FROM OUR ARCHIVES

65 YEARS AGO

October 31, 1952 The Jewish Agency spokesman disclosed that 1,376 tents would be used as dwellings during the winter. A government spokesman had earlier said that fewer than 600 families would spend winter in tents, so there were some statistical discrepancies. The spokesman added that all the families had agreed to stay in the tents since permanent houses were being prepared for them.

All dwellers in ma’barot whose tents were torn and who had been offered the choice of moving to better accommodations in canvas or wooden huts would receive no Jewish Agency help in repairing their present dwellings. Another category of the ma’barot population who would get no Agency help in the coming winter were those who refused to sign contracts for any permanent housing offered them. These decisions were prompted by the recent widespread reluctance on the part of some ma’barot dwellers to move to better accommodations situated at some distance from their present huts and tents.

50 YEARS AGO

October 31, 1967 Chief of staff Lt.-Gen. Yitzhak Rabin bestowed the IDF’s highest award on 51 men who distinguished themselves during the Six Day War. Twenty-one of the citations were given posthumously. Occasionally, children stepped up to the chief of staff, including one two-year-old blond cherub who stood at attention and gravely shook Rabin’s hand before turning back to his waiting mother. A few of the men came limping and others with empty shirtsleeves pinned to their sides. There were also fathers and mothers, keeping their emotions under control with great difficulty.

Bank Tefahot opened a branch in east Jerusalem to give loans to Arabs who wanted to repair homes damaged in the Six Day War. Two minor difficulties were encountered. The first concerned guarantors. Well-todo Arabs were offended at having to supply one, while the poorer classes often couldn’t find anybody to give the guarantee. The second difficulty was that the Arabs were accustomed to defraying loans in twice-yearly, and not monthly, installments.

A man who might have been the oldest pilgrim ever to come to Israel, Berl Roth of the Bronx, New York, arrived in Israel. He was 106. Roth declared that if it had not been for the Six Day War he would never have come to Israel. “There is nothing to see here but the Western Wall,” he said.

25 YEARS AGO

October 31, 2002 Anyone who would succeed Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat would be enfeebled and unlikely to pursue peace with Israel, according to a CIA assessment made to Congress. “Arafat has no clear-cut successor, and any candidate will have neither the power base nor the leadership qualities necessary to wield full authority in the PA,” the assessment said.

Two soldiers were jailed for 10 days for refusing to help dismantle the Gilad Farm settlement outpost in Samaria. Soldiers and settlers scuffled as the army carried out the evacuation. It reportedly marked the first time that soldiers were jailed for refusing to participate in such an operation. Approximately 500 soldiers refused to serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, saying they opposed the military’s harsh actions against Palestinians. Soldiers who disobeyed orders because of their political beliefs threatened the stability of the military, the IDF spokesman said.