FROM OUR ARCHIVES
50 YEARS AGO
East Jerusalem’s 70,000 residents would soon be serviced by a new branch of the National Insurance Institute. The Arab public would then enjoy the same insurance privileges that could be obtained all over Israel.
The Cabinet would take up a request to turn over the Western Wall area, then under the authority of the Religious Affairs Ministry, to the National Parks Authority. Ya’acov Yanai, director of the Authority, took strong exception to the Ministry plan to issue an international tender for landscaping the Western Wall area at a cost of IL 5 million. The figure was suspect, he said, since it meant grandiose building not appropriate to the spot. Secondly, only an Israeli architect should be given the job, he said. Yanai went on to say that the authority had a great deal of experience in dealing with historical sites such as Masada. The wall, he noted, was a national monument, and hundreds of thousands of non-religious people visited it.
The 10,000 Arab residents of Kalkilya were treated to a demonstration luncheon of soup, salad, hamburgers, and schnitzel – all made of soybeans. The meal was a gift from Israel’s “Soy King,” Eliahu Navot, a major soybean grower. Navot promised the residents he would later distribute soybean seeds for planting in their gardens. He planned similar “soybeans for peace” visits to other West Bank communities.
The first wedding of a volunteer couple, from among the thousands of Jewish youths who came to work on kibbutzim since the Six Day War, was held in Haifa. The couple, Shaul Rotenberg, a medical student, and Hana Fuchs, a gymnastics teacher, were both from Buenos Aires. Hetty Mahler, the kibbutz nurse in charge of volunteers, said that after the couple came back from a four-day honeymoon in Nahariya, a wedding gift from the kibbutz, they would move into the usual “family room” allocated to kibbutz couples.
15 YEARS AGO
Defense minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer ordered the freezing of the planned easing up of restrictions on the Palestinian people, which would have allowed for more laborers into Israel and the easing of curfews, after terrorist attacks in Emmanuel and Tel Aviv.
Palestinian officials held a ceremony to grant bank checks to the families of suicide bombers or those who had lost relatives in clashes with the IDF. The checks were sent by Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, with $25,000 and $15,000 awarded respectively.
Hundreds of top-secret IDF Central Command documents were found abandoned in a forest near Jerusalem. Two soldiers intended to burn the documents there, but they apparently left before verifying that the documents were completely destroyed. The documents reportedly dealt with many subjects including IDF readiness and deployment plans. Army Radio said that burning documents in this manner was forbidden by the IDF, and that an investigation had been opened.
10 YEARS AGO
Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar gave his approval for civil marriages in cases where both bride and groom were gentiles according to Orthodox Jewish law. Yosef’s backing was seen as opening the way for Shas – the only religious party in the government coalition and, consequently, a potential obstacle – to support civil marriage legislation, albeit limited.