FROM OUR ARCHIVES

65 YEARS AGO

February 8, 1953 The world’s total Jewish population was 11,558,830, of whom approximately 2,500,000 were in Eastern European countries, according to the 1953 American Jewish Year Book. About 55% of the Jewish population, or 5,833,000, lived in North and South America. The Jewish population of Israel during 1952 totaled 1,425,000, or more than 12% of the entire world Jewish population. By contrast, Germany, which once had a Jewish population of 600,000, now had only 23,000 Jews. The largest Jewish community was in the US with 5 million Jews. There were 450,000 Jews in England, 235,000 in France, 360,000 in Argentina and 120,000 in Brazil.

Beduin in the Negev were on the move, seeking pasture for their flocks. The dry winter had withered their fields. The authorities were expected to distribute the ration of flour they normally would have received in May so that they could save their grain as seed for the next winter. Relations with the Negev Beduin remained friendly as long as a tribe was willing to stay put and defend the area from marauders, which they usually did. The government provided the 18 tribes with medical services and education. The tribes paid token taxes for these services.

50 YEARS AGO

February 8, 1968 Tourism minister Moshe Kol warned tour guides from east Jerusalem not to mix politics with their professional duties. Any doing so would risk losing their licenses. Kol explained that a guide in receipt of an official certificate authorizing him to serve tourists was obliged to see himself as a representative of the ministry vis-à-vis the tourist. He said they should confine their remarks to information about the holy places and historical and archeological sites. The minister was optimistic as to improvement in the employment situation among east Jerusalem guides. “We are interested in every Arab guide being able to make a living from his profession and hope that they do not endanger the trust we place in them.”

Welfare minister Yosef Burg told the Knesset that the danger of mounting juvenile delinquency had yet to recognized by the Israeli public. The crux of the problem, he said, lay to a great extent in large, disadvantaged immigrant families, who provided almost half the wards in the Welfare Ministry’s homes. The state had received immigrants, but not absorbed them socially and spiritually, Burg said. Statistics culled from an analysis of the ministry’s own welfare homes showed that native Israeli children with a native father accounted for a mere 4.3% of the wards. Families who had arrived after 1948 accounted for 80%.

10 YEARS AGO

February 8, 2008 Egyptian authorities were investigating claims that many Gazans bought land in Sinai over the previous few weeks. Leaders of several Beduin tribes living in Sinai strongly denied that their families sold land to Palestrinains who poured into Egypt after the border was breached on January 23. Egyptian law prohibited foreigners from purchasing land in Sinai. The investigation came amid growing tension between Egypt and Hamas over the tearing down of the security fence along the border with the Gaza Strip.