FROM OUR ARCHIVES

65 YEARS AGO

On March 9, 1952, The Jerusalem Post reported that according to the NEABS news agency the ex-mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, was reported to have asked Lebanon for asylum. This followed reports of an Egyptian refusal to grant him a return visa from Karachi to Cairo, and Pakistan’s apparent unwillingness to grant him asylum there.

It was announced in Rome that foreign minister Moshe Sharett was scheduled to arrive there on March 17, for a stay of three or four days, during which he would confer with the Italian premier, Alcide De Gasperi, and leading Italian officials.

The Lebanese government had decided to tighten its control over the emigration of Jews from the country, which had increased considerably over the past three years. Most Jews, like many Christians and Muslims, had left for the North or South America and also for Africa and Australia.

It was reliably learned that among the many persons recently arrested as Zionists in Czechoslovakia was Dov Weiss (Andrei Okatch). Weiss, 30, had been active in the 1944 Slovak rising against the Nazis. He first came to Israel in 1949, was sent to Europe to assist in the organization of immigration, and on his return joined Kibbutz Hayotzrim [later renamed Shomrat], near Acre. He returned to Czechoslovakia in 1950 and published a series of articles sharply critical of Israel.

50 YEARS AGO

On March 9, 1967, The Jerusalem Post reported that Moshe Dayan, MK, complained in the Knesset that the Foreign Ministry’s foreign aid budget had been cut from IL 15 million to IL13.5m. and said that agricultural projects in the three countries of special importance for Israel – Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania –would be eliminated.

The Post’s editorial was devoted to Jerusalem and quoted the Jewish sages of yore who said that of the 10 measures of the beauty that God gave to the Land of Israel, nine were given to Jerusalem. The same, the editorial commented, might be said about the apportioning of difficult problems. And it was precisely because Jerusalem was Jerusalem and was situated where it was, that it was so difficult a city to live in. [The city was reunified three months later.]

25 YEARS AGO

On March 9, 1992, The Jerusalem Post reported that doctors said former prime minister Menachem Begin had suffered a substantial damage to his cardiac muscle, causing sharp and dangerous drops in his blood pressure. Doctors intervened to present a further lowering of Begin’s blood pressure using a battery of cardiological drugs. Two men who presented themselves as devoted followers of Begin insisted on joining the watch. “It doesn’t matter to me how long it takes,” one of them said, “for me, Begin is still the leader and a great figure.” He was reading Psalms and praying for Begin’s recovery.

The funeral of Turkish Embassy security officer Ehud Sadan took place in Jerusalem as the family in Israel and the Israeli embassy staff in Turkey mourned his death. Aboard the IAF transport plane which took his body to Jerusalem was his widow Rahel, their son who had recently celebrated his bar mitzva and their two young daughters. Alexander Zvielli