FROM OUR ARCHIVES

65 YEARS AGO

February 18, 1953

The US Court of Appeals granted a stay of execution to March 30 to the atomic spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to permit them to petition the Supreme Court for a review of their case. Their execution was originally set for January 14, but a stay was granted pending the presidential decision on an appeal for clemency. President Dwight Eisenhower rejected the appeal a week earlier.

Police minister Behor Shitreet told the Knesset that the country was suffering from “a crime crisis.” Although it was wrong to assume that most of the criminals came from the ranks of new immigrants, it was a fact, he said, that many immigrants had come from countries where the police were feared but not respected, and the freedom they found here was misinterpreted as license.

A herd of goats that had strayed across the Israeli frontier from their Lebanese pastures was “repatriated” at the northern border. The goats crossed into Israel without their goatherd a few days earlier and were “taken into custody” by Israeli police. “Repatriation” was supervised by the Mixed Armistice Commission.

50 YEARS AGO

February 18, 1968

Editorial – “Kupat Holim’s decision to press for a law obligating medical graduates to remain in Israel to work for five years after graduation is liable to touch off a heated controversy. The requirement that one of these five years shall be spent in one of the outlying villages where the doctor shortage is critical will be considered particularly irksome by young doctors who prefer large medical centers that offer opportunities for further study but also help and advice. The medical profession will argue that such a law is unfair, as medicine will be the only professional category so regimented. Kupat Holim leaders will point out in reply that the medical student’s fees make up only a small proportion of the cost of his education. The state has paid for most of it. Therefore, the state is entitled to a fair return on its investment.”

There were only 200 Jews left in Libya and they would be leaving very soon, according to the American Joint Distribution Committee. It said there were 3,100 Jews in Libya before the Six Day War. Since then, 2,000 had gone to Italy. When the remaining 200 left, there would be no Jews at all in Libya for the first time in 2,500 years, the Joint said. There were 35,000 Jews there before 1949. Five thousand left immediately after the War of Independence, while a further 27,000 left later.

15 YEARS AGO

February 18, 2003

The repercussions of the imminent US campaign in Iraq would be felt in Syria and Libya, US undersecretary of state John Bolton said. According to officials, he also stressed that the US had not forgotten the nuclear threat from North Korea and would deal with that issue “after Iraq.”

10 YEARS AGO

February 18, 2008

Dozens of angry Sderot merchants refused to leave the courtroom after the High Court of Justice failed to hand down a final verdict on their petition demanding compensation for the losses in income they had suffered as a result of terrorist attacks.