FROM OUR ARCHIVES
65 YEARS AGO
October 26, 1952
The Holy Ark of the Aden synagogue in Tel Aviv was damaged as well as some of the furniture and 14 congregants were arrested as a result of a fight over the liturgy. The clash broke out between the majority attendants of the service – Yeminites who had their special way of chanting prayers – and a number of Sephardi worshipers. Police restored order after arresting the most pugnacious elements.
Consumers influenced the allocation of raw materials to manufacturers of knitwear when they chose the designs they preferred to buy at an exhibition held in Jerusalem. Under the new system, all manufacturers in the field were invited to exhibit patterns of their products. Each member of a public committee then chose the item he would buy in a shop where all types were available. Raw materials would be allocated to manufacturers in accordance with the percentage of votes each product received.
After interviewing Dr. Morris Fishbein, who was in Israel to provide constructive criticism of Israel’s health and healthcare system, The Jerusalem Post wrote up a “capsulized” version of his statements: (1) Israel could do more to cure typhoid by sanitation than by injections. (2) If anyone who violated sanitation at a ma’bara [immigrant transit camp] was made to put in 10 days of forced labor cleaning up, the camps would be models of cleanliness in no time. (3) Socialized medicine could only be justified by the economy of a country. If the economy is bankrupt then socialized medicine is justifiable. The medical school should be built in the city and not on the city’s edge. It must be accessible. The school in Israel cannot copy American standards, as it knows them. The trouble is that Israelis usually visit the medical schools of the East Coast or Chicago which are essentially teacher training institutions. They should visit the other schools and take those that are primarily concerned with the care of the sick and the prevention of disease as their models. (4) The school should not take in American students. It should take more local students instead.
10 YEARS AGO
October 26, 2007
The IDF broke a promise given to the High Court of Justice to renew bus transportation for Gaza Strip students to Egypt so that they could pursue their academic studies abroad. According to the Legal Center for Freedom of Movement NGO, 670 students with visas to study abroad could not leave the Gaza Strip because the Rafah border crossing was closed and there was no other way to reach Egypt. Israel halted the student shuttle services after the cabinet designated the Gaza Strip “hostile territory.”. The last bus to take students across the border left two months earlier. Shlomo Dror, spokesman for the Coordinator of Activities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, told reporters, “We are looking for a way to enable the students to leave Gaza. We tried to allow them to use the Nahal Oz border crossing, but came to the conclusion that it was very problematic because it is vulnerable to mortar fire.”
– Daniel Kra