FROM OUR ARCHIVES
65 YEARS AGO
The US State Department requested that Israel not move any further government offices to Jerusalem and not press foreign legations in Tel Aviv to transfer their offices.
The public was again earnestly warned against bathing in the Yarkon River in Tel Aviv which was infested with bilharzia, also known as snail fever.
Forged meat coupons were found being circulated in Tel Aviv.
Two black-spotted seals at the Tel Aviv Zoo were in their 21st day of a “hunger strike”. Since their arrival from Finland the seals refused all the various kinds of fish offered them. B. Goffer, director of the zoo, said the seals simply missed their home temperature, an average of 12°. Seals of their type can survive without food for six to eight weeks.
50 YEARS AGO
Two hundred and fifty tourists were staying at Jerusalem hotels for the first time since the Six Day War. Most of the tourists were staying at Mount. Scopus, the National Palace, the Orient House and the St George. The Ambassador and the Ritz were still occupied by the Military Police. Meanwhile, hotels in east Jerusalem complained about the 9 p.m. curfew, which they said kept the bulk of the potential tourist market closed to them. Resort areas in Israel were practically deserted, as all local vacationers were headed for Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The customs authorities were not authorized to waive customs duties set by the Knesset, even on foreign cigarettes donated to wounded soldiers, according to finance minister Pinhas Sapir. This was in response to a press report that a gift of 406 cartons of foreign cigarettes donated by the crew members of the s.s. Keshet to wounded soldiers in hospitals had dwindled to 80 because the customs officials had insisted on full duty. Sapir noted, however, that when the customs could, it also aided wounded soldiers. For example, the customs contributed 250 impounded transistor radios to the wounded.
25 YEARS AGO
The High Court of Justice ordered the labor and social affairs minister to respond to a petition filed by the National Council for the Child regarding the lack of a shelter for Arab juvenile delinquents. According to the council hundreds of Arab youth offenders were denied a chance to rehabilitate themselves because of a lack of a closed facility for such youths like the two available to Jewish youth offenders.
A Rehovot policeman managed to talk a 36-year-old man from Gedera out of setting himself on fire after the man threatened to set himself alight if the police tried to evacuate his family from a local caravan. The man, married and the father of a two-yearold boy, had broken into the building on a local caravan site. Chief Superintendent Hizki Aloni of the Rehovot police managed to convince the man to talk, and a check with the Amidar housing company indicated the man had never taken advantage of his right to an eligibility certificate. When he was promised he would receive a caravan within a month, he agreed to leave after washing off the kerosene in the caravan’s shower.
– Daniel Kra