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70 years after | Israel today

2022-01-07T20:20:24.387Z


A daily newspaper conducts a public poll on the issue of reparations, taxi drivers are tired of being suckers on Saturdays, and patient dryers are sure to have found an economic bonanza • This is what happened this week in the country seven decades ago


Get money from the Germans?

On May 10, 1949, the Foreign Ministry received a telegram from the Israeli ambassador to European institutions, Michael Amir, in which Amir, who was based in the Netherlands, announced that in West Germany there was an amazing economic recovery (later called the "economic miracle").

Therefore, "it is time to submit to the Germans an account on behalf of the Jewish people for compensation for the destruction caused, the extortion committed and the property looted during the Holocaust."

Only 20 months later, in January 1951, Ambassador Amir's proposal came up for discussion in the government, which unanimously rejected the idea of ​​rapprochement and direct administration of justice with Germany.

In April 1951, the Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, ordered the Director General of the Ministry of Finance, David Horowitz, to open a channel of direct and secret negotiations with West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, which lasted throughout that year.

On January 2, 1952, the Israeli government announced its intention to "seek the Knesset's approval to act at its discretion regarding the reparations agreement with Germany."

At the same time, a demand was made to hold a referendum on the issue, but the matter required the enactment of a series of laws in a complicated procedure, and the issue faded.

The newspaper Maariv, which was popular in the country at the time, announced that it was going to "conduct a test among readers on the question of opening negotiations with Germany."

On Friday, January 4, 1952, the newspaper printed on its front page a postcard, on one side of which up to two readers could express their opinions, and on its back was indicated a delivery address, without the need for a postage stamp.

12,000 readers responded to the poll, and about 80 percent of them denied contact with Germany.

On January 9, 1952, however, the Knesset approved, by a small majority, the government's decision to hold direct negotiations with West Germany.

The storm that erupted immediately afterwards in Israeli society culminated in the famous call of the leader of the Herut movement, Menachem Begin, to a civil uprising.

In September 1952, Israel and West Germany signed an agreement under which Germany transferred compensation ("payments") in the amount of about 3 billion marks between 1965 and 1953.

Inspectors, whistles and curses: The black market in Tel Aviv

Merchants and customers in the black market in Lilienblum, 1951, Photo: Sclerts Collection, "Beitmona" website

At the intersection of Lilienblum and Herzl streets in Tel Aviv, a "black market" of goods, which the citizens softly referred to as the "free market", also developed from the middle of 1951, in addition to the foreign exchange market.

On the corner of Lilienblum Street, on the side facing Herzl, black market merchants gathered daily and whispered to passers-by sought-after and hard-to-reach goods, such as chocolate, coffee, milk powder, sugar and more.

Due to the fact that the trade in the place was considered illegal, a great deal of caution was required in contact between the parties before the sale took place: the wanted.

At the end of a quick negotiation the goods were given in exchange for a secret delivery of banknotes - and then the merchant and the customer went their separate ways, as if they had never met.

These things did not go unnoticed by the Minister of Trade and Industry, Dov Yosef, who warned the people of the Supervision Division and demanded "immediately eradicate the phenomenon of the black market in the heart of Tel Aviv."

Indeed, from January 6, 1952, inspectors from the Ministry of Trade and Industry began raiding the free market merchants in Lilienblum's corner of Herzl every day.

A few days later, the shrewd merchants noticed that the same three inspectors arrived at the scene every day, in the same car, and the merchants soon equipped themselves with whistles that they wore around their necks.

As soon as one of them recognized the inspectors' car approaching, he whistled immediately, and in response, dozens of dealers surrounded the car with shouts and curses, and drove the frightened inspectors away.

After the scene was repeated daily for two weeks, Minister Yosef announced his intention to establish "an economic police force that will strictly enforce the provisions of the law - and eliminate the black market."

"There is treasure in the swamp of the patient"

East Coast Bimat Hahula, 1940s, Photo: Zoltan Kluger, GPO

On the one-year anniversary of the launch of the Hula drying plant, on January 29, 1951, all those involved in the project gathered in early January 1952 at the Alter Schwartz Hotel in Rosh Pina, including JNF and Keren Hayesod personnel, Ministry of Agriculture water department engineers, and Zanzibar-Decker. Be the executive in the field) and more.

On the second day of the meeting, three scientists from Rehovot arrived, with the aim of sharing with the participants the results of a study conducted by them for eight months, on the subject of "exploiting the natural values ​​of the patient after the end of the drying phase."

From the comprehensive reviews presented by the scientists, one could be mistaken and think that the goal at the heart of the drying plan - adding 60,000 dunams to the land reserve for agricultural cultivation in the Upper Galilee - was completely secondary.

For, as the scientist Dr. Haim Rosenfeld reported to the captivated listeners: "Under the sick water awaits us a bloom treasure of millions of tons of peat, in huge and compacted layers of plant rot that will be used as fertilizer and diesel fuel for automobiles and home heating, enough for at least the next 50 years." .

The listeners did not know their souls from joy, but when the water in the patient's egg was drained and the peat layer was discovered - it turned out that the peat dries, crumbles, becomes dust and is carried in the wind to distances, and all the scientists' visions were "dreams in aspemia".

Over the years, and in retrospect, it has become clear that drying the patient has been a historic mistake and a cry for generations, with the ecological and economic damage that has accumulated from the drying far outweighing its benefits.

Officials wasted no electricity

During an enforcement operation conducted in early January 1952 by inspectors from the Jerusalem Electric Company, heaters connected to electricity were found in the officials' rooms of the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

This is in contrast to an order issued a week earlier, which restricted the use of power-hungry appliances during the day.

As punishment, the current in the building was cut off for four hours, but the Minister of Trade and Industry, Dov Yosef, demanded that the inspectors leave the building until the matter was clarified between him and the Minister of Justice, Haim Cohen.

In a telephone conversation between the two, Minister Cohen answered Yosef dryly: "Law is law, and an order is an order."

"Compensation for taxis on Saturday"

A taxi in Jerusalem, 1952, Photo: Hirschbein Collection, "Beitmona" website

Nearly 1,000 taxis across the country joined a strike announced by the "Association of Ceremonial Owners in Israel," which began on January 4, 1952. The reason: the authorities 'refusal to comply with taxi owners' demand to raise fare on Saturday by 30 percent.

The chairman of the Taxi Owners' Association, Meir Gabay, stated that "a limited number of taxis will be available to doctors and nurses, and in cases of mental supervision they are asked to call 4754." Gabay added that with his family.

If he is already forced to take Shabbat duty - at least he will have fair compensation for harming his family. "

Crisis in dollar stores

Many families in Israel received regular monthly assistance from their relatives in the United States, in the form of a dollar voucher (called a "script") with which it was possible to purchase products in specialty stores called "dollar stores." "In addition to the price increases, the dollar exchange rate has changed, and now I can buy with a $ 50 voucher only two-thirds of what I bought in the store until two months ago," citizen Ephraim Firushansky explained to the newspaper. Herut "at the entrance of a dollar store in Jerusalem.

The missing / cars of yesteryear

Right to an escort

Photo: Nostalgia Online Archive,

The family Ford Escort car became very popular in Israel in the mid-1970s, and anyone who purchased a model of this model had to wait ten months for it to arrive.

Agile entrepreneurs, who found a way to a handsome side income, signed up to purchase the escort from the importer, paid the Kadima fee - and about a month before actually receiving the car published an ad in the newspaper: "For sale - the right to an escort."

This right was quickly bought by citizens who coveted the car but did not want to wait months to get it.

The grocery store / items since

Digital watch

Photo: Nostalgia Online Archive,

An item that symbolized the consumer tsunami of products from the Far East, beginning in the late 1970s.

It was a watch with a monitor with buttons, buttons and various functions in addition to displaying the time, including a tiny digital game (usually "Snake"), with which you could spend hours of fun waiting in line or while in class.

The popular watch was made by the Japanese "Casio", and later came other types of different Chinese manufacturers.

Bill: It is mandatory to learn Hebrew

Photo: Central Zionist Archive,

On December 15, 1951, the Minister of Education and Culture, Ben-Zion Dinur, announced that "the Ministry of Education is working to prepare a law that will oblige every Israeli citizen, with an emphasis on the new immigrant, to learn Hebrew."

The Minister reported that on January 2, 1952, hundreds of classrooms for teaching Hebrew to adults would be opened throughout the country, emphasizing that under the new law, certain rights at work would be granted only to employees who speak the language.

The law was not finally enacted, but more than 25,000 adults enrolled in Hebrew studies in early January 1952. In the photo: a poster inviting them to study Hebrew, with an illustration illustration of a "language key" that will ensure an economic future for all language learners.

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Source: israelhayom

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