from Israel Studies Volume 6, Number 3

The Integration of Yemenites in Israeli Schools

Zvi Zameret

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The uproar over the education of Yemenite children in the immigrant moshav [cooperative agricultural settlement] of Amka, in the north of Israel, is one of the most flagrant examples of the kind of absorption that met new immigrants from Islamic countries in the first years of Israel's independence. The group most active in absorption at the time was the Mapai [Labor Party]-dominated Moshav Movement. Amka was among the moshavim singled out by both the religious press and religious parliamentarians as proof of the violation of the 1949 Compulsory Education Law, which guaranteed parents the right to choose a particular educational system for their children.1 Amka was pointed to as an example of anti-religious coercion perpetrated by the leading political party, Mapai, and the Israeli Left. In this period, however, Mapai members, led by Prime Minister Ben-Gurion, and the first two ministers of education, Zalman Shazar and David Remez, vehemently refuted this charge. They fulminated in both the media and Knesset that such claims were libelous and totally unsubstantiated.

In the years that have passed, confidential documents from the highest echelons of Mapai have been made public, revealing that, among the party elite, it was common knowledge that the Moshav Movement was flouting the Compulsory Education Law and that anti-religious coercion was taking place at Amka. Moreover, a wealth of evidence shows that Mapai leaders were bitterly divided over the manner in which immigrants from Oriental backgrounds, including the Yemenites at Amka, should be assimilated into the country. On one hand, officials such as Shazar and Remez believed that anti-religious coercion must be avoided and that immigrant parents in all of the Moshav Movement's villages, like other parents throughout the country, should be allowed to choose their children's educational framework. On the other hand, leading figures in the Labor "system," such as Yaakov Halperin (Niv) (Head Supervisor), Yakov Sarid (a top official in Tel-Aviv), and the leaders of the Moshav Movement, especially Member of Knesset (MK) Ami Assaf, believed that their primary mission was to spread the Labor Movement gospel among as many pupils as possible. It was decided that, in every moshav affiliated with the Moshav Movement, only educational institutions associated with the Histadrut [the Labor Movement's trade union] would be permitted to operate. Aided by instructors and volunteers from veteran moshavim, public and Labor-affiliated organizations made full use of their power and compelled immigrant children to take their schooling in either the Labor or Religious-Labor system. Objecting parents were eventually expelled from the village.

It seems that Ben-Gurion was caught between the two sides. Publicly he defended the Labor system and asserted that everything was proceeding legally. But in closed-doors discussions with party leaders, he admitted that the Moshav Movement was in fact breaking the law, and that it was dangerous to lend it support. In one such meeting he was extremely outspoken on this point, declaring that "our" people were carrying out acts of "robbery in broad daylight" on the new immigrants and that the nation and the party would pay dearly for this in the future.

In retrospect, by failing to demand an immediate end to the infringement of the law and the accompanying anti-religious coercion, the Prime Minister and the cabinet, including ministers from the Religious Front2 gave, in effect, their tacit sanction to illegal acts.

A BRIEF LOOL AT THE ABSORPTION OF YEMENITES (1948–1951)

Between 1948–1951, nearly 680,000 immigrants entered the State of Israel, half of whom arrived from Islamic countries.3 One group of special distinction came from Yemen and Aden on an airlift operation known as the "Wings of Eagles.4 The exodus began in December 1948 and was completed in less than two years, in September 1950. Altogether, 48,000 Jews landed in Israel from Yemen and Aden.5 On arrival, all of the Yemenite immigrants were sent to transit camps, although many were transferred to work villages and moshavim after only a few weeks.

The Moshav Movement was the main organization involved in the absorption of new immigrants. The movement's leaders responded enthusiastically to Ben-Gurion's call in early 1949 for assistance and shouldered the daunting task of overcoming innumerable ideological and practical obstacles, vigorously taking the lead in the policy known as "from transit camp to village."6 In 1948, prior to the massive influx of immigrants into the country, the Moshav Movement contained only 49 villages, comprising 3245 families. Within five years, an additional 135 moshavim were established that included 9547 families. In this short time, the Moshav Movement expanded into the dominant organization of labor settlement.7

Many Yemenite families, although religiously observant by tradition, were nevertheless sent to the secular Moshav Movement. Less than a third were placed on moshavim of the religious system; i.e., villages affiliated with the religious parties HaPoel HaMizrakhi or Agudat Israel.8

POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE ABSORPTION OF YEMENITE IMMIGRANTS

For the most part, the new immigrants from Islamic countries, including those arriving on "the Wings of Eagles" remained out-of-sight and out-of-mind for most of the Jewish community in Israel.9

Undeniably, the entire Labor Movement, with Mapai as its political arm, formed the organizational framework most actively involved in the absorption of Oriental immigrants, including the Yemenites. On the other hand, Mapai activists, more than any other group working in absorption, aspired to "re-educate" the Oriental Jews and speedily mold them into the image of the "new Israeli"—best summed up as an anti-religious, secular, pioneering tiller of the soil. As the dominant political party in the state, Mapai had all the resources at its command for pressuring, as well as attracting, the new immigrants. The party oversaw the state's major absorption bodies on which the new immigrants were dependent: the Jewish Agency, the Moshav Movement, workers councils, employment offices, the Jewish National Fund, HaMashbir HaMerkazi [nation-wide, all-inclusive department store chain], local mini-markets, neighborhood clinics, and the workers bank [Bank HaPoalim]. It should also be mentioned, however, that in the first years of Israel's statehood, Mapai fielded more active instructors for assisting the immigrants than any other political party, as well as more people who volunteered their time, energy, and experience in response to their movement's "call up" to aid in absorption. Mapai succeeded in enlisting more agricultural experts, teachers, doctors, nurses, social workers, etc., than all the other groups in Israel combined. Thousands of Mapai party members contributed to the absorption of Oriental Jewry, which included the new immigrants from Yemen.

Compared to Mapai and the Israeli Left in general—Mapam (the Zionist-Socialist party), and especially the two kibbutz movements, Kibbutz Artzi (Mapam), and HaKibbutz HaMeuchad (associated with Mapam, with a small minority from Mapai. Broke away in 1952)—lthe political parties in the center and the right made almost no effort in immigrant absorption, and a number of them even hindered it. Furthermore, at the municipal level where the center and the right held sway—such as in Tel-Aviv under Mayor Israel Rokach and Ramat-Gan under Mayor Abraham Krinitzi—the immigrants were unwanted and pressured to evacuate the city limits.10

Even among religious Jews, there was a severe lack of workers dedicated to receiving and absorbing the immigrants, especially in the first months of statehood in 1948 and 1949. For the most part, the Religious Front turned its back on the people coming from Islamic countries and even discriminated against them. Evidence can be seen in its response to a request by the Chief Sephardi Rabbi, Rabbi Ben-Zion Uziel, who demanded that the party add a representative from Oriental background to a realistic spot on its list of candidates to the First Knesset.11 The Front's leadership consented to a Sephardi representative, but only in the 25th place, knowing that it was considered highly unlikely it would win more than 18–20 mandates (it received only 16).12 In this period, however, almost 200,000 Sephardi Jews dwelt in the country, the majority of whom were religiously observant, and who accounted for one quarter of the electorate.

THE BEGINNING OF THE "AMKA AFFAIR"

Yemenite settlement in the abandoned Arab village of Amka, 12 kilometers south of the Lebanese border, began in November 1949. The Moshav Movement ensured that absorption instructors from established labor settlements would be waiting for the new arrivals, according to the standard operating procedure. These advisors had a two-fold task: first, to introduce the immigrants to Western and Zionist culture, modern education, agriculture, economics, the bureaucratic system, health services, etc.; and second, to induct them into the "correct" ideology and "correct" political framework.

The chief instructor at Amka was Yosef Lukov13 from the veteran moshav of Kfar Vitkin. There can be no doubt that he sacrificed a great deal of his family life in order to assist the Yemenites in the northern settlement. Lukov the "Mapainik" became in effect the village supervisor. Instructors and officials working in the village, as well as the Yemenites themselves, recognized his authority. As a loyal member of his movement and party, Lukov ascertained that the moshav's solitary school would be affiliated with the Labor system and that all the local immigrant children would learn there.

In early January 1950, a female teacher from the Labor system was sent to Amka on Lukov's initiative. The woman, a secular Jew, was expected to take responsibility, single-handedly, for the education of dozens of newly arrived Yemenite children. She was, however, far removed from the parents' expectations.14 We may assume that the Yemenites were angry on two counts: one, the teacher did not observe Jewish religious traditions; and two, she was female. It should be pointed out that she worked alone and that the pedagogic challenge was obviously overwhelming.

In the same period, Achi'ezer (a Haifa-based organization engaged in the religious instruction of immigrant children) dispatched three ultra-orthodox male teachers to Amka to open a school affiliated with Agudat Israel. The initiators of the school claimed that sixty-four pupils, the vast majority of the moshav's children, had been enrolled,15 but, they charged, Labor Movement instructors in the village spared no effort to expel the teachers. In an unsigned letter sent by the Achi'ezer organization to the Minister of Education and Culture, Zalman Shazar (additional copies were also sent to various religious figures), the village supervisor, Yosef Lukov, was charged with violent behavior and the forcible obstruction of the religious school's activity. The letter went on to list beatings, intimidation, and threats on the Yemenite children that were perpetrated by Lukov and his colleagues. It further alleged, "these heroic ëdeeds' were carried out in a blatantly military manner and that all of the local kibbutzim had been ordered to block movement to and from Amka of anyone whose external appearance implied that he was a religious Jew." Furthermore, it was claimed that a Yemenite immigrant, who lived in the Ein Shemer transit camp [100 kilometers to the south] and had chanced to enter the synagogue at Amka while religious lessons were being taught, "was severely beaten inside the house of worship by the village supervisor, Yosef, and was thrown outside." In the same spirit, Lukov was imputed to have "threatened those villagers who sent their children to the religious school with cancellation of their right to employment"16 and "to have ordered the local general-goods store not to sell anything to the religious teachers." It was further reported that, on 17 January 1950, while religious instruction was being given to adults inside the synagogue, rifle fire was staged outside as though Arabs were attacking the settlement "in order to frighten the teachers and students and disrupt the lesson." In addition, it was asserted that the same morning, during school hours, the village director stormed into the synagogue and "screaming wildly had forcefully pushed the pupils out of the synagogue and in this way abolished instruction at the school."17

THE "RELIGIOUS LABOR SYSTEM"18 ENTERS AMKA

In none of the moshavim linked to the Moshav Movement were immigrant parents allowed the right, enshrined in the 1949 Compulsory Education Law, to choose the education system (General, Labor, Mizrakhi, or Agudat Israel) they felt most appropriate for their children.

In moshavim where a loud demand for religious education was heard, it was agreed to set up a school of the Religious-Labor system that came under the auspices of the education branch of the Labor-dominated Histadrut, whose leaders were, naturally, secular. The heads of the Religious-Labor system, including its leader, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, were well aware that the Moshav Movement had been notoriously frugal in providing for the new immigrants basic religious needs and that the movement's goal was to corral the immigrants into the Labor camp. Nevertheless, the Religious-Labor heads continued to co-operate with the movement. Moreover, much evidence exists that they knew all about the Moshav Movement's anti-religious coercion, as a few examples will suffice to prove. In April 1949, Dr. Yeshayahu Leibowitz wrote to the secretary of the Moshav Movement:

They [people in the Moshav movement] employ force, threats, and economic discrimination to prevent the settlers from realizing their religious aspirations . . . [The settlers are being prejudiced in a way] contrary not only to morality and democracy but also to explicit guarantees and resolutions of the [Histadrut's] Executive Committee that [should] provide for the religious needs of observant Histadrut members.19

Dr. Leibowitz reiterated his complaint before the Histadrut leaders that "they must be informed of the real situation where the first signs of an Inquisition-style, Stalinist hatred of Judaism and religious repression have cropped up in several places within the Histadrut."20 Perhaps the high-point of Leibowitz's invective against the Moshav Movement was his testimony at the Frumkin Commission (a blue-ribbon committee set up in January 1950 to investigate the education of immigrant children). Appearing before the commission, Dr. Leibowitz affirmed that "there are [also] provocations and subtler forms of dissimulation and deception; and occasionally even cruder, heavier-handed means are taken that employ threats and compulsion. This must be fought against every time it appears."21

Despite the awareness in the Religious-Labor system that it had become a "fig-leaf" for Histadrut-organized General education, the movement's leaders decided to set up shop in the village of Amka. According to statements made on 20 January 1950—almost three months after the Yemenites had arrived on the moshav—only then was it discovered that "the village was religious and that a religious school should be established."22 In January 1950, after the ultra-orthodox Agudat Israel school was already in operation, the first teachers from the Religious-Labor system entered the village. Following this, Religious-Labor heads hastened to report to the Minister of Education that the school system in Amka was now under control. As for the fate of the Agudat Israel classes, it was explained to the minister that the Yemenites had freely decided to abandon them and that one of the Aguda teachers was sitting "in the synagogue without pupils, studying Torah alone."23 But, this report reflected, at best, wishful thinking on the part of the Religious-Labor system.

Unrelated to the Amka Affair, but unmistakably connected to the general, anti-religious coercion of the new immigrants, Dr. Leibowitz, the leader of Religious-Labor, had grown totally discouraged and submitted his resignation.24

SHAZAR'S MANAGEMENT OF EDUCATION AT AMKA

Zalman Shazar, Israel's first Minister of Education and Culture, was a weak administrator who wielded little authority in the education system.25 His influence was negligible in matters of schooling in rural settlements, but this shortcoming did not excuse him from dealing with events at Amka.

Almost one month before the beginning of the Amka Affair, Shazar had been accused, in a written interpolation, by MK David Zvi Pinkas26 (Religious Front), of supporting people in the Workers Movement who were wreaking havoc on the education of immigrant children, perpetrating "moral and inquisitional coercion against Judaism," "attempting to force the [children] to remodel their religion and beliefs," and who were creating a situation that would lead to "the annihilation of religious culture."27 Under relentless pressure from the Religious Front, these incriminations forced the government, in mid-January 1950, to set up the Frumkin Commission to investigate the charges that an anti-religious education system was being imposed on new immigrants.

Nearly two weeks after the establishment of the commission, Shazar received the harsh letter from Achi'ezer about events at Amka. We may assume that this letter did not add to Shazar's sense of well-being. He immediately requested top ministry officials to find out what was going on in the northern immigrant village. Headed by Dr. Avraham Deutsch, Chief Inspector of the Agudat Israel system, and Yakov Halperin, Chief Inspector of the Labor system, the Education Ministry's investigating committee set out for Amka. The commission's results remained a secret internal report and were never published. According to (MK) Meir David Levinstein (Agudat Israel)—who apparently received information about the report from Dr. Deutsch—Lukov told the commission that "even if they [Histadrut instructors] received an order ëfrom upstairs' they would not allow a religious school to operate in Amka because it [the village] was their family."28 In other words, the moshav was considered to be "an organic part" of the Moshav Movement.

Despite the education inspectors' inquiry, religious circles continued to assert that Shazar was derelict in his role and that the Yemenites were being prevented from schooling their children according to age-old religious educational traditions. Shazar acknowledged that the accusations were accurate—but this admission was made two months after he left the ministry.29 Only then did he speak out vehemently against the Moshav Movement and avow that it had been violating Israel's education laws. In an internal debate in Mapai, he stated candidly: "Regarding the pressure [on parents in the moshav] and [educational] matters in all of the moshavim, I was habitually at a loss at what to do." He went on to explain at length his basic views, which he had failed to apply while serving as education minister:

. . . I am a great supporter of freedom of individual self-definition, and I declare that a Jew needs to be satisfied with his [own freely chosen brand of] Judaism in the State of Israel . . . Today the moshavim number iun the hundreds . . . Why do you say that instead of free choice only one type of school can exist? . . . In my opinion this goes completely against the principle anchored in the law concerning [educational] systems . . . and I do not understand why the moshavim should be above the jurisdiction of the state.30

Shazar stressed that the Moshav Movement's policy ran counter to the basic foundations of a democratic society. He admitted that, as minister in charge, he had been delinquent in realizing his Jewish and democratic credo to guarantee moshav immigrants the right to choose the type of religious education they preferred.

THE RELIGIOUS FRONT AND THE AMKA AFFAIR

Events at Amka caused much consternation to (MK) Levinstein and the Religious Front's executive.31 Levinstein demanded that not an inch be yielded to Mapai: "We must make the fateful decision of waging war on all fronts [in every coalition government with Mapai]. Party relations in the Yishuv act only to our advantage. If we stand firm they [the parties] will submit because their situation is weaker than ours."32

The indomitable fighting spirit of Levinstein on the Amka issue led to the paradoxical situation of addressing an interpolation to his colleague in the Religious Front leadership, Moshe Shapira, then Minister of the Interior and leader of HaPoel HaMizrakhi (Religious Labor). Levinstein asked Shapira: "Is the honorable gentleman aware that the advisory staff at the village of Amka in the Galilee . . . prohibits entrance into the village of any Jew suspected of being religious? An order to this effect was issued to all of the neighboring settlements [so that] religious teachers in Agudat Israel schools at Amka were forced to return to the village by roundabout routes via Arab villages." He ended his indictment with these words: "What does the respected minister intend to do to counteract the attempt to establish an area 'outside the pale' for religious Jews in Israel?"33

It took Shapira one month (30 May 1950) to reply to Levinstein. He insisted, in formal, straightforward language, that no law on the books forbade any settler from entering the village of Amka. He also asserted, somewhat naively, that he had no knowledge "of the appointment of a patron for the villagers of Amka." Shapira further declared, "The settlers of the aforementioned village are free citizens in a free country." Obviously ignoring reality, he stated, "The instructors in the village must educate the settlers for a life of agriculture and labor, but under no circumstances do they have the authority to engage in coercion and arbitrary rule." According to Shapira, Agudat Israel's teachers and school principal should "turn to the Israeli police and ask for protection that the guardians of the law are obligated to provide for every citizen of the state."34

This dialogue between two, apparently deaf parliamentarians, both of them colleagues in the Religious Front, bears witness to the antipodal directions in the party regarding the Amka crisis (and similar situations in other settlements). Levinstein continued to denounce cooperation with a Mapai-led government that uprooted religious immigrants from their cultural wellsprings. On the other hand, the Interior Minister, Moshe Shapira, while cognizant of Levinstein's basically correct accusations, nevertheless defended, to a large degree, the government, the Moshav Movement, and its instructor-proxies. In order to safeguard the coalition, he refused to aggravate the already strained relations with Mapai. Since Shapira and his colleagues had no desire to sever their partnership with the state's dominant political power, they respected the agreement that allotted them "their" share of the immigrants (one-fifth of the moshavim were affiliated with HaPoel HaMizrakhi).

Levinstein condemned not only Shapira's opportunism, but also the moderation displayed by the leaders of religious Zionism. In this vein he also quarreled with the heads of his own party, Agudat Israel, attacking the leadership of the Welfare Minister, Yitzhak Meir Levin. Throughout 1950, Levinstein's ultra-orthodox zeal continued to intensify. It seems that capitulation to anti-religious intimidation at Amka added flames to the passion of his faith. In late 1950, he took part in a putsch carried out by the heads of PAGI (Poalei-Agudat Israel, Jerusalem) against the leadership of Levin and his circle. This takeover resulted in a PAGI split from Agudat Israel. During elections to the Second Knesset (July 1951), Levinstein pledged his support to the PAGI list (called the "Ashkenazi and Sephardi Believers in a United Israel") which, however, failed to attain a single seat.35

THE AMKA AFFAIR IN THE RELIGIOUS PRESS

HaKol [The Voice], the PAGI newspaper, published more material than any other paper on the Amka Affair. It tended to present radical, ultra-orthodox positions that vilified the Agudat Israel leader, Levin, and his followers for selling out to the Zionists at the price of the "Jewish faith," in order to gain economic remuneration.36

In the Purim (Jewish spring festival) edition of 1950, HaKol published an article on the Amka Affair in the Biblical style of the Book of Esther, entitled "The Book of Amka." The editor's aim was to compare the Biblical book with events in the moshav so that his readers would make the analogy between the Amka Affair and the machinations against the Jews in ancient Persia and Medas. The article opened with an expression common in Jewish sources, "Now it came to pass," that foretells destruction and misery. The author wrote as though he were actually reporting from the moshav:

Now it came to pass, in the first year of the return to Israel from Yemenite Exile, in the fourth month which is the month of Tevet, on the twenty-sixth day of that month, and I am located in Amka which is in the Galilee: the floodgates of lamentation gushed forth from the people's eyes,37 and they wailed a loud and bitter sob, weeping: "Here we have come to this bountiful land, the Land of Our Fathers and the House of the Lord, but how will the child be judged, and the children that God has blessed us with? Shall we deliver them up to Moloch?" [etc.]

The fate of the children at Amka was being compared, no less, to that of the Children of Israel in the Bible who were sacrificed by immolation to the Canaanite gods.38

Approximately two months later, another article appeared in HaKol about the Amka Affair. This time it related that Amka was only one of many villages where anti-religious abuse had proliferated. "It is most interesting and annoying that the official agencies have completely overlooked what is happening in Amka. The impression one gets is that Amka, and there are more than one Amkas in Israel, is an exterritorial jurisdiction that has been handed over to the exclusive authority of a Histadrut instructor who acts imperiously."39 It should be emphasized that the "official agencies" referred to included all of the members of the Israeli Government, as well as ministers from the Religious Front.

For months, HaKol persisted in publishing information critical of the situation at Amka. On 2 June 1950, an article by "M.H." appeared, entitled: "Amka—the Symbol of the State and the Regime that Governs it." The article stated, inter alia: "The Amka Affair should be taken as a symbol . . . It is the most honest expression of the essence of life in the country and it clearly reflects the foundations upon which the state is based and the direction it is headed." The writer implied that the symbol of the state should be replaced by one that showed "a picture of an abandoned [Arab] village and underneath it a single printed word: Amka." The article highlighted tales of starvation among families who requested religious education, and alleged that "in the village there is only one source of food supplies: the general-store. And the clerk there refuses to sell to those villagers he holds responsible for the ultra-orthodox school, and he prevents them from procuring food elsewhere and bars them from work." The writer described to his readers, the majority of whom had never set foot inside an immigrant village, that "naturally no private labor is permitted in Amka. All work is organized either by the government or the Jewish Agency, who dole it out according to the whims of the local advisors. Anyone who fails to gain employment—starves to death." According to the journalist's charges, "a number of families at Amka were already lying famished, and if they do not receive immediate assistance they will have to choose between submission to the instructors or death by starvation."

The writer concluded his article with a venomous attack on the Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, and the Minister of Police, Bechor Shitreet:

The most characteristic point in the Amka Affair is not the cruelty perpetrated by a junta of worthless, peanut-sized dictators unbridled in their sadism toward people subject to their merciless authority. It is most illustrative that the government has no intention of intervening. The Prime Minister has promised, however, to request that his party colleagues cease the hooliganism, a promise he has made not as Prime Minister but as head of Mapai, the political party whose agents and instructors are executing these acts of wanton cruelty. The Minister of Police is appointed to safeguard the law and bring its transgressors to justice—but all of them [elected officials] stand aligned against the settlers of Amka. They [the Yemenite villagers] are the property of Mapai and every owner is permitted to do with his property as he sees fit. If they are maltreated, badgered, and starved—no one is there to heed or protect them.40

One week later, the newspaper announced the start of a large fund-raising drive "for the Amka villagers in their struggle for ultra-orthodox education."41

HaTzofeh [The Observer], the religious-Zionist newspaper, printed much less than the ultra-orthodox press about the ideological dispute over schooling at Amka. Three months after the first reports appeared in HaKol, a scathing article finally emerged in HaTzofeh. The article's style was extremely aggressive and resembled the most radical ultra-orthodox rhetoric, whose main goal, as we have seen, was to disrupt the coalition government and extricate the ultra-orthodox party. According to HaTzofeh:

The crime [at Amka] was committed by Jews, members of an organized political party [Mapai] who have forced fathers to enroll their children in schools of apostasy . . . Violence becomes a legal weapon in the country. Today threats of starvation and "soft" blows are sufficient—[but] there is no assurance that the same pistol in a violent hand will not begin shooting. Terror knows no borders. It increases with its first "success." The village of Amka is one example of many [of these acts of terror]. Terror has become daily fare. We would advise the Minister of Education and Culture, since he is a member of the party affiliated with the Moshav Movement, to calm the hotheads among the "instructors." We would also remind certain writers [journalists] in leftist newspapers that expounding against violence should be [the trademark of] their profession, and that they should be penning articles against the terror tactics in the village of Amka.42

KNESSET DEBATES ON AMKA

On 5 June 1950, Member of Knesset (MK) Zerach Warhaftig, one of the leaders of HaPoel HaMizrakhi, raised charges in the Knesset similar to those voiced months before, especially by Levinstein. (It will be recalled that, at the time, they were rejected by the head of Warhaftig's faction, Minister of the Interior Moshe Shapira). According to Warhaftig, ample evidence could be shown that, in Mapai-administered settlements, "pressure tactics were being employed for denying livelihood and employment—using the crudest measures" to prevent the children from be sent to religious schools. He mentioned the Amka case, but also cited the villages of Kfar Gilboa and Tarshicha, where "it was forbidden to open a religious school even within the Histadrut [Religious-Labor system] framework." Warhaftig concluded his remonstration by asserting:

The historian who will one day write the story of the spiritual-cultural absorption of mass immigration in this period, and particularly the history of immigration from Oriental countries, will relate how there were Jews who stood up and attempted to convert these children to another religion by means of brainwashing. He will title this chapter: "The Edict of Forced Apostasy."43

MK Ami Assaf answered Warhaftig's acerbic accusations, claiming that the charges were merely intended "to throw sand in the eyes." In his opinion, "accusations have been raised without any prior investigation" and, although totally unsubstantiated, they were then disseminated among the new immigrants. As for Amka, Assaf declared, ironically it was Yosef Lukov, so maligned for assaulting religion and tradition, who was actually most instrumental in blocking the spread of missionary books that Christian evangelists had tried to circulate in the village.44

Levinstein, however, was relentless in fanning the flames of the Amka Affair. On 7 June 1950, he announced to the Knesset that he had spoken to Ben-Gurion a number of times, and the Prime Minister had promised him that he would dispatch "a special agent to Amka to correct the infractions." But, Levinstein contended, the Prime Minister had not kept his word. Levinstein now demanded that the Knesset bring to a debate the events at Amka and enact a law stating that "anyone attempting to coerce parents to educate their child against their free will, will be considered as violating the rights of man and committing a crime. Obstruction of employment, too, would be considered an act of compulsion."45

Ben-Gurion replied to Levinstein's charges a week later. He had been caught off-guard, and replied defensively that he was responding to complaints of whose details he had little knowledge. He went on to say that "In effect, neither of us was present at Amka, both of us are relying on hearsay, therefore it is extremely unclear what exactly happened there."46

Despite these introductory remarks, Ben-Gurion was able to tell the Knesset how the Amka Affair originated. He concisely summarized the chain of events, relating to the point that the Yemenites of Amka, as in many other settlements, bickered among themselves over the type of education they desired for their children. In the end,

. . . most of the Yemenite settlers had preferred avoidance of conflict and announced: 'We want neither this school [Labor-secular system] nor that one [Agudat Israel]—we have our own teachers [Yemenites sent by the Religious-Labor system]' . . . The village director called on the Histadrut [Labor system] to dispatch education advisors to break in the Yemenite teachers; then the Histadrut teachers at the school left and the Yemenite teachers took over. He [Lukov] also asked the Aguda teachers [to leave willingly]—but they refused.

In other words, according to Ben-Gurion, it was Lukov who strove to reach a compromise at Amka and who requested that both the non-Yemenite Labor system teachers and the Agudat Israel teachers, who were European, leave the village for the sake of maintaining the peace. The Labor system teachers agreed and were replaced by teachers of Yemenite background from the Religious-Labor system. Ben-Gurion laconically summed up the affair:

I am not saying that you [Agudat Israel] did not have the right to refuse [to leave the village], but [by your decision to stay] a situation was created that added to the great dissatisfaction of the majority of the local settlers who had no wish to aggravate the conflict that had penetrated [their community] from the outside. Since no law forbids this [outside intervention]—we found ourselves unable to prevent misery from befalling the new immigrants.47

Regarding the basic questions, Ben-Gurion announced that the government had discussed the Amka Affair, "and other cases in which conflicts had risen by upholding the Education Law—in Tel-Aviv, Rishon LeTzion, etc." He purposely named places not under the control of the Labor Movement, but where the Labor system had complained that other parties had discriminated against them. In conclusion, he promised:

The Government sees its duty to guarantee, with the fullness of its authority and with all means in its power, that the Education Law, as it now exists [granting parents the right to choose the education system for their child] should be maintained and energetically pursued.48

On the other hand, it is difficult to fathom how the Religious Front, on hearing Ben-Gurion's evasive answer, agreed to continue sitting with him in the Labor-dominated coalition. One might ask how could they have remained partners with Labor once they were made fully aware of the government's shameless behavior toward such a large segment of the religious public. On the other hand, the political coalition of the period must be viewed in its proper perspective. At first the Religious Front tried to reach a solution by direct contact with the Mapai leadership, for they feared that, if they pulled the rope too tightly, Ben-Gurion would exclude them from the coalition and seek an alternative partner (as he did a year later, after the July 1951 elections). They had little doubt about the Prime Minister's options of forming a secular government (with the General Zionists and even with left-wing Mapam, the United Workers Party), in which conditions for the religious sector in the country were likely to become much more confined.

AFTER LUKOV'S DEPARTURE FROM AMKA

The two inspectors, Deutsch and Halperin, sent by Education Minister Shazar to Amka, came to the conclusion that Yosef Lukov should be removed from the village.49 It is not clear when this decision was made or who gave them the authority to make it; whatever the case, Lukov was soon transferred to another immigrant settlement.

At approximately the same time, the Minister of Police, Bechor Shitreet, ordered the Nahariya police to check into the charges made by the Amka Yemenites. Investigation of fellow Yemenites, however, only hurt them more. According to a report in the daily HaBoker [The Morning; General Zionist Liberal] based on a statement by Levinstein, "The day after the investigation, an instructor [by the name of] Giladi arrived from the Moshav Movement and ordered six settlers to leave the village."50 Later, roughly ten more "rebellious" families were expelled from Amka because of their demand for ultra-orthodox religious education. The exact number is not known.

THE INTERNAL DEBATE IN MAPAI

Ben-Gurion professed views in closed party forums that entirely different from those he had uttered in the Knesset. In internal Mapai debates, he strongly criticized the anti-religious coercion rampant at Amka. In the party secretariat, he stated unequivocally,

The local Yemenites in the village are being hounded, they wanted an Agudat Israel school, so you starve them, threaten them, and try to force them to shut the school down. Is this the way we should welcome this tribe of Yemenites? Why cannot a Yemenite who so desires, dwell in the village and have a school according to all the rules of the Shulchan Aruch [sixteenth-century codification of religious obligations]?

Here Ben-Gurion placed himself outside the party consensus, shed his sense of partisan responsibility, and inveighed against an anonymous "you." "Did you have to raise the whole tribe against us? I do not understand this line of thinking. I cannot comprehend the reckoning of the [Labor] Movement."51

Half a year later, a major debate took place in Mapai's Political Committee on the question of religious education in the Moshav Movement.52 On one side stood people like Yaakov Halperin (Niv), Israel Guri (Chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee), and Yakov Sarid, three of the pillars of the Education Branch in the Histadrut and the Labor system, along with Ami Assaf, the Knesset representative of the Moshav Movement. On the other side stood Zalman Shazar and David Remez, the first two Ministers of Education, and Ben-Gurion.

Halperin announced with satisfaction and pride that the majority of the immigrants had enrolled their children in Labor system schools.53 Sarid added that, if the majority were attending institutions affiliated with Agudat Israel and Mizrakhi, "they would say to us: 'You are not fulfilling your role'." And he contended, "When we succeed in reaching out to the immigrants, they accuse us of employing tyranny." Israel Guri admitted that some degree of coercion had taken place in bringing immigrant children into the Labor system, but he justified it by claiming, "Fools are not lacking in any sector or party . . . I realized that on occasion our colleagues acted deceitfully. Although this is true, it was not a system . . . Relatively speaking we sinned far less than, not only the Religious systems, but also the General system." Ami Assaf clarified the policy principle of the Moshav Movement, explaining that people in the Religious Front built "a defensive-wall around the child . . . and we will fight this method with all our power." According to Assaf, the use of "land settlement and economic pressure" was legitimate because "in the immigrant moshav two different schools cannot co-exist . . . If there is a basic mish-mash between this and that kind of Jew, I do not know who can accept responsibility for [creating] it." Furthermore, he asserted, Agudat Israel had its own moshavim and "it would not enter the mind of any of us to send instructors to these settlements to erect a bridgehead. There are, thank God, enough Jews." Therefore, the idea that children of the same moshav study at regional schools of different systems (secular and religious) was then totally rejected, though it was put into practice many years later.

The Minister of Education, David Remez, adopted the view of his predecessor, Shazar: "The continuation of the status quo [forbidding parents on the moshavim freedom of choice regarding their children's schooling] tarnishes the Government, disgraces the members of the Government, and undermines the ability to carry out any form of work that may be considered educational." Regarding the Labor-Religious system, the minister claimed that the entire Histadrut-Religious education system was a matter of deception:

It is hypocritical that people who themselves neither pray nor believe in God, the Garden of Eden, and Hell [should be administering religious education] . . . I know that on our soil [Histadrut and Mapai turf_] not one genuine religious school has been set up. If one were established, then a religious member would be sitting there—but there is no such person. A religious school will not sprout on our soil, because it cannot take root there.54

In the same inter-party debate, Ben-Gurion's speech was extraordinary. He admitted that he had heard of many acts of anti-religious coercion toward new immigrants, and by his silence he had given them his assent. Without mincing his words he stated,

The State of Israel, especially in this period, is not permitted to take children of a religiously observant background, who are able to receive a decent religious education, and enroll them in liberal-secular schools . . . I am interested that the Labor Movement should rule Israel not as a dictatorship but by the power of the nation's faith in it. I believe that far too often our colleagues have perpetrated acts of tyranny, coupled with threats of unemployment and expulsion, so that [the new immigrants] would enroll [their children in Labor schools]. I know of these cases, because colleagues have told me about them.

Ben-Gurion further stressed that the people involved in these unlawful means were "colleagues in good standing, honest, upright, and highly motivated people from the agricultural settlements who had acted in pure faith." But, he noted, if people from other parties had done this, "we would have assailed them with all our means." On the other hand, "Our colleagues should not have to be restricted by force, but by inner discipline. They should be convinced not to conduct themselves in this manner." Ben-Gurion foresaw what this was leading to, and he warned, "In my opinion it is disastrous for Israel if its beginning should be based on theft, and this is a case of plundering a person's weakness; if this does not destroy the State of Israel, then it will crush the possibility of workers' hegemony in the country."

It should be pointed out that Ben-Gurion was the last speaker at this session, which adjourned without coming to a decision. His parting words were,

In my eyes, the rights of the child's parent are the determining factor. I can argue with HaMizrakhi and Aguda, but if we do not guarantee a Jew in this state the freedom to educate his child as he sees fit, then this is a country of inquisition, fraud, and flagrant browbeating. Freedom is only freedom when I give it to those who oppose me.

Despite Ben-Gurion's oratory, his words remained, to a large extent, theoretical. The Moshav Movement and the Labor system did not alter their policy.

CONCLUSION

Many "Mapainiks" affiliated with labor settlement had dreamed of quickly converting the Yemenites into "new Jews." They believed that they had been granted the historical mission of speedily assimilating the immigrants into their brand of socialist Zionism. Yosef Lukov and other instructors at Amka were probably motivated by what they felt was the supreme urgency of their mission. But not all of the new immigrants were inclined to remake themselves in the spirit of the early Zionist pioneers. Amka was one example of a group of newcomers that struggled for months against the Labor and Religious-Labor educational systems, and where most eventually succumbed to organized pressure. The minority at Amka that stubbornly held out against the Histadrut schools after being tormented by a spate of pernicious steps (unemployment, starvation, discrimination, etc.) were expelled from the village.

There is no doubt that the struggle at Amka would not have occurred without the massive encouragement (there were those who termed it then, and today, as "incitement") of Agudat Israel. It should be kept in mind that this ultra-orthodox party had many reasons for wrangling, of which soul-saving was but one. There were also outright political interests. Some leaders sought to terminate the Religious Front by dissolving the coalition with Mapai. In my opinion, both motives are essentially the same, especially as Levinstein and HaKol were the lead advocates in the Amka Affair.

Compared to ultra-orthodox extremists like Levinstein, the leaders of Religious-Zionism were much more compromising. They felt themselves wedged between the hammer and the nail. While a minority demanded condemnation, most dreaded a break-up of the coalition. It seems that they preferred to turn a blind eye to the whole affair, since the Yemenites, if the truth must be said, were far removed from the heart of their interests. It is highly unlikely that they would have ignored events to the same degree had they involved religiously observant immigrants from Eastern or Western Europe.

Yemenite parents who insisted on ultra-orthodox education at Amka ultimately yielded to pressure, and the Amka Affair has remained a malignant stain for segments of Israeli society. For ultra-orthodox Jewry and many citizens of Yemenite background, it lies embedded in their consciousness as one of the travesties committed against them.55

Aharon Sorasky, an historian of ultra-orthodox education, summarized the context of Amka-like phenomena that transpired in the first years of the state:

Immediately upon the Yemenite Jews' arrival through the "Magic Carpet" [sic] operation in 1949, instructors from secular kibbutzim and left-wing parties embarked on a witch-hunt and transferred tens of thousands of Kosher Israelite children to the secular Moloch, by means of coercion and horrendous alienation . . . The vast majority of this glorious ancient Jewish tribe, like other tribes of new immigrants, was extirpated from the holy community present at Mt. Sinai . . .56

Sorasky's description is only one of many that portrays the harm done by the secular-left to Oriental Jewish tradition and immigrant children, and it is still a painful topic for many ultra-orthodox Jews. The main culprits are the kibbutzim, who were regarded by the ultra-orthodox as the secular avant-garde, even though the Moshav Movement was more active in absorption than the Kibbutz Movement. According to ultra-orthodox historiography, religious people made exhaustive "rescue" efforts, but the historical truth reveals that few ultra-orthodox and only a small percentage of traditionally observant people actually devoted themselves to combating secular-Zionist education.

Finally, no other country in the twentieth century that was inundated with such massive immigration performed a similar miracle of absorbing hundreds of thousands of arrivals within a matter of a few years. For this reason alone the story of mass immigration to Israel should not only be criticized but also appreciated.57 Thousands of dedicated workers and volunteers made superhuman efforts to receive the flood of immigrants. Lest it be forgotten, the majority of the instructors hailed from the Workers Movement, and it was this movement, throughout the history of Zionism, that had habitually taken responsibility for "national assignments." The Moshav Movement was the social sector most active in absorption operations, and for this reason it deserves a place of honor.

On the other hand, the negative reality cannot be denied. The glorious chapter of absorption, particularly in the idealistic-pioneering movement, often gave way to aggressive and frenzied conduct that at times rode roughshod over human rights and left in its wake turmoil and destruction of religious values and faith. It seems that, for the foreseeable future, the country will continue to pay the price for the short-sighted educational-cultural approach to absorption by political figures, advisors, and teachers, especially toward religious immigrants from Islamic countries.

Nevertheless, even Moshe Unna, one of the leading figures in both the Religious Front and HaPoel HaMizrakhi, as well as a Knesset Member at the time, wrote two decades after the events at Amka:

After all the effort at presenting the absorption of immigrants from Oriental countries as evil machination . . . things must be put in their truthful perspective; the very acceptance of mass immigration into the [nascent] country by the Yishuv . . . should be placed—despite all the negative phenomena that accompanied the deed—in the same category as the heroic deeds carried out in illegal immigration [during the British Mandate] and [in combat] during the War of Independence. What took place in immigrant absorption was linked to human devotion, to the point of self-sacrifice by hundreds, perhaps, thousands, of people. For years they dedicated their life's work to instructing the immigrants in new settlements as though it were a sacred task.58

NOTES

1.Ý Based on the Compulsory Education Bill of 1949, Israel's education system was divided into four subsidiary systems,—two secular and two religious—that are affiliated with political movements. The Arab Educational system has always been separate.

2.Ý The Religious Front was made up of four religious parties: HaMizrakhi, HaPoel HaMizrakhi, Agudat Israel, and Poalei Agudat Israel. The list held sixteen seats (out of 120) in the First Knesset. Its three ministers were: Rabbi Yehuda Leib Maimon (HaMizrakhi), Moshe Shapira (HaPoel HaMizrakhi), and Yitzhak Meir Levin (Agudat Israel).

3.Ý Uziel O. Schmelz, "Mass Immigration from Asia and North Africa: Demographic Aspects," Pe'amim, 39 (1989) 15–63 [Hebrew].

4.Ý The source of the name is: "And I will lift ye on the wings of eagles and carry ye to me." A common error is to refer to this wave of immigration as "Operation Magic Carpet" (the operation that brought Persian Jewry to Israel). For the origin of the name for Yemenite Jewry's immigration, see Yehuda Niny, Yemenite Jews (Tel-Aviv, 1988) 84 [Hebrew].

5.Ý Ibid., 23.

6.Ý See Yitchak Koren, The Settlement of the Immigrants' Affair (Tel-Aviv, August 1950) 6 [Hebrew].

7.Ý In November 1948, the total population on workers' moshavim of all systems was 30,142, and on the kibbutzim, 54,200. By the end of 1953, the moshavim had almost tripled their membership (88,863), while the kibbutzim increased to 73,229. In January 1954, the moshavim accounted for 52 per cent of labor settlement in comparison to 27 per cent prior to statehood. In other words they accounted for nearly 6 per cent of the population. See Yitchak Koren, The Ingathering of Exiles in Their Settlements—A History of the Workers Moshavim in Israel (Tel-Aviv, 1964) 86 [Hebrew].

8.Ý According to Dov Levitan in a lecture at Yad Ben-Zvi in Jerusalem (March 1992), this accounted for 67.5 per cent (23 out of 35) of labor villages and 74 per cent of the moshavim (20 out of 27). The data was later published in his article "The Departure of the Yemenites from the Immigrant Camps," Tima, 5 (Tevet, 1996) 145–68 [Hebrew].

9.Ý According to Yitchak Koren, "They remained detached from the veteran community and from events in the country. The new moshavim, especially in the first period, resembled lone islands in the stormy sea of a nation being recreated." Koren, "The Workers Moshavim and Their Method of Development," Instructors Guide 7, Department for Youth and Pioneering, (Jerusalem, Elul 1957) 44 [Hebrew].

10.Ý See, Devorah Hacohen, Immigration in the Storm, The Great Immigration and its Absorption in Israel 1948–1953 (Jerusalem, 1994) 255 [Hebrew].

11.Ý The term "Sephardi" is used to distinguish Jews from Spanish or Arab origins, speaking Ladino or Arabic from those whose origins are European or "western" (Ashkenazi). They are also sometimes referred to as "Oriental" Jews.

12.Ý See Rabbi Uziel Archives, 887/P2, letter from 16 November 1950 (25 Kislev), Israel State Archives [hereafter: ISA].

13.Ý Yosef Lukov (1900–1987), son of a rabbi, was born in Russia and immigrated to Israel in 1922. He was one of the founders of the agricultural settlement, Kfar Vitkin. He was appointed head instructor at Amka and later filled the same post in other immigrant moshavim.

14.Ý See letters of Moshe Ben-Nahum and Yeshayahu Leibowitz to Minister Shazar, 9 February 1950. Rabbi Uziel Archives, 2/887/P, ISA.

15.Ý Professor Yehuda Niny sent me a letter (see n. 9) in which he related that the village was parceled according to families and places of origin in Yemen, and that from Amka's inception internecine rivalry developed, not only over matters of education, but also over village leadership.

16.Ý In a number of interviews that I conducted in Amka on 17 December 2000, I collected testimony from Binyamin Shapira (b. 1937), Moshe David (b. 1938) and his wife Tzivia (b. 1941), and also Hasan Levy (b. 1909). All of them told of the intimidation of Yemenite parents who wanted their children to attend a religious school [yeshiva]. They all recounted that one of the main threats, unemployment, was sometimes carried out. Tzivia recalled that she was nine years old when she began her schooling at Amka. She remembers how, one day, "they" broke into the classroom and threw out the ultra-orthodox teacher and dragged him humiliatingly down the main street. I wish to express my sincerest gratitude to Binyamin Yogev from Kibbutz Beit HaEmek for organizing the interviews at Amka and participating in them.

17.Ý Rabbi Uziel Archives, 887/2P, ISA. This is a copy of the letter sent to the Minister of Education and Culture, Zalman Shazar, bearing the date 1 February 1950, which was brought to Rabbi Benzion Uziel.

18.Ý On the Religious-Labor system, see my article, "The Religious-Labor System—The History of an Unsuccessful Attempt at Building a Bridge between Secular and Religious Jews," in Ariye Kasher and Rina Shapira (eds), Reshafim: Historical, Philosophical, and Sociological Aspects of Education (Tel-Aviv, 1991) 121–54 [Hebrew].

19.Ý Letter to Zvi Yehuda of the Moshav Movement, 7 September 1949, Division 208VI, Temporary Box 5497, Labor Archives [hereafter LA].

20.Ý Letter to Chaskin and Lin, 30 November 1949, Division 208VI, Temporary Box 5497, LA.

21.Ý On the Frumkin Commission and Dr. Leibowitz's testimony, see my book, The Melting Pot: The Frumkin Commission on the Education of Immigrant Children (1950) (Kiryat Sde-Boker, 1993) [Hebrew]. A newly updated version of the book is currently being published by SUNY publications. Dr. Leibowitz's full testimony before the committee appears on pages 172–3.

22.Ý Letter from Moshe Ben-Nahum and Dr. Leibowitz to Shazar, 9 February 1950, Rabbi Uziel Archives, 887/2P, ISA.

23.Ý Ibid.

24.Ý See the daily Ha'aretz, 9 March 1950 [Hebrew].

25Ý See Zvi Zameret, Across a Narrow Bridge, Education in Israel in the First Years of the State (Kiryat Sde-Boker, 1997) 165–70 [Hebrew].

26.Ý In the Second Knesset (July 1951), David Zvi Pinkas (1895–1952) served as Minister of Transportation. Due to the harsh economic conditions during this period and an accompanying oil shortage, he proposed slapping a ban on travel on the Sabbath. This led to an assassination attempt on him by young secular-leftists. The attack failed, but he died shortly afterwards, having been in office less than a year.

27.Ý On the Frumkin Commission, see my book, Days of the Melting Pot; the quotations are from MK Pinkas, 44.

28.Ý The Religious Kibbutz Archives, Kvutzat Yavne, Unna Archives. The quotations are from MK Moshe David Levinstein, a member of the Religious Front executive, the meeting took place on 13 February (26 Shvat) 1950.

29.Ý On this subject, see my book, On a Narrow Bridge, 165.

30.Ý Mapai Archives, Beit Berl [hereafter: BB], Meetings, Mapai Political Committee, 31 December 1950.

31.Ý Moshe David Levinstein, one of the three Agudat Israel representatives in the Provisional Government, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, (together with Yitzhak Meir Levin). In the Provisional State Council and street posters, he expressed his reservations over the "secular content and shape" of the declaration. Within the party, he was constantly at odds with Levin, who was more inclined to co-operate with Ben-Gurion.

32.Ý Religious Kibbutz Archives, Kvutzat Yavne, Unna Archives, material on the leadership of the Religious Front, 13 February 1950.

33.Ý Knesset Proceedings, Vol. V, 1699 [Hebrew].

34.Ý Ibid.

35.Ý See Yosef Fund, Division or Partnership? Agudat Israel Versus Zionism and the State of Israel (Jerusalem, 1999) 235–7 [Hebrew].

36.Ý This is based on Yosef Fund's article, "The Zionist View in the Agudat Israel Press," Kesher, 9 May 1991, 87–8 [Hebrew].

37.Ý There is an obvious parallel here with the first verse in the Book of Ezekiel: "In the thirteenth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God" (Ezekiel 1:1).

38.Ý HaKol, Purim Edition 1950, 3 March 1950.

39.Ý HaKol, 1 May 1950.

40.Ý Ibid., 2 June (17 Sivan) 1950.

41.Ý Ibid., 9 June 1950.

42.Ý HaTzofeh, 10 May 1950.

43.Ý Knesset Proceedings, Vol. V, 1600.

44.Ý Ibid., 1601.

45.Ý Ibid., 1656.

46.Ý Ibid., 1723–5.

47.Ý Ibid.

48.Ý Ibid.

49.Ý HaKol, 2 June 1950. On the pressure to have Lukov transferred to another immigrant moshav, see note 14, above.

50.Ý HaBoker, 8 June 1950.

51.Ý Mapai Secretariat, 1 June 1950, BB.

52.Ý Meeting, Mapai Political Department, 31 December 1950, BB.

53.Ý On the immense growth of the Labor system during the period of mass immigration, and the enticement and browbeating of the majority of immigrant children into the system's schools, see my book, Across a Narrow Bridge, especially 21–7, 194–7.

54.Ý Histadrut Education Council, Division VI 215, file 20, LA. Hayuta Busel of Kibbutz Degania proudly reported to the Histadrut Education Council on 7 December 1950 "how a female member from Degania would go up to Poria [Eastern origins immigrant workers' village] every week to assist teachers from the Religious-Labor system, otherwise the school would have fallen into the hands of Agudat Israel or HaMizrakhi. She instructed the young teachers in the right spirit [sic]."

55.Ý See especially Yehuda Niny, Were You There or Was I Dreaming?—The Yemenites of Kineret, An Incident of Settlement and Uprooting 1912–1930 (Tel-Aviv 1996) [Hebrew]. This is the story of an agricultural village by the Sea of Galilee, where, twenty years earlier, Ashkenazi settlers had displayed brazen racial and ethnic discrimination toward the Yemenite workers there. Incidents at Kineret have lately received extensive historical coverage and have been made into a television movie and theatrical performance.

56.Ý Aharon Sorasky, The History of Jewish Religious in the Modern Period (Bnei Brak, 1967) 273 [Hebrew].

57.Ý See Yosef Gorny, "The Miracle of the Mass Immigration," in Mordechai Naor (ed), Immigrants and Transit Camps 1948–1952 (Jerusalem, 1987) 2–8 [Hebrew].

58.Ý Moshe Unna, Separate Paths, A Study of the Religious Parties of Israel on the Eve of the Establishment of the State and in the First and Second Knessets (Alon-Shvut, 1984) 189 [Hebrew].

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