv, the two sections we scanned. the euphemism, of course, is in the moniker of the camps. Transit sounds temporary, short-termed, and at least minimally comfortable; it raises the image of orderly wooden shacks, perhaps. It isn't the obvious word to depict large fields with tents in which entire families spend months or even a few years. Those we call, in Hebrew, maabarot, and while present day politicians like to take pride in their childhood years in them, their parents found little to like about them at the time.
Though, come to think of it, transit camps (machanot maavar) and maabarot are actually closely related words, both from the root a-v-r, to move.
Another point of interest about the map is how much has changed since 1949. Look at the map of Tel Aviv and the 18 proposed camps surrounding it. Lots of camps, in an area which was near the center and thus eased all sorts of logistical issues, but where there was lots of empty space. In 2013 (and also much earlier), that entire area, from Herzlia to Petach Tikva to Rishon Lezion, is all built up. It's all one single conurbation. Many of its denizens once lived in those maabarot. Or their grandparents did.
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
More than a million immigrants? Can do!
It's time we went back to the efforts to integrate the masses of immigrants who arrived in Israel's first years; we've mostly been doing this recently from the rich file on the matter from Ben Gurion's office, ג-3013.12 (see the previous installment here). Today's document is informative, but mostly it's, well, quaint. No one would have written such a document in 2013 - or 1973, for that matter. But it was written in 1949.
Actually, it's an undated document; it appears truncated, ending abruptly in what seems to be mid-paragraph on page three, with two pages of data tacked on; and it's unsigned. Being an archive, however, rather than a library, we're not overly fazed. It's in a file we recognize; and it's wedged between other documents which indicate that it was written in early 1949; and no matter who authored it, it was important enough to be filed in the prime minister's files. So here it is. It's titled "A 5-Year Plan for Settlements, 1949-1953".
The challenge: By the end of the year there will be one million people in Israel. Over the next four, we expect 900,000 additional immigrants, and natural growth of 100,000. By the end of 1953 there will be two million Israelis, of whom 1,200,000 will have immigrated since creation of the state. At least 200,000 of them must be integrated as farmers, or 60,000 family units.
The document assumes, without specifically saying, that most of the immigrants are penniless and it's the task of the state to find them housing and employment. This is implied in the following breakdown of the 60,000 new units that must be created:
10,000 can be settled in existing settlements.The document also recommends expanding Israel's fishing capacities, in order to produce sufficient proteins. It then turns to the inevitable issue of funds: more than 100,000,000 Pounds will be needed.
35,000 will need to be settled in new settlements.
5,000 will have enough capital of their own that they'll be able to acquire their own farms in existing villages.
10,000 will find employment in supporting services for the farmers.
The majority of settlements will be built in the north, where there's water and areas left empty of their former inhabitants. A minority will be settled in the northern Negev, to the extent we can pipe water down there within five years. In the southern Negev, we'll build a small number of experimental settlements, and learn how agriculture might be done that deep into the desert.
In order to grow enough food for two million people we're going to have to expand the areas under cultivation. (The document lists acreage per crop.)
The project must be centrally planned. We'll need to significantly expand our distribution systems. Although we intend to produce as much of our own food as possible, we should also investigate the possibility of exporting some products. We'll also need to develop a marketing system.
We'll need to invest a major effort in training the new farmers. Once we're already doing that, they need also to be taught the values of the Histadrut (the main trade union), and they need to be connected to it.
By and large, the plan was successfully executed. The rate of immigration turned out a bit slower than the author of the report expected, but not significantly so. The fact that the folks in the prime minister's office were unfazed by the dimensions of the challenge may have had something to do with it.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Who Needs a Constitution?
Israel, famously, has no constitution. Fact. The reason, according to general opinion, is that back in 1948, the religious parties didn't want one, because it might conflict with the Bible, so the secular politicians humored them at the time, and what started as a temporary act of politics became a permanent condition.
Here's the transcript of the cabinet meeting of December 13, 1949 (not 1948) where the issue was discussed at length, and the decision was made. (And note that it's part of our Declaration of Independence project.) Listening in on the discussion contains some surprises: yes, the Minister of Justice, Pinchas Rosenne, was in favor of enacting a constitution. And yes, the Attorney General, Yaacov Shimshon Shapira, agreed with him. And yes, one of their main considerations was the need to protect the rights of individuals. And yes, the religious representatives were skeptical, though not because they felt the Bible could serve as a rule book for the particularities of life in modern Israel, a claim they didn't make. And yes, many of the discussants felt that enacting a constitution in the fractured Israeli political climate would be divisive and challenging.
But that wasn't the dynamic that foiled the intention to have a constitution.
The reason the cabinet decided not to work towards creating a constitution was David Ben Gurion. Ben Gurion had no interest in there being a constitution, and so he hijacked the discussion in its fourth minute (at the latest), and by the time he stopped talking the issue was dead, even though the conversation went on for another hour or more; then, when at the last moment Rosenne tried to salvage his position by suggesting the government tell the Knesset it would set up a committee, Ben Gurion shot that down, too.
The reason for Ben Gurion's strident position? "There's no time." Actually, he offered three reasons, though he said it was two, but only one was really important. The first of the three and the one he didn't count was that he didn't see any reason for having a constitution. Why should some laws be stronger than others? And why think that today's legislators are any wiser than those 300 years hence? (He probably had a low opinion of any number of the ones of his day, but that's just speculation.) There need to be good laws, yes; and the United States needed a Constitution to stitch together all the colonies, but Israel has other challenges. The second reason, and the first he admitted to, was that a session of the Knesset dedicated to formulating a constitution would be given over to posturing and grandstanding - he didn't single out any particular party or group as the main potential culprit.
The real reason he gave, at great length, was that there were vastly more important things to do. So he gave a long speech about bringing in 3-400,000 additional immigrants and making a place for them; about settling the Negev and using its resources; about building ports and railways, towns and highways; and also all the regular, mundane laws needed to run a country. "The coming few years are the most important in our history. If anyone thinks that declaring independence or winning the war (of 1947-1949) were what was needed to found the state, they're wrong. The work is all ahead of us."
On the edge of the discussion, there was a humourous little exchange between Ben Gurion and Golda Meir, who basically accepted his argumentation, but nevertheless said that in principle she was in favor of having a constitution. "That's because you're American," Ben Gurion shot at her. "Yes, that may be," she responded.
Here's the transcript of the cabinet meeting of December 13, 1949 (not 1948) where the issue was discussed at length, and the decision was made. (And note that it's part of our Declaration of Independence project.) Listening in on the discussion contains some surprises: yes, the Minister of Justice, Pinchas Rosenne, was in favor of enacting a constitution. And yes, the Attorney General, Yaacov Shimshon Shapira, agreed with him. And yes, one of their main considerations was the need to protect the rights of individuals. And yes, the religious representatives were skeptical, though not because they felt the Bible could serve as a rule book for the particularities of life in modern Israel, a claim they didn't make. And yes, many of the discussants felt that enacting a constitution in the fractured Israeli political climate would be divisive and challenging.
But that wasn't the dynamic that foiled the intention to have a constitution.
The reason the cabinet decided not to work towards creating a constitution was David Ben Gurion. Ben Gurion had no interest in there being a constitution, and so he hijacked the discussion in its fourth minute (at the latest), and by the time he stopped talking the issue was dead, even though the conversation went on for another hour or more; then, when at the last moment Rosenne tried to salvage his position by suggesting the government tell the Knesset it would set up a committee, Ben Gurion shot that down, too.
The reason for Ben Gurion's strident position? "There's no time." Actually, he offered three reasons, though he said it was two, but only one was really important. The first of the three and the one he didn't count was that he didn't see any reason for having a constitution. Why should some laws be stronger than others? And why think that today's legislators are any wiser than those 300 years hence? (He probably had a low opinion of any number of the ones of his day, but that's just speculation.) There need to be good laws, yes; and the United States needed a Constitution to stitch together all the colonies, but Israel has other challenges. The second reason, and the first he admitted to, was that a session of the Knesset dedicated to formulating a constitution would be given over to posturing and grandstanding - he didn't single out any particular party or group as the main potential culprit.
The real reason he gave, at great length, was that there were vastly more important things to do. So he gave a long speech about bringing in 3-400,000 additional immigrants and making a place for them; about settling the Negev and using its resources; about building ports and railways, towns and highways; and also all the regular, mundane laws needed to run a country. "The coming few years are the most important in our history. If anyone thinks that declaring independence or winning the war (of 1947-1949) were what was needed to found the state, they're wrong. The work is all ahead of us."
On the edge of the discussion, there was a humourous little exchange between Ben Gurion and Golda Meir, who basically accepted his argumentation, but nevertheless said that in principle she was in favor of having a constitution. "That's because you're American," Ben Gurion shot at her. "Yes, that may be," she responded.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Immigrants to Israel, 1948-1952
File ג-3101/12 contains hundreds of pages of letters, reports and statistics about immigration to Israel between May 15, 1948 and the end of December 1952, as filed by someone in David Ben Gurion's office. Our previous post, about the tragic chaos in the immigrant camps, comes from this file; since it has lots of interesting things in it, we'll return to it in a future post or three. Now, however, we'd like to present the last document in the file, a list which was apparently drawn up in July 1953, summing up the statistics of the immigration.
Bear in mind that in May 1948 when Israel became independent, there were some 600,000 Jews in the country. By the time the battles subsided, towards the end of that year, 110,000 immigrants had arrived, 6,000 Jews had been killed in the war, and the stabilizing borders contained 100,000 Arabs or perhaps a bit more. 800-850,000 people all in all.
By the end of 1952, 738,891 immigrants had arrived (this includes the 110,000 who arrived in the second half of 1948). Of course, the immigration didn't end in December 1952, but that's beyond the scope of our file.
Muslim countries:
Turkey 35,025
Syria and Lebanon 34,608
Iraq 124,226
Yemen and Aden 48,375
Other Asian countries 7,579
Tunesia, Marroco, Algeria 52,584
Lybia 32,129
Egypt 17,114
Total Muslim countries: 377,251 of 889,700
Communist satelite states:
Poland 106,751
Romania 121,537
Bulgaria 37,703
Czechoslovakia 18,815
Hungary 14,519
Yugoslavia 7,757
Total Comunist states: 307,082 of 729,000
Western states:
South Africa 538
Other Africa 576
Germany & Austria 11,013
Other Europe 19,605
Latin America 2,025
Total Western states: 33,706 of 1,746,230
USA & Canada 1,809 of 5,200,000
Unidentified 18,989
Grand total 738,891 of 8,564,930
The USSR is not on the list.
Bear in mind that in May 1948 when Israel became independent, there were some 600,000 Jews in the country. By the time the battles subsided, towards the end of that year, 110,000 immigrants had arrived, 6,000 Jews had been killed in the war, and the stabilizing borders contained 100,000 Arabs or perhaps a bit more. 800-850,000 people all in all.
By the end of 1952, 738,891 immigrants had arrived (this includes the 110,000 who arrived in the second half of 1948). Of course, the immigration didn't end in December 1952, but that's beyond the scope of our file.
Muslim countries:
Turkey 35,025
Syria and Lebanon 34,608
Iraq 124,226
Yemen and Aden 48,375
Other Asian countries 7,579
Tunesia, Marroco, Algeria 52,584
Lybia 32,129
Egypt 17,114
Total Muslim countries: 377,251 of 889,700
Communist satelite states:
Poland 106,751
Romania 121,537
Bulgaria 37,703
Czechoslovakia 18,815
Hungary 14,519
Yugoslavia 7,757
Total Comunist states: 307,082 of 729,000
Western states:
South Africa 538
Other Africa 576
Germany & Austria 11,013
Other Europe 19,605
Latin America 2,025
Total Western states: 33,706 of 1,746,230
USA & Canada 1,809 of 5,200,000
Unidentified 18,989
Grand total 738,891 of 8,564,930
The USSR is not on the list.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
The Lost Child of Beit Lid
In the chaotic first years of Israel's existence, many hundreds of children went missing -- at least 800, perhaps more than a thousand. These children were younger than three, and their families were new immigrants living in tent camps (ma'abarot) where they were temporarily parked upon arrival. The children were sent to hospitals and never came back. When their bewildered and frantic parents went looking for them, they were told their children had died and been buried. In some cases, letters from the military arrived in the late 1960s, requiring the teenagers be screened for service. By then the parents were no longer bewildered and disoriented refugees, and when they realized there were others like them, they demanded an investigation. Since then, there have been four separate public investigations. Since most (but by no means all) of the children were from Yemenite families, the issue is know in Israel as The Case of the Yemenite Children.
The various investigations have shown that indeed, most of the missing children really did die at the time - but not all of them have ever been accounted for. Some people continue to believe that there was a conspiracy to remove children from large immigrant families and to hand them over to wealthy childless Ashkenazi families. Also, keep in mind this earlier post, which told how many Yemenite Jews had never encountered a physician, which partially explains some of the context.
One of the documents we published as part of our Declaration of Independence collection deals with one of these cases. (ג-3013/12)
On November 3, 1950, Yehezkel Sahar, the Chief of Police, wrote to Minister of Health Moshe Shapira. A few months earlier, there had been a report in the media about an infant who had gone missing in one of the camps. Sahar assured Shapira that he put his best investigator on the case, and here's the result: a three-page detailed report written by S. Sofer.
We think the report undermines the conspiracy theory, but it does demonstrate a frightening degree of callousness in the chaos:
The various investigations have shown that indeed, most of the missing children really did die at the time - but not all of them have ever been accounted for. Some people continue to believe that there was a conspiracy to remove children from large immigrant families and to hand them over to wealthy childless Ashkenazi families. Also, keep in mind this earlier post, which told how many Yemenite Jews had never encountered a physician, which partially explains some of the context.
One of the documents we published as part of our Declaration of Independence collection deals with one of these cases. (ג-3013/12)
On November 3, 1950, Yehezkel Sahar, the Chief of Police, wrote to Minister of Health Moshe Shapira. A few months earlier, there had been a report in the media about an infant who had gone missing in one of the camps. Sahar assured Shapira that he put his best investigator on the case, and here's the result: a three-page detailed report written by S. Sofer.
We think the report undermines the conspiracy theory, but it does demonstrate a frightening degree of callousness in the chaos:
February 29, 1950: The story appeared in Davar.At the ISA, we asked ourselves if we have any documentation about the child at a later stage of life. Since his name was common, however (we've withheld it in the publication), that wasn't possible -- and anyway, if we assume that he didn't starve in the Ein Shemer camp but was probably picked up by some other family, there's no way to know what his name was. If he's still alive he must be 64 years old. If.
March 17, 1950: A social worker from the Beit Lid camp confirmed that the 7-month-old child was transferred from there to the hospital on Dec 21, 1949. Having been cured, he was sent mistakenly to a different camp, Ein Shemer. At Ein Shemer they have his discharge paper from January 8, 1950 -- but they don't have him. Nor can they explain how they have his discharge form.
A doctor at the hospital confirms that the child was brought from Beit Lid on December 21. He was sent back on January 8 -- to Ein Shemer. She doesn't know who the ambulance driver was.
The parents reported that their baby son was sent to the hospital but not returned, and when they asked they were told he was sent to Ein Shemer. (Oddly, the dates in their recounting are a bit later, in February.)
A doctor at Ein Shemer fond no record of a child by this name, but confirmed that on January 8, an unnamed child was brought from the hospital.
A registrar at the hospital recorded all patients. But when they're sent back, it's with an ambulance service from Ramat Gan.
A doctor at the hospital remembers discharging the child and sending him to Ein Shemer.
The ambulance driver has a record for children transferred to Ein Shemer on January 8, one with this name. There is a procedure for handing over children, and he acted accordingly.
A doctor at Ein Shemer said that they refuse to accept children whom they didn't send. Sometimes, he says, drivers leave children and quickly depart so as not to be stuck with them.
A police sergeant found no records at Ein Shemer. He brought the mother to the children's home but she didn't identify her son. On April 7, he returned to Ein Shemer and heard from an administrator that there's lots of confusion in their records.
Officer Sofer completed his report with the comment that it might be possible to investigate further but he didn't see how this would help find the child. He recommended that someone look into the matter and determine who is responsible for the lax procedures. He complimented the original social worker who had invested time and her own money in traveling back and forth in her efforts to investigate.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Killing Meir Tobianski
Running a country necessitates difficult decisions. Even in peaceful countries, someone has to make allocations of funds which impact the lives of citizens. In countries at war, leaders must make direct decisions about life and death. Setting up a country, and especially in the midst of war, calls for hard men (and women) who are capable of very hard decisions. Founders of nations will often turn out not to have been the kind of person you'd invite over for tea.
Yet there are degres of hardness. Today's document deals with a small group of hard men who were present at the founding of Israel, indeed, played significant roles in its early years, yet who were too hard, too ruthless, and who crossed lines which shouldn't have been crossed. These were Issar Beeri, Avraham Kraemer (Kidron), Binyamin Gibli, and David Karon. Together, the four of them killed Meir Tobianski on June 30, 1948, as told in today's chilling document.
Meir Tobianski was born in Kovna (now Kaunas) in 1904, and came to Mandatory Palestine in 1925. For most of his adult life, he was affiliated with the Hagana, mostly concurrently with civilian jobs. In 1947, he began working as an engineer in the Jerusalem electricity company. Once the war started he commanded various bases in the Jerusalem area. On June 29, he and his troops swore allegience to the just-created IDF. The next day he traveled down to Tel Aviv on errands.
While in Tel Aviv he was accosted by some officers who summoned him to an urgent meeting. They took him to a building up the road back to Jerusalem and interrogated him, accusing him of transfering sensitive information to the enemy. He admitted giving some information to British colleagues in the electricity company. At this stage, his interrogators declared themselves a military court, sentenced him to death, and had him shot. All on the same day. His body was dumped in a nearby hole. His wife was told his fate only a few days later.
The document drawn up after the event described who Tobianski was, what he admitted, who was on the court, the verdict, the report of execution, and the signatures of the judges, if judges they were, all on one page.
Issar Beeri was tried and discharged from the IDF in February 1949, for the killing of an Arab Israeli called Ali Kassem who had been a Haganah informer suspected of being a double agent. When, a few months later, the newly appointed Attorney General, Yaacov Shimshon Shapira, insisted he be tried for the unlawful killing of Tobianski, there was some resistance since he had already been discharged. Shapira insisted, in an important case demonstrating the supremacy of the rule of law, and Beeri was convicted. He was sentenced to one day in jail but pardoned that same evening by the president. In 1950, he was called to testify in the trial of Paul Kollek (Teddy Kollek's brother) in the case of yet another unlawful wartime killing, of IZL activist Yedidia Segal in 1948. In spite of his crucial achievements in the creation of a military intelligence branch duirng the War of Independance, his violence seems to have ended his career. He died in 1958, age 57.
Beeri's three subordinate officers, who had served as the judges and signed the document, fared better. They were not tried, as it was accepted they had been following Beeri's orders, had assumed they had the authority, and had been convinced of Tobianski's treason.
Avraham Kraemer changed his name to Kidron, and eventually rose to become the General Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. David Karon worked for the Mossad, spending years in Teheran. Binyamin Gibli remained in the IDF and rose to become a Colonel in an army which at the time had only two higher ranks; among other positions he was the head of Military Intelligence in the 1950s, where he was probably involved in the 1954 attempt to provoke American and British anger at Egypt by attacking their installations there.
Meir Tobianski was entirely exonerated in 1949. Here is his page on the official website of fallen IDF soldiers. He is buried in the military cemetary on Mount Herzlin Jerusalem.
Yet there are degres of hardness. Today's document deals with a small group of hard men who were present at the founding of Israel, indeed, played significant roles in its early years, yet who were too hard, too ruthless, and who crossed lines which shouldn't have been crossed. These were Issar Beeri, Avraham Kraemer (Kidron), Binyamin Gibli, and David Karon. Together, the four of them killed Meir Tobianski on June 30, 1948, as told in today's chilling document.
Meir Tobianski was born in Kovna (now Kaunas) in 1904, and came to Mandatory Palestine in 1925. For most of his adult life, he was affiliated with the Hagana, mostly concurrently with civilian jobs. In 1947, he began working as an engineer in the Jerusalem electricity company. Once the war started he commanded various bases in the Jerusalem area. On June 29, he and his troops swore allegience to the just-created IDF. The next day he traveled down to Tel Aviv on errands.
While in Tel Aviv he was accosted by some officers who summoned him to an urgent meeting. They took him to a building up the road back to Jerusalem and interrogated him, accusing him of transfering sensitive information to the enemy. He admitted giving some information to British colleagues in the electricity company. At this stage, his interrogators declared themselves a military court, sentenced him to death, and had him shot. All on the same day. His body was dumped in a nearby hole. His wife was told his fate only a few days later.
The document drawn up after the event described who Tobianski was, what he admitted, who was on the court, the verdict, the report of execution, and the signatures of the judges, if judges they were, all on one page.
Issar Beeri was tried and discharged from the IDF in February 1949, for the killing of an Arab Israeli called Ali Kassem who had been a Haganah informer suspected of being a double agent. When, a few months later, the newly appointed Attorney General, Yaacov Shimshon Shapira, insisted he be tried for the unlawful killing of Tobianski, there was some resistance since he had already been discharged. Shapira insisted, in an important case demonstrating the supremacy of the rule of law, and Beeri was convicted. He was sentenced to one day in jail but pardoned that same evening by the president. In 1950, he was called to testify in the trial of Paul Kollek (Teddy Kollek's brother) in the case of yet another unlawful wartime killing, of IZL activist Yedidia Segal in 1948. In spite of his crucial achievements in the creation of a military intelligence branch duirng the War of Independance, his violence seems to have ended his career. He died in 1958, age 57.
Beeri's three subordinate officers, who had served as the judges and signed the document, fared better. They were not tried, as it was accepted they had been following Beeri's orders, had assumed they had the authority, and had been convinced of Tobianski's treason.
Avraham Kraemer changed his name to Kidron, and eventually rose to become the General Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. David Karon worked for the Mossad, spending years in Teheran. Binyamin Gibli remained in the IDF and rose to become a Colonel in an army which at the time had only two higher ranks; among other positions he was the head of Military Intelligence in the 1950s, where he was probably involved in the 1954 attempt to provoke American and British anger at Egypt by attacking their installations there.
Meir Tobianski was entirely exonerated in 1949. Here is his page on the official website of fallen IDF soldiers. He is buried in the military cemetary on Mount Herzlin Jerusalem.
Sunday, December 23, 2012
We Need to Build a City by Next Week
A few months ago, we broached the subject of the harsh austerity measureslaunched by the Israeli government in early 1949 to cope with the enormous economic challenges of the day (and achieve some political goals along the way). The overall title of these measures was "Tsena" (Austerity), though the most striking and memorable part was the rationing.
Today's post will look at a different aspect of the policy: the urgent need to create housing for hundreds of thousands of homeless immigrants before the begining of the rain season. Fortunately for the immigrants and for the country, the very thick layer of bureaucracy which exists in Israel today had not yet had time to accumulate, and thus it was possible for some fellow with authority to say "go do it" and they went and did it. If they did it well or not, flawlessly or not, is a different question, but at least they went and did it.
We stay away from contemporary politics on this blog, but think of the number of times you hear about a construction project in the settlements getting authorized, then authorized again, and again being authorized - and you'll begin to see what I mean. Acquiring permission to construct takes literally years. Now compare thatwith this:
On May 13, 1949, the boss of the Central Housing and Building Corporation sent a letter to Gershon Zack in the Prime Minister's Office:
Today's post will look at a different aspect of the policy: the urgent need to create housing for hundreds of thousands of homeless immigrants before the begining of the rain season. Fortunately for the immigrants and for the country, the very thick layer of bureaucracy which exists in Israel today had not yet had time to accumulate, and thus it was possible for some fellow with authority to say "go do it" and they went and did it. If they did it well or not, flawlessly or not, is a different question, but at least they went and did it.
We stay away from contemporary politics on this blog, but think of the number of times you hear about a construction project in the settlements getting authorized, then authorized again, and again being authorized - and you'll begin to see what I mean. Acquiring permission to construct takes literally years. Now compare thatwith this:
On May 13, 1949, the boss of the Central Housing and Building Corporation sent a letter to Gershon Zack in the Prime Minister's Office:
1. We're willing to build 10,000 housing units immediately as discussed.
2. Many of the construction workers will be new immigrants.
3. The government will procure the import licenses needed.[Who pays whom how much, and when]
8. We're willing to start working on the first 1,000 units immediately.
9. Following Mr. Zack's order we started building one 2-room unit immediately, it will be ready next week.
We wait your authorization...On the 19th of May, Prime Minster Ben Gurion himself visited the construction site and was shown that first unit. On the 23rd, the next letter reached Zack, summarizing the visit and adding that
1. We're prepared to construct 10,000 units as discussed.
2. We must receive the neccessary land plots this week. If so, we'll be completing 150 units each day by the end of June.
3. We'll need 400 construction workers for each 150 units.What happened next? Zack's file (ג-333/63) doesn't quite say, but in June he got a note from the Central Housing and Building Corporation with an urgent request:
Please tell the inspector for transport Mr. Lubersky he's got to allow us to import an automobile for our subcontractor.Then, on July 28, 1949, Major Moshe Refaeli of the Engineers' Corps wrote to the prime minister. First, he intruduced himself: he was on loan from the military to the Central Housing and Building Corporation as its acting execuutive. He had recently participated in a meeting between Ben Gurion and some engineering officers, in which the PM had told with satisfaction of the progress of public construction projects.
I am convinced of your sincerity, Prime Minister, but based on what I'm seeing, Sir, you may not be hearing the full story.
Two months ago, we were asked to construct 10,000 housing units. We have the technical know-how. We were told the budget was confirmed on June 1st. We have ample laborers, as any visit to the immigrants' camps will show. Yet we haven't done more than a third of the job.
We only have some 100 days left until the rainy season, yet we're not working on schedule. There seem to be a number of reasons for this.
1. The project is being run by a committee of five people, each of whom has other tasks, and none of whom regards himself as responsible.
2. Not all the land has been allocated, and when it is there are often fights with local municipal authorities about jurisdictions, water supply and other matters.Though, truth be told, a third of a miracle is still not bad. In 2012, it would take three years merely to acquire the permits.
We're doing our utmost, but it's important that you know we're not reaching the targets we've been set.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
What's a Doctor? On the Travails of Yemen's Jews
Over at our Hebrew-language blog we've put up a post about Operation Magic Carpet in which almost 50,000 Yemenite Jews were brought to Israel in 1949 and 1950. At the time the operation was not publicly known, but afterwards it became the stuff of legend: the brand-new state of Israel rescuing an ancient but backward community and bringing almost all its members to the renewed homeland. (Here's an example.) More recently historians have been looking with a critical eye at the policies and actions of the state in its early years, and have found it to have been somewhat different than the founding myths. Here's a recent description of Esther Meir-Glitzenstein's research on the operation, which shows that there was a surfeit of chaos, mismanagement and some hard-heartedness, with the result that hundreds of Yemenite Jews if not more perished along the way or at the collection camp at Aden.
Of course, the two narratives don't have to contradict each other. It's possible that large numbers of Yemenite Jews wanted to reach Israel, for multiple reasons, and that the complicated task of extricating them and bringing them to Israel was woefully mismanaged. Woeful mismanagement is, sadly, a very common condition.
Past and future researchers wishing to work out additional perspectives of the question will find lots of relevant documentation here at the ISA. This blog won't try to argue either case, preferring to present a single document created by someone who didn't know about the historical interpretations because he was busy being there at the time: The report of Dr. Moschytz, a physician sent to Aden in the second half of October 1949 by the ministry of immigration:
Of course, the two narratives don't have to contradict each other. It's possible that large numbers of Yemenite Jews wanted to reach Israel, for multiple reasons, and that the complicated task of extricating them and bringing them to Israel was woefully mismanaged. Woeful mismanagement is, sadly, a very common condition.
Past and future researchers wishing to work out additional perspectives of the question will find lots of relevant documentation here at the ISA. This blog won't try to argue either case, preferring to present a single document created by someone who didn't know about the historical interpretations because he was busy being there at the time: The report of Dr. Moschytz, a physician sent to Aden in the second half of October 1949 by the ministry of immigration:
First stage: the escape from Yemen is not coordinated at all, prior to the arrival of the people at the border of Aden. I'm not aware of anyone directing this escape. In any case, we heard rumours of an additional 15-18,000 people on their way to the border, and we have no idea if they're rich or poor, if healthy or ill. The last time that Hashed [the transit camp in Aden] reached a capacity of 13,000, the border was sealed for a month, and some 4,500 people accumulated beyond the border. They all contracted malaria while waiting; many were left totally bereft. The JDC sent medicine, but many of them refused to take it. At one point the JDC supplies were sufficient but at a second place it wasn't, and some of the people died of hunger.
Second stage: En route many of the locals assist the immigrants for high fees, so that they arrive penniless. Their physical condition is awful, and the children suffer the most. It's no surprise that the mortality rate is high, mostly from sickness but in some cases from hunger.
Third stage: the camp gets a warning of a few hours that new people are about to arrive. Before the camp learned how to deal with them, desperately ill people simply died where they were put, because they had never seen a doctor before, and the medical staff didn't know to seek them out. Now they're brought to the hospital and given medications against tropical fever. Many of those who arrived at death's door leave the hospital as soon as their fever goes down, falsely believing they've been cured and desperate not to miss the plane [to Israel]. The hospital staff had to build a fence around the hospital to prevent the patients from escaping in this manner...
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Elections!
No, not the upcoming elections of January 22nd 2013: we're an archive. So it's the first elections in Israeli history, which took place in 1949, even as the War of Independence wasn't quite over and large numbers of Jews were still on their way to the new State of Israel. Here's a newsreel (in English) from those days, as made by the United Israel Appeal - which was, of course, a fundraising organization, and so can be excused the spot of hyperbole:
(file number קב-393.1)
Actually, hyperbole or not, most countries newly set up in the late 1940s (and 1950s, and 1960s) needed decades before they grew into real functioning democracies. So perhaps the self satisfaction wasn't entirely unwarranted.
(file number קב-393.1)
Actually, hyperbole or not, most countries newly set up in the late 1940s (and 1950s, and 1960s) needed decades before they grew into real functioning democracies. So perhaps the self satisfaction wasn't entirely unwarranted.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
1949: Promoting Large Families, Jewish and Arab
63 years ago today, on July 19th 1949, Israel's cabinet made two important decisions. The first was to bring the remains of Theodor Herzl from his grave in Vienna to a final resting place in Jerusalem. The second was to encourage families to have more children by granting a sum of 100 lirot to any family with 10 living children.
To partake in this pro-natal program, eligible families would fill out a form listing their children. Here's the form of a family originally from Aden (in Yemen) with 12 children, ages 6 to 31, three of them already married. Another registered family had 11 children, seven of whom had been born in Baghdad, and the youngest four in Haifa. And here's another family, all born in Jerusalem, later living mostly in Petach Tikva, with all 11 children married except for the youngest (who was widowed at the age of 26). We're not certain this already well-established family was the sort the government had in mind.
The initial estimation of the program's accountants was that there would be about 100 eligible families: they had already identified 40 families, expected another 30 to come forward immediately, and projected that by the end of the year another 30 eligible families would have been found. Beyond that estimate, there was the question of Israel's Arabs. Their families too would be eligible, but the official in Prime Minister David Ben Gurion's office did not have any idea how many of them there were; should their number be larger than expected, he reserved the right to come back for additional funding. In this letter, penned by someone in the Prime Minster's secretariat to the military governor of Jaffa, the author explains how Arab women should fill out the form, in Hebrew if possible, and while presenting the ID cards of their children.
The program provoked a range of reactions. Some were strongly in favor, others more critical. This fellow thought the policy was a wonderful idea, but wondered if there was a way to augment it: what Israel really needed, he argued, was for its wealthier families to have ten children because this would make for larger numbers of well-off citizens and all the concommittant advantages. The problem, of course, was that wealthy people wouldn't be influenced by a mere 100 lirot incentive. The only thing that might entice them, suggests the respondent, is a total tax exemption.
The policy remained in place until the enactment of Israel's social security child support policy in 1959.
To partake in this pro-natal program, eligible families would fill out a form listing their children. Here's the form of a family originally from Aden (in Yemen) with 12 children, ages 6 to 31, three of them already married. Another registered family had 11 children, seven of whom had been born in Baghdad, and the youngest four in Haifa. And here's another family, all born in Jerusalem, later living mostly in Petach Tikva, with all 11 children married except for the youngest (who was widowed at the age of 26). We're not certain this already well-established family was the sort the government had in mind.
The initial estimation of the program's accountants was that there would be about 100 eligible families: they had already identified 40 families, expected another 30 to come forward immediately, and projected that by the end of the year another 30 eligible families would have been found. Beyond that estimate, there was the question of Israel's Arabs. Their families too would be eligible, but the official in Prime Minister David Ben Gurion's office did not have any idea how many of them there were; should their number be larger than expected, he reserved the right to come back for additional funding. In this letter, penned by someone in the Prime Minster's secretariat to the military governor of Jaffa, the author explains how Arab women should fill out the form, in Hebrew if possible, and while presenting the ID cards of their children.
The program provoked a range of reactions. Some were strongly in favor, others more critical. This fellow thought the policy was a wonderful idea, but wondered if there was a way to augment it: what Israel really needed, he argued, was for its wealthier families to have ten children because this would make for larger numbers of well-off citizens and all the concommittant advantages. The problem, of course, was that wealthy people wouldn't be influenced by a mere 100 lirot incentive. The only thing that might entice them, suggests the respondent, is a total tax exemption.
The policy remained in place until the enactment of Israel's social security child support policy in 1959.
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