FROM OUR ARCHIVE

65

years ago: On November 21, 1949, The Palestine Post reported that Israel’s Jewish population had passed the 1 million mark – with 673 immigrants from Tripoli landing in Haifa on the SS Galila.

Twenty young Italian Catholics from San Nicandro, a small village south of Naples, who had adopted the Jewish faith three years prior arrived on the SS Galila. They were escorted to Israel by Pessah Corina, who had settled in Israel two years before and returned to Italy to help his friends come to their adopted homeland. Most of the arrivals brought agricultural implements, intending to set up a cooperative village. They came owing to a vision seen by one of the village’s old women, who was told to tell the villagers to sell their property and emigrate to Israel.

All airfields in Holland were alerted to look out for a missing Dakota airplane carrying 30 Jewish children from Morocco to Sweden. The plane was feared lost.

According to the British-controlled Near East Broadcasting Station, the Egyptian government announced on November 20, 1949, that it had lifted the ban on passage of goods destined for Israel through the Suez Canal; all shipping agents had been notified.

The government announced that the arrival of Roman Catholic holy year pilgrims to Israel would be regulated at 2,000 per week, due to limited accommodations in the Jewish state.

25

years ago: On November 21, 1989, The Jerusalem Post reported that foreign minister Moshe Arens indicated Israel would withstand US pressure and even sanctions, should it believe its basic interests were in jeopardy.

The PLO was expected to submit to Cairo a conditionally positive reply to US secretary of state James Baker’s fivepoint plan for dialogue with Israel, following last-minute amendments and intense Egyptian pressure.

Eleven influential members of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee formally issued a public appeal to prime minister Yitzhak Shamir to immediately suspend all remaining ties with South Africa.

Shamir told the press in New York that “the great number of American Jews support me,” and assailed his American critics “whose profession is to criticize the State of Israel.” –