The Academic Middle-Class Rebellion : Socio-Political Conflict over Wage-Gaps in Israel, 1954-1956 [1 ed.] 9789004357853, 9789004357846

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The Academic Middle-Class Rebellion

Jewish Identities in a Changing World General Editors Eliezer Ben-Rafael Yosef Gorny Judit Bokser Liwerant

VOLUME 30

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/jicw

The Academic Middle-Class Rebellion Socio-Political Conflict over Wage-Gaps in Israel, 1954–1956

By

Avi Bareli Uri Cohen Translator

Alma Schneider

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bareli, Avi, author. | Cohen, Uri, 1960- author. | Schneider, Alma, translator. Title: The academic middle-class rebellion : socio-political conflict over  wage-gaps in Israel, 1954–1956 / by Avi Bareli, Uri Cohen ; translator,  Alma Schneider. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2018] | Includes bibliographical  references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017044215 (print) | LCCN 2017047503 (ebook) |  ISBN 9789004357853 (E-book) | ISBN 9789004357846 (hardback : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Wages—Israel. | Israel—Politics and government. |  Israel—Economic conditions. | Ashkenazim—Israel--Attitudes. |  Sephardim—Israel—Social conditions. Classification: LCC HD4922.I75 (ebook) | LCC HD4922.I75 B37 2018 (print) |  DDC 331.2/9569409045—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017044215

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1570-7997 isbn 978-90-04-35784-6 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-35785-3 (e-book) Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Preface vii Introduction 1 1 Distributive Justice and the White-Collar Workforce: The Outbreak of Conflict 31 2 The ‘Engine-Coach Car’ Dilemma: MAPAI’s Discourse on Class, Ethnicity, and Modernization 52 3 “In Torn Soles on a Marble Floor”: The Guri Committee and Sharett Government Debates on White-Collar Workers’ Wages, 1954–1955 75 4 “On Your Mark!” Public Discourse after the 1955 Elections 120 5 “If they Strike—So be it!” The Socialist Pact to Thwart the Guri Committee Recommendations 150 6 A Class-Inclusive Strike 189 Summary and Conclusion 229 Reference List 251 Index 282

Preface The mass immigration of Jews from Muslim countries into Israel during the 1950s both historically and empirically tested the concept of klal Yisrael— the traditional-modern vision of a single Jewish collective encompassing diverse Jewish societies and cultures. The historical context of this period placed immigrants from Muslim countries in an inferior position to their European counterparts. It added an incendiary socio-economic dimension to the age-old distinction between Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews. At the time, it seemed as if the gulf between the two groups would prevent any solidarity from developing within the increasingly heterogenic Israeli society. This, however, has not been the case. The current study seeks to illuminate some of the causes for this, by discussing the socio-economic foundation designed to foster socio-political solidarity at the dawn of Israeli statehood. As it became an essential element of a modern national and democratic ideology in an Israeli state, the traditional, abstract concept of klal Yisrael evolved into an acute, conflict-saturated political problem. The mass immigration of the 1950s challenged the idea that Jews could unite under a single collective in the political, socio-economic, cultural, and identity-oriented arenas. Communities from various countries had arrived in joint territory and now faced the trial of a mutually dependent relationship under an inclusive institutional framework. European immigrants and immigrants from Muslim countries were the most obviously distinct social groups in young Israel. One of the most significant conflicts between them was economic. Unlike the Sephardic newcomers, the relatively veteran Ashkenazi citizens had been dominant in the early institutionalization processes of the State and enjoyed educational and professional advantages crucial to Israeli nation building. Thus, the new territorial and institutional encounter between these communities transformed their cultural differences into an acute socio-economic conflict. The power dynamics that developed cultivated alienation and separatism, and a correlation was established between cultural distinction and socio-economic inequality. The State and its leadership were therefore caught in a dilemma between institutional interests on one hand, and national aspirations, meaning, the cohesion of the Jewish immigrant population into a national collective with a unified identity, on the other. The State’s institutional interests prompted dependence on the educated middle-class, which had a vital role in state building. However, national and identity-oriented interests pushed the State and its leadership to mitigate the inequality between the Ashkenazis and immigrants from Muslim countries.

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The current work fits into a broader examination of how the klal Yisrael vision underwent political institutionalization, from a socio-economic perspective. It investigates the struggle of the professional elite to capitalize on its advantages during the first decade of Israeli statehood, partly by attempting to maximize wage-gaps between themselves and the rest of the working public. This struggle was met with great resistance from the government. The clash between the two sides revealed diverse, contradictory visions of the optimal socio-economic foundation for establishing collective identity in the new nation-state. Primarily, these visions disagreed on the link between culture and identity on one hand, and society and economy on the other. The ‘absorbing’ Ashkenazi society had just been salvaged from a cruel existential war. It became approximately half the population of an immigrant state now divided into relatively veteran immigrants and recent arrivals. The more veteran immigrants and their leadership were dedicated to a Zionist national ethos that obligated them to absorb the Sephardic immigrants into their national collective. On the other hand, their economic interests fostered separatist tendencies. Along with the other half of the new society, the ‘absorbed,’ they had an urgent need to prove that the once traditional, now modernnational concept of klal Yisrael could indeed be realized within a common polity and territory-specific nation. As aforementioned, this unprecedented challenge was accompanied by fierce conflicts among the ‘absorbers’ themselves, and between the ‘absorbers’ and the ‘absorbed.’ This particular conflict was a mostly new phenomenon, but such conflicts had characterized Zionist political culture in previous decades as well. It is important to discuss the essential nature of this conflictual political culture as we begin our discussion on the trials it faced during the first decade of Israeli statehood. The historical process led by the Zionist Movement since the end of the 19th century depicts a nation building process rooted in aspirations toward political modernity, and the nationalization of the traditional and somewhat intangible concept of klal Yisrael. This aspiration includes fulfillment of the klal Yisrael vision in a sovereign Jewish society that comprehensively regulates the social life of its citizens. Zionists of various parties led the nation building process, and not merely by enhancing the efficiency of Jewish immigration into Eretz Yisrael, including from Muslim countries. They were also cultivating a modern political culture, both conflictual and inclusive, with the capacity to reflect the incredible diversity of Jewish immigrants in Eretz Yisrael. As early as the beginning of the 20th century, the Zionist Movement under Theodor Herzl began developing into an arena of Zionist parties (to the chagrin of its leader). A political system that included right, left, and religious-conservative wings

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therefore formed prior to the establishment of the society, economy, and politics it was meant to address. Zionist parties cultivated a conflictual and reflective political culture—conducting turbulent identity struggles stemming from an intense awareness that a new polity was being shaped from its bottommost foundations. The most well-known conflict regarding the educational function of the Zionist Movement was that which formed between Achad Ha’am devotees and the religious Zionists, before a substantial Jewish society had even been established in Eretz Yisrael. The conflictual and reflective nature of the multi-party system in the Zionist Organization was also etched into the territorial political system the Zio­ nists established in mandatory Eretz Yisrael in the beginning of the 1920s. Vehement, and at times even violent, inter-party conflicts characterized the arena of the Zionist Congress and the Jewish Agency on one hand, and that of the Assembly of Representatives and the Jewish National Council (the territorial political system called Knesset Israel, echoing klal Yisrael) on the other. One of the most significant conflicts among these entities was the class conflict between the labor movement and the bourgeois and revisionist right. In Eretz Yisrael, this primarily materialistic conflict began in the 1930s, but had originated thirty years prior, at the dawn of the century, as an ideological tension between the new Zionist labor parties and the central stream of the Zionist movement. This abstract, conceptual tension predated the establishment of a substantial Jewish ‘proletariat’ or ‘bourgeois’ in Eretz Yisrael. It should therefore also be seen as an identity-conflict in essence—a conflict over the socio-economic identity of a future political society that had yet to materialize. Reflective political thought, meaning, pre-active self-awareness on such matters, characterized not only pre-Zionist and Zionist thinkers such as Moses Hess and Theodor Herzl, but also members of Bilu and ‘B’nai Moshe.’ Later, it also typified the young Zionists who established labor parties at the dawn of the century, before a Jewish proletariat formed in Eretz Yisrael, and as they readied to establish it. The polemic in question therefore centered on identity and ideology no less than it did on socio-economic interests. In fact, at its inception it centered primarily on matters of identity and ideology. Relative to other conflicts that characterized the Jewish political society in Eretz Yisrael over the next few decades, the ethnic conflict between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews was not a central one, as Ashkenazi demographic dominance was quite evident. This significant demographic advantage was the basis of the Ashkenazis’ political, cultural, and national hegemony. Zionism had developed in Europe, much like the other notable Jewish movements of the Modern Age, but among the political aspirations of Ashkenazi Jews, Zionism was singular in acknowledging Jews from Muslim countries as part

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of its historical domain. However, it was precisely this inclusion or acceptance that carried the potentially combustive conflict within it. It created tension between the Zionist aspiration to become ‘one nation,’ and the notable cultural distinction between European and Muslim countries, which the power dynamic between the two Jewish communities reflected. Zionism brought together distant groups, and therefore prompted confrontation between them. This tension further intensified due to the colonialist power-relations between Europe and Muslim countries, which converted general cultural gaps into gaps between a ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ culture. There were no such issues, for instance, between the Ashkenazi Bund and Sephardic Jews. Nonetheless, despite dramatic issues such as the shameful mistreatment of Yemenite immigrants from the first and second waves of Aliyah onward, it can be surmised that in pre-state years the Jewish ‘ethnic question’ was of secondary significance. Central conflicts included the ‘Arab question,’ class struggles (with Ashkenazis on both sides), or conflicts regarding the role of religion in national revival. A possible reason for the lesser significance of the ethnic issue during the pre-state era was the overt demographic dominance of the Ashkenazis. Whatever the cause, this state-of-affairs changed completely during the first decade of statehood, upon the establishment of a new historical reality. Immigrants from Muslim countries now comprised half of the immigrant mass that doubled the State’s population, and the majority of incoming immigrants in subsequent years. The new status-quo induced the rapid proletarization of immigrants from Muslim countries. Additionally, it prompted the equally rapid bourgeoisfication of the relatively veteran Ashkenazis, followed by that of new Ashkenazi immigrants, and the onset of tension between the national ethos they had developed and their own socio-economic interests. Third, and as an outcome of these two factors, an overlap between ethnic and class gaps in the new society escalated class tensions between Mizrachi and European Israelis, as well as intergenerational stratification characteristic of de-colonialized countries such as Israel. Fourth, as the ruling party MAPAI was, like all parties at the time, predominantly Ashkenazi in both leadership and membership, the inevitable political consequence of these socio-economic developments was acute alienation between the ruling labor party and the new working class. It was abundantly clear that these historical developments threatened the identityoriented, cultural aspirations at the core of the Zionist nation-building enterprise led by the labor movement. This decisive historical junction therefore threatened the very viability of the klal Yisrael idea. Yechiel Halpern, a key MAPAI theoretician at the time and editor of Davar daily newspaper, articulated these foreboding observations as follows: Israel

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might fall into a quasi-colonial and Levantine social structure with low-income, uneducated masses on one hand and sparse hegemonic groups dependent on foreign capital on the other. He worried that, “A mass society is gradually growing in the yishuv [the Jewish society in Israel] that could birth a liberty-negating communism … stemming from social neglect and damage” (Davar, Feb. 19, 1951). On the other hand, Halpern was concerned that an Israeli State spearheaded by the Zionist right would be led by few for the subjugation of many, “the subjugation of ‘these blacks.’” Halpern was thinking about events in many other countries that were established through a national liberation process (Davar, July 20, 1951).1 This type of apprehensive vision was shared by many circles of MAPAI leadership and in its internal opposition and membership. This was reflected not only by the statements quoted above and many others, but also by matters of policy. The current research will focus on seemingly prosaic conflicts between the Israeli government and Ashkenazi middle-class over the extreme egalitarian wage policy in the public sector during the 1950s. It will reveal that in terms of wage policy, a central aspect of resource distribution, the ruling party at the time protected the Mizrachi immigrants’ social standing in relation to that of European veterans. As we will discuss, it did so not only to protect its labor party status, and not merely due to electoral dependence on these immigrants. While these were significant motives, the documentation we will examine reveals that the aspiration to transform the abstract, sporadically implemented concept of klal Yisrael into a live, historic collectivity, was a central motivation behind the wage policy advanced by MAPAI. As our work will indicate, the tight regulation of wage-gaps was one aspect of a comprehensive, conscious, and explicit effort to prevent the disintegration of the Jewish-Israeli population and ensure its potential to develop a cohesive social identity. Without a fight to restrain the foreboding socio-ethnic developments of the time there would be no hope of developing a unified political society with a common national identity, even if such a fight were to produce limited results. Mitigating these developments alone seemed crucial to achieving social cohesion. The immigrants from Muslim countries during this time can be likened to a rifle concealed during the first battle, and shot during the second. They had evolved from a ‘problem’ during the pre-state era into a crucial trial of the post-state Zionist nation-building enterprise. Their integration became central to whether or not the Zionists, who had just established a state, could successfully live up to the principles of the declaration of independence regarding one Jewish nation returning to its historic homeland. 1  For more in this vein by Nathan Rotenstreich see Molad June 1951, 63–67; Molad Oct–Nov. 1951, 162–169.

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Such triumphant principles would have been rendered meaningless in the event of intergenerational socio-ethnic stratification. The question was not whether a gap would develop between the Ashkenazis and the Mizrachi immigrants, but its potential severity, and whether a framework would be established in order to salvage the Mizrachi immigrants from their historically ‘inferior’ position. With its wage policy, MAPAI defended a central aspect of the nationbuilding enterprise it had led since the mid-1930s, an aspect that received the name Mizug Galu’yot in the 1950s. The relative status of the Mizrachis in the labor market at the time was therefore not only a socio-economic, trade unionist, class-oriented, or materialistic issue. To no lesser degree, it was an issue of national identity.

Introduction In December of 1954, State Commissioner David Rosolio addressed a public Committee appointed to investigate wage-gaps in Israel and announced, “The gap between the lowest and highest professional rank [in Israel] is relatively the smallest in the world” in both the executive and professional ranks. He elaborated as follows: the basic wage gap is 1:4.5; with the cost of living wage allowance it narrows to 1:2.2, pre-tax; at net salary, said Rosolio, the gap between the highest and lowest ranking executives in civil service is 1:1.7. This means that post-income tax, the most senior executive in Israel was earning 70% more than the lowest ranking clerk (LMA 1954–1955). When Hadassah Hospital Director Dr. Mann addressed the Committee, he too referred to the wage-gap erosion between academically educated professionals and unskilled workers and clerks in Israeli civil service—as well as the erosion of appropriate cultural gaps between professional coteries: The worker in charge of mopping the floors trains for two hours while a physician studies for 7 years. Time invested in education should be considered. It should be taken into account that a physician must also train after completing his studies…. Both in the uniform and professional pay scales, education, experience, and personal accountability must be considered. Professor Wertheimer [a senior physician at Hadassah] earns only 54% more than a practical nurse and only 10% more than a lab technician. This is absurd. A janitor earns only 71% less than a house-call physician…. Gaps between the lowest and highest ranks must expand. LMA, April 5, 1955

This book investigates the conflict between white-collar workers and senior officials and the MAPAI government1 in the mid-late 1950s, which centered on wage-gaps in the public, government, and Histadrut sectors.2 This subject is directly related to dramatic shifts that characterized the first years of Israeli 1  The first ruling party in Israel; Hebrew initials for ‘Mifleget Poalei Eretz Yisrael’ (Heb. ‘Workers of the Eretz Yisrael Party’). For more on MAPAI and its historical origins, see Avizohar (1990); Bareli (2014); Goldstein (1975, 1980); Gorni (1973); Medding (1972). 2  ‘The General Hebrew Workers’ Association’ known to all as the ‘Histadrut’ was established in December 1920 as the main socio-economic and cultural organization of the Zionist labor movement. It included trade associations, social and cultural services, cooperatives, communes, and economic enterprises. It developed into an arena of mostly socialist-Zionist

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statehood. Namely, it is linked to the blunt class-distinction that formed between two social groups: the almost entirely Ashkenazi middle-class,3 and the proletariat comprised largely of immigrants from Muslim countries.4 Considering the ethno-class distinction that developed during the years in question—and the polarizing correlation it exposed between class and ethnic origin—our objective is not merely to perform a strictly economic analysis of labor relations (though such analysis will be conducted to the necessary extent). The conflicts we will address did not revolve exclusively around pay raises for a certain professional group and should not be viewed as an exclusively trade-unionist struggle.5 In fact, they were part of the fierce and persistent struggle of the academic professionals, or the professional middle-class,6 to expand wage-gaps between themselves and the lower professional ranks, meaning low ranking civil servants and the predominantly Mizrachi proletariat. It was a class-oriented struggle, political, and ethno-cultural in nature. This conflict was therefore a significant component of formative struggles over fundamentals of social identity and cross-ethnic relations in the context of Israeli nation and state building. It is these processes that we intend to examine through an empirical lens. Our investigation rests on the assumption that although MAPAI rule was predominantly Ashkenazi, cultivated the Ashkenazi middle-class and shared its interests, it was nonetheless removed from it. In fact, it was driven by ethical motivations and priorities that caused friction between itself and the Ashkenazi middle-class, despite the generally cooperative relationship between the two entities. The distinctions between the two groups reveals that the ethno-class developments and coinciding polarization that characterized Israeli society in early statehood, did not position MAPAI government as an unconditional advocate of middle-class interests. political parties, and conducted periodic elections among party lists for its general Congress. Hereinafter: ‘Histadrut.’ 3  A traditional Jewish phrase denoting the origin of most European Jews and their offspring. 4  ‘Immigrants from Muslim countries’ is the accurate geographical definition of this population, although it is not as comprehensive as the traditional Jewish term ‘Sepharadim,’ which denotes the Jews from Muslim countries in the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa, and as well as certain countries in Southern Europe. In this work, we will use the terms ‘oriental immigrants’ or Mizrachi immigrants. On the class-oriented polarization between the Ashkenazi Jews and Mizrachi immigrants see Lissak 1999, 58–133. 5  For a contradicting approach see Tokatli 1979, 112. 6  The rise of the professional middle-class was evident in the tremendous increase of higher education students; many were later employed in civil service. From the dawn of statehood until the end of the 1950s the number of students increased by 5.6 (from 1,635 in 1948/9 to 9,275 in 1959/6). By the 1970s, they increased by 22.8 (37,343 in 1967/70). See Cohen 2006, 287–310; Shnaton Statisti L’Yisrael 1971, 563, Chart 22Kaf.

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An additional assumption guiding this work concerns the fundamental ethos of the MAPAI-led government and Histadrut. Throughout the nation and state building process and the establishment of a capitalist economy during the first decade of Israeli statehood, MAPAI developed a primarily socialist version of republicanism (mamlachti’yut) in the government and Histadrut.7 The core objective of this approach was to offer a minimal degree of social and political cohesion to the extremely heterogenic Jewish society that was rapidly developing in the State. In the political language of the official, prevalent ideology of early Israeli statehood, this goal was called Mizug Galu’yot. This Hebrew phrase denoted the merging of various Jewish ethnic groups from the scattered Jewish diaspora8 into one nation and polity. A particular emphasis was placed on integrating Ashkenazi Europeans and Mizrachi immigrants from Muslim countries. The MAPAI regime saw this national objective as a central component of its hegemonic, socialist version of republicanism. However, achieving this integration or even attempting it demanded the prevention of acute social inequality, despite the phenomenal scope of Jewish immigration into Israel that dictated inequality as an inherent outcome. This state of affairs generated palpable tension between a deeply unequal reality and an official egalitarian ideology. Moreover, these pre-independence egalitarian concepts had suddenly become irrelevant in the context of mass-immigration into Israel (Greenberg 1988; Zossman 1974).9 They demanded reconsideration in light of the vast demographic expansion led by MAPAI during early statehood—the result of an unrestricted immigration policy initiated by Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and implemented until 1952. The inevitable, extreme inequality that developed during these years drove MAPAI to impose an austerity policy. This policy forced ‘veteran immigrants’ to partially shoulder the supply crisis prompted by the population having more than doubled without suitable means of domestic production. Additionally, the government formulated a wage policy that consistently strove to mitigate the acute socio-economic gaps that were bound to form.

7  On republicanism see Pettit 1997; Pocock 1975; Rodgers 1992; Skinner 1993, 568–574; Viroli 2002, 61. On Mamlachti’yut as an Israeli version of republicanism see Bareli & Gorni 2006, 127; Bareli & Kedar 2011. On Ben-Gurion’s mamlachti’yut as a form of republicanism see Kedar 2009. For an analysis of this approach by Herzl (though with different terminology) see Gutwein 1994, 7; 2007, 27. 8  ‘Galu’yot’ is Hebrew for ‘exiled communities.’ 9  There is reason to believe they had already lost their relevance during the unemployment crisis of the 1930s (the fifth aliyah).

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This policy of restraint led to a series of confrontations between the regime and the academic-professional middle-class. In contrast to MAPAI’s socialist republicanism during the first years of statehood, a broad opposition of political parties and trade associations advanced a liberal version of republicanism. This approach was committed to accelerated modernization via industrialization, science, and higher education. According to liberal republicanism, these domains were key to the survival of the new state and the success of its polity, and developing them therefore took precedence over the needs of the lower classes and the proletariat.10 The current work offers a socio-political analysis of the national, class-oriented, macro-social wage-gap conflict, and its significance in the context of extreme demographic and economic turbulence during mass immigration in 1950s Israel. The struggles linked to this conflict occured in an arena of interrelation and contradiction between the government, Histadrut, political parties, trade associations, the Israeli press, and the various manifestations of public opinion at the time. The largely Ashkenazi ‘political class’ and the different civil society entities, also predominantly Ashkenazi, diverged in their approach and agendas and clashed over whether to expand or narrow wage-gaps between the high and low ranking public sector workers. A historical sequence of events encompassing the general strike declared by physicians, white-collar workers, and senior officials in the public sector in early 1956, and the preceding labor struggles and public and ideological disputes in 1954–1955, serves as the empirical prism of our investigation. Through this lens, we will conduct a micro socio-political analysis of developments in class-relations linked to the wage-gap conflict and the social context that enveloped it. Trade associations representing professionals such as physicians, engineers, or lawyers, fiercely criticized what they perceived as MAPAI’s inefficient ‘socialist republicanism,’ which strove to restrict wage-gaps between more lucrative academic professions and low-skill trades. Principally, this class conflict represented a new ethnic struggle over economic mobility, political influence, and cultural hierarchy. The white-collar workers were ‘veteran’ immigrants, many of whom had arrived from Eastern and Central Europe about fifteen years pre-state. They saw themselves as a modernization-driving 10  The two strains of republicanism developed during the nation-building process responded to circustances in Israel during the 1950s, and were the uniquely Israeli version of various socio-economic models, such as the welfare state, which created stratified national bureaucracy (Bailey 1997; Giddens 1975); capitalist market economies (Crompton 2008; Ehrenreich 1989), as well as states within the Soviet-Union’s communist bloc, in which communist party directors’ status significantly increased (Burrage 2008; Djilas 1957).

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‘locomotive’ and as leaders of the dynamic nation building process, and the establishment of a capitalist economy. The proletariat on the other hand, consisted of a rising number of ‘new immigrants,’ many of whom came from Muslim Middle Eastern and North-African countries, although some had come from Europe or were relatively veteran Israelis. The academic professional elite considered these newcomers the ‘wagons’ demanding to be led, a passive population that might even impair the nation-building process. The period in question begins in 1954 and continues through the strike declared by the entire academic, white-collar, public-sector workforce (approximately 6,000 strikers led by the physicians)11 that took place on February 7, 1956 and ended 13 days later. The strike was declared despite the vehement opposition of the Histadrut. Its catalyst was the government’s decision to retract its earlier commitment to raising white-collar workers’ wages after a three-year basic wage freeze. As strikes often do, this strike reflected broader political and socio-economic conflicts (Ingham, 1974; Johnson, 1982; Sturmthal, 1966). Along with related confrontations preceding it, the strike was significant in the context of intesifying political and socio-economic polarity during early statehood—with the vital white-collar, public sector workforce on one side (Ben-Porat 1998, 101–129)12 and the MAPAI government and Histadrut on the other. This extensive process of polarization has yet to be adequately studied in sociological and historical research. Thus far, it has been partly addressed by scholars including Ha’cohen, Tzur, Meir-Glitzenstein, Zameret, Kabalo, Rozin, Gutwein, Cohen, and Bareli. These researchers have investigated debates on mass Jewish immigration through 1952 and the subsequent austerity policy; the voting patterns of Israeli ‘veterans’ in the local elections of 1950 and the general elections of 1951; the educational policy vis-à-vis different social sectors; and the macro-economic and social significance of the pioneering ethos (halutziyut) (Meir-Glitzenstein 2009; Gutwein 2010, 248–280; 2012, 21–80; Ha’cohen 1998; Kabalo 2007; Rozin 2008; Tzur 2000, 126–162; Zameret 1997). These historical 11  The strikers included academics at the Hebrew University and Technion, physicians, microbiologists, clinical psychologists, jurists, economists, veterinary doctors, and academics working as high-school teachers. 12  According to A. Ben-Porat, a 1948 survey by the Central Bureau for Statistics found that a little over 22% of male earners were independent property owners. Ben-Porat labeled these groups ‘bourgeois,’ while we believe they should be included in the broader category ‘middle-class,’ which, as aforementioned, also refers to the professional-academics. During the 1950s, MAPAI held several discussions on the correct strategy to employ with property and small business owners. See, e.g. LMA, June 18, 1950.

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studies share a common assumption in ascribing significance to inner conflicts among the Ashkenazi ‘absorbers’ or ‘veterans’ and their political and social establishments. It is this assumption that underlies our current analysis as it does some of our previous works (Bareli 2003, 6–104; 2007, 201–227; 2009, 54– 58; 2012, 467–490; 2014; Cohen 2003, 157–182; 2005, 2006, 2009, 149–188). However, most studies on Israeli society during the first decade of statehood, particularly sociological studies, have not adopted this approach. Research on the period commonly distinguishes between the ‘absorbers’ or ‘veterans’ who immigrated to the country pre-1948 (mostly during the immigration waves of the 1930s), and the counterpart wave of ‘newcomers’ or ‘new immigrants’ that doubled the Jewish population between 1948 and 1952. This common distinction—which tends to underestimate friction and conflict among Ashkenazi ‘absorbers’ themselves—has quickly developed into an assumption of ethno-class dichotomy between the groups. Researchers of varied (and at times contradictory) scholarly traditions and theoretical leanings have assumed that overtime, this dichotomy evolved into a rigid distinction between the Ashkenazi middle and upper classes (including 1950s Ashkenazi immigrants) and the Mizrachi, or oriental, proletariat. Among scholars whose writings reflect this assumption are Eisenstadt, Lissak and Horowitz, Shapira, and Kimmerling (Eisenstadt 1989; Horowitz & Lissak 1990; Kimmerling 1990; Shapira 1977, 1996). Most research on the intensive process of establishing a modern society in Israel has only minimally addressed conflicting interests within the broad ‘absorbers’ group, which controlled most of the resources at the time, and the ‘new immigrants.’ This tendency has led to the amalgamation of each coterie with few internal distinctions, and therefore, studies on the two groups have largely discussed the divisions and conflicts between them. Contrary to this trend, our current aim is to examine the nature and ramifications of internal political relationships and public discourse that divided the ‘ruling class’ itself, and significantly influenced the status of white-collar professionals in relation to the Mizrachi proletariat. Our focus is therefore conflict among the ‘absorbers’ themselves—with the academic, white-collar public sector workforce on one side, and MAPAI leaders on the other—over the socioeconomic status of the former during the first decade of Israeli independence. This conflict transpired during a radical reorganization of the public sector wage system (Galnur 2007; Sheffer 2006, 71–79), which was meant to prevent imminent labor market stratification due to the rapid doubling of the Israeli population after mass immigration. Fulfilling the academic professionals’ demands for salary differentiation at the time, meant that new immigrants would be absorbed into a rigid, and stratified labor market.

Introduction

7

Scholars such as Svirsky, Kimmerling, Shalev, and Grinberg (Grinberg 1993; Kimmerling 1993; Shalev 1992; Svirsky 1995), have adopted the aforementioned assumption of ethno-class dichotomy between the two groups and have even intensified it, with many additional scholars following suit. They assert that internally varied as it may have been, the ‘absorbing establishment’—i.e. the MAPAI-led government and Histadrut—was merely the institutional expression of the ‘absorbers.’ According to them, the absorbers used MAPAI and the Histadrut in order to profit from their seniority and personal networks, and climb the social rungs while pushing the ‘absorbed’ downward. As a result, they claim, MAPAI government and the Histadrut did not effectively protect the new Mizrachi immigrants. This was reflected, for instance, by the wagegaps between the different trades, by the professional ranking system, and by inconsistent employment terms within the same professions. According to the dominant assumption that research literature offers on the subject, these distinctions were intended to further enhance the Ashkenazi middle and upper classes’ control over the lower classes, and to weaken the Mizrachi proletariat. This analytical framework does not regard the State and its agencies in the 1950s as an autonomous entity, but rather as an executive arm or ‘acting committee’ of dominant social forces, which was used to solidify a rigid ethno-class dichotomy. This is a society-focused approach based on a conflictual-class analysis, which largely disregards the nation-building aspect of the relevant social processes. This theoretical approach is ultimately an extreme manifestation of the abovementioned tendency to underestimate diverse, complex interests among the ‘absorbers’ and the new immigrants they had ‘absorbed.’ Based on this theoretical foundation, the MAPAI government and Hista­drut worked to establish center-periphery or oppressor-victim relations by forming ‘dependency networks’ in the employment, housing, education, and health domains. These prevalent assumptions brought forth by both research literature and collective memory are an obstruction. For instance, they hinder our understanding of 1951 election results, which were the first to parallel mass immigration and characterized by the substantial transition of veteran, established voters from MAPAI to the General Zionists party. This transition has been perceived as the result of ‘protest-voting’ against the outcomes of mass immigration—i.e. the austerity policy and socio-economic emergency that followed MAPAI’s decision to double the Israeli population within two and a half years. What compensated MAPAI for this transition was the massive electoral support of new immigrants, without which the abandonment of veteran MAPAI voters might have overthrown the regime. It is also difficult to understand the

8

Introduction

steadfast support of Mizrachi immigrants in subsequent elections leading to MAPAI’s victory in 1959—not long after the Wadi Salib riots—the Party’s biggest electoral accomplishment since its establishment. It is therefore impossible to comprehend MAPAI’s persistent dominance in government during the 1950s without assuming it won the widespread support of oriental immigrants, which clashes with prevalent assumptions regarding the severe mistreatment this sector suffered under its rule. The Mizrachi immigrants’ widespread support for MAPAI has been frequently attributed to the sector’s socio-economic dependence upon the government, or its traditional tendency to heed authority and express gratitude to those who brought them to Israel. These claims can be deconstructed into four assumptions. First, new immigrants were dependent on MAPAI, which controlled employment, housing, land, health, and educational resources. This dependency stripped them of both free choice and judgement, pushing them to vote against their own interests from fear of MAPAI and its political machine. Second, the new immigrants’ traditionalism or political-modern inexperience negated their capacity for rational political action, rendering them practical ‘captives’ devoid of independent thought. Third, oriental immigrants were systematically fed a false Zionist or religious agenda that diverted them from their own interests. Fourth, the absence of a ‘cultural elite’ among North African and Iraqi Jewish newcomers left them without leadership and drove them to support an Ashkenazi rule. These assumptions of dependence, traditionalism, ignorance, or the absence of leadership among oriental immigrants have yet to be fully articulated in research literature, which is no coincidence. Some are based on psychosocial or psycho-cultural claims that are extremely difficult to prove empirically. Some are stereotypical and cause discomfort. Lastly, some can perhaps be demonstrated in certain cases, but cannot adequately produce a comprehensive conclusion about the electoral behavior of a sizable public—and are therefore speculative in nature. Alternatively, the current work offers an empirical foundation through which the electoral behavior of the new oriental immigrants can be interpreted, based on the assumption that it was, in fact, rational. Our empirical study of the MAPAI-led wage policy in the public sector offers tangible and logical insights into the widespread electoral support of the oriental proletariat toward MAPAI in the 1950s. It allows us to answer, at least partly, why it is that Mizrachi immigrants supported MAPAI and did not transition in significant numbers to alternative parties such as MAPAM, Achdut Ha’avoda, Herut, the General Zionists, or the Progressive Party. Additionally, it allows us to explain why they did so despite the unforgiving circumstances MAPAI imposed on them, and despite the discrimination in housing, employment, and

Introduction

9

education that most research on these issues indicates. The answer we propose is based on the fundamental assumption that income and relative status within a wage system are central motivators of political behavior. It is also supported by the significant visibility these topics had in the press of the time. The unprecedented, systemic erosion of wage-gaps, which directly served the group whose electoral behavior begs explanation, was the primary impetus of the events we will discuss. We emphasize that this subject has yet to be investigated in other important spheres outside of the current research scope, such as housing, education, or settlement policies. However, the labor and wage market at the focus of the current study is undoubtedly one that is significant to immigrants and influences their perspective directly. The relationship between MAPAI and the new oriental immigrants was actually characterized by mutual dependency, which did enable MAPAI to control this population within an institutional hierarchy that prevailed politically, socially, and economically. However, this remains a partial and insufficient interpretation of the events at hand. There is another significant aspect of this hierarchical institutionalization that has yet to be properly addressed in scholarly literature: MAPAI was also utilizing this hierarchical structure, which indeed widely characterized the nation building and Mizug Galu’yot processes, to protect the Mizrachi newcomers from other social coteries. This hierarchical structure was therefore a vehicle of simultaneous control and protection, and the current work will present substantial, comprehensive empirical evidence of the resistance this protection provoked among the ‘veteran’ or more established classes. It is the veterans’ ‘nay’ to MAPAI’s wage policy that implicates the ‘yay’ of the newcomers, whose historical voice naturally resounds far less through relevant documentation; for, as far as relative economic status is concerned, there was a ‘zero sum game’ between the two groups. This means that the striking white-collar workers’ loss was the Mizrachi immigrants’ gain, which may partly explain their electoral behavior. This interpretation employes an alternative analytical trend to that which permeates sociological research literature and lumps the ‘absorbers’ and ‘absorbed’ into two groups with hardly any internal distinctions. We seek to challenge this prevailing analytical trend empirically, from a historical-political perspective, using a theoretical approach that ascribes a degree of autonomy to the State (Evans et al. 1985; Nordlinger 1981; also Domhoff 1996). Our analysis will focus on the political relations that characterized the public sector wage system and significantly affected socio-economic dynamics during the period in question. However, as noted previously, this study does not investigate additional socio-economically relevant domains (such as housing) or the distribution of other socio-economic resources. Moreover, the trends that

10

Introduction

characterized such spheres cannot be deduced from wage-related patterns, telling as they may be. Our primary goal is therefore to deepen the understanding of ethno-class relations developed during the first decade of Israeli independence through the prism of one crucial dimension—the public sector wage system and its political context.

…

The white-collar workers’ strike in February of 1956 was no typical strike. It did not include boisterous mass protests or workers marching hand in hand, chanting to police officials, or strikebreakers, or ‘bullies’ hired by employers. It did not involve any violent incidents. The strike was distinct from other famous, proletariat-oriented strikes in early statehood (which, like the whitecollar workers’ strike, won the support of MAPAM and MAKI). One such strike was the 1949 ‘round bread strike,’ during which embittered bakers attacked strikebreakers and damaged equipment to maintain higher bread prices in TelAviv relative to the rest of the State (Ma’ariv Sept. 14 1949, 1; Ma’ariv Sept. 15 1949, Front-page; Ma’ariv Sept. 16 1949, Front-page; Ma’ariv Sept. 17 1949, 2). It was also unlike the ATtA strike declared over a year afterward, in May of 1957, when industrialist Hans Moller tried to limit wages by replacing senior employees with new-hires under inferior terms (Ma’ariv May 9, 1957, 1; Ma’ariv May 10, 1957, 1; Ma’ariv May 12, 1957, 2; Ma’ariv May 13, 1957, 2; Ma’ariv June 16, 1957, 1). It also differs from the seamen’s strike that took place toward the end of 1951. The seamen demanded the same pay as workers at large, and above all, sought to independently manage the Seamen’s Association without Histadrut involvement.13 Many activists among the seamen were Soviet-Union enthusiasts who clashed with the Histadrut and its representative, Secretary of the Haifa Workers Council Yosef Almogi. Almogi believed their demands contradicted the centralist nature of the Histadrut and MAPAI, and MAPAI leaders in the government and Histadrut were concerned about a pro-communist association having control of Israeli naval equipment (Eshel 1994; also Hanin & Filc 1998, 89–98; Kafkafi 1994, 221–247; Lissak et al. 1991; Ne’emanei Kinus Ha’Yamaim, n.d.; Tokatli 1979, 98–102). The bloody confrontations between police, ‘Plugot Ha’poel’ (workers’ brigades), and the seamen in Haifa on December 14, 1951 broke the strike that very day. Interestingly, after the strike 13  According to labor contracts from 1951, a beginning construction worker earned 81 IL a month while a professional construction worker earned 110 IL a month. However, a seasoned, certified sailor earned 41 IL; a B grade (beginner) port worker, who worked on a ship at the port, earned 77 IL, and a head captain 71 IL (Eshel 1994, 53).

Introduction

11

broke, most of the seamen’s demands were met—but only once the Histadrut’s authority over labor relations was reaffirmed. The strike we discuss in the current work seems to have left no significant impression on collective memory, which positions us among the ‘re-collectors of the forgotten’ alongside many fellow historians. It appeared to be one strike of many, during which the Histadrut and government sought to enforce their joint control of the public sector labor market and wage policy, and in this case, their ability to restrain white-collar workers’ socio-economically-­ motivated demands. Nonetheless, the strike was distinct for being the first nationwide, comprehensive strike among the educated professional coteries, and furthermore—for being driven, as we will later demonstrate, by an alternative socio-economic approach to that of the government. The strikers enjoyed the undisputed support of the socio-political right wing in their quest for a general policy that promoted and fortified their interests. Its leaders defined the strike as “a rare historical event” and an “unparalleled sociological experience.” By using these definitions, they presented the strike as a broad-scale, classoriented event involving those called the ‘working intelligentsia’ in Zionist labor movement jargon (Ha’aretz Feb. 9, 1956). Engineers, physicians, jurists, and architects, mostly veterans, jointly claimed they were enduring persistent wage-gap erosion between themselves and the new immigrant workers. They believed the wage policy adopted by the government and Histadrut was so successful, that wage-gaps had narrowed to absurd proportions.14 Unlike the well-known strikes mentioned above, the tension leading up to the white-collar workers’ strike was spurred by divergent approaches to the desired social character of the new state. Socialist republicanism conflicted with what can be called liberal meritocratic republicanism, which emphasizes compensation for civil service, empowerment of the free market, and limited government intervention. Clearly, this ethos benefitted the veteran class as it sought to solidify its relative advantage over the new immigrants. The conflict surrounding the strike was reflected by public discourse in the press and large public assemblies, as well as small meetings behind closed doors, and was characterized by two different approaches. The first was supportive of centralist socialist republicanism, which relied on the wide-ranging planning and control of the government and Histadrut—its partner in socio-economic affairs—to guarantee economic stability, full employment, and social and national unity. However, the socio-economic reality this policy addressed pulled 14  See for instance a quote by Prof. A Adler, medical schools and Hadassah physicians’ representative, who “noted how ridiculous it was that the income of the dean of medicine was higher than that of the guard by 1.5” (Ha’aretz Feb. 9, 1956b).

12

Introduction

in the opposite direction: An unequal, acutely heterogeneous society formed through mass immigration during early Israeli statehood—and social, economic, and cultural division between the European and oriental immigrants that now comprised Israeli society. In the wage domain, we find that socialist republicanism advanced an imposed or ‘artificial’ narrowing of wage-gaps within and between the different professions, to counter the sociological and social trends of the time. This method was designed to inhibit the rise of the Ashkenazi middle-class in light of accelerated development, which had greatly increased the State’s dependence on academically educated professionals and their services. MAPAI leadership was applying political pressure in order to balance the surging socio-economic strength of the academic middle-class. Its main tool was hierarchical institutionalization—the hierarchical political, social, and economic frameworks of the State—that served to control the immigrants as well as protect them. The alternative agenda was a liberal republicanist policy that would maximize the advantage of educated workers by establishing a blunt, rigid economic distinction between the different sectors based on professional training, skill, and education. As aforementioned, this was the agenda promoted by the strikers, an educated and dynamic group that believed it was worthy of leading Israeli society and being materially rewarded for doing so. Their demands coincided with the agendas of right and center wing parties—as well as different factions within MAPAI itself. Like socialist republicanism, this approach entailed the hierarchical institutionalization of society, economy, and politics, which, among other things, would guarantee effective control of the diverse immigrant population that now existed in Israel. In the wage domain, however, ‘liberal’ hierarchical institutionalization was different from that which MAPAI implemented.15 Its demand for bigger wage-gaps between professional ranks merged with the fundamental belief that a social distinction should be cultivated in terms of housing, lifestyle, consumerism, aesthetics, and access to centers of power.

15  There are therefore two versions of hierarchical institutionalization at hand: a socialistpaternalistic one and a liberal-meritocratic one. Outside of MAPAI, there was no significant Ashkenazi group that offered an alternative to the hierarchical institutionalization of politics, society, economy, and culture during the mass immigration of the 1950s. The left faction of MAPAI, on the other hand, did threaten this institutionalization and even offered an inclusive alternative that incited conflict between itself and MAPAI leadership. See Bareli 2014.

Introduction

13

An additional, significant conflict paralleled the first decade of statehood, which was directly linked to the above-mentioned tension between the two versions of republicanism. This conflict was characterized by direct, forceful discourse over the ethnic and cultural identity of the new state in light of the extreme demographic shift and immigration from Muslim countries. Among other things, this discourse was concerned with dangers and disappointments related to the sizable oriental immigration, and concerns about its absorption and Israel’s subsequent transformation into a ‘Mizrachi state.’ Central figures in Israel’s political culture were openly and fiercely critical of such large-scale absorption over so short a period, and their criticism combined with disappointment over the very arrival of these Mizrachi immigrants and the nature of their integration. This criticism is crucial to understanding the conflict addressed in this book. White-collar workers’ demand that their social superiority be reflected by wage-gaps was, as many empirical examples will later exhibit, stoked by fear that the unrefined, oriental, and unselective mass immigration would influence the character of Israeli society. Distinguishing the leading sectors of Israeli society, by paying them higher wages for instance, was viewed as a potential shield against these worrying developments. Prof. Martin Buber, a prominent intellectual at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem—the only Israeli university at the time—outwardly opposed the unselective immigration policy that was uncompromisingly initiated and executed by Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ben-Gurion. During a meeting with Ben-Gurion in October 1949, Buber emphasized the crisis that was edging near, … due to the immense disparity that escalates daily between the leading, formative ‘fine flour’ [the biblical ‘solet’] of the population, and the mass immigration. We are facing terrible dangers in terms of frayed relations among the groups, and even more so, frayed relations between some of the new [immigrant] groups and the developing nation. There may be different layers of traditions, and Dinaburg16 rightly said there is a unique tradition among Moroccans, etc. But there is no live, shared tradition here (Prof. B.Z. Dinaburg [Dinur]: abridged).17 I look, but do not see it. I see only shards of stone tablets. BGA Oct. 1949, 8

16  The historian Ben-Zion Dinur (Dinaburg) of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, later Education and Culture minister of Israel. 17  For an analysis of Dinur’s approach, which diverges from that which Buber presents, see Gutwein 2013, 84, 138–147.

14

Introduction

Buber saw mass immigration strictly as a rescue effort for Diaspora Jews, which was bound to tear the social fabric of Israel and threaten its culture. Ben-Gurion interjected, stating that Buber was unaware of what was happening in the army, which he saw as a vessel of unity and cooperation between the veterans and immigrants. Buber replied that joint army duty does not mend the gaps between the veterans and newcomers, as it does not fulfill the role of national revival, and furthermore, is not a permanent entity. In turn, BenGurion stated that until the coming of the Messiah he believes the army is indeed a permanent entity meant to ensure the State’s existence. Buber replied that mass immigration from Muslim countries occurs at the expense of encouraging young North-American Jews (just so!), for whom mere nationalistic slogans do not suffice, to immigrate. Buber compared the pre-independence immigration waves with the mass immigration of the time, and determined that distinction must be made between the “fine flour” and the “plain flour” of immigrant society. He described the challenge of Israeli society as a “growing quantitative gap between the fine flour and plain flour,” and believed that pre-independence there was an “objective sifting” of immigrants and only the “best” and most devoted to the Zionist idea arrived. They knew there was no financial opportunity in Israel and accepted whatever work was available: “They did not decide to immigrate to any state at random, but chose to come here, to the land for which one does what he would not do for any other.” However, the post-1948 mass immigration was unselective and opened the gates to many who were not devout Zionists, thereby weakening the ethos that had cultivated the deep devotion to Eretz Yisrael. During their meeting, Buber pointedly asked Ben-Gurion, “is there any other purpose for which the Zionist movement and State were established beyond the maximal ingathering of Jews in Israel?” His underlying criticism was targeted at the mass immigration, which had made such a purpose elusive (BGA Oct. 1949, 6, 7). Uri Avneri, reporter and editor of the weekly newspaper Ha’olam Hazeh, enthusiastically adopted Buber’s reference to a nation of “broken tablets,” meaning a nation irreparably divided, and heightened it. Avneri saw the oriental immigration as a mortal threat to the pre-independence Zionist vision. He claimed that, “The new Hebrew culture came to life in the 1930s and died at the end of the 1940s. Within this short decade it took root, blossomed, and wilted” (Avneri 1988, 25–30, quote 25). Avneri’s Canaanite approach was overtly elitist and hostile toward populist trends in Zionism. According to him, significant pre-state developments and innovations in collective culture were all characterized by a clear distinction between “Hebrew culture” and “Jewish culture.” Avneri

Introduction

15

believed “Hebrew culture” was a surge of creativity and vitality that was extinguished in the 1950s. The revival of the Hebrew language and culture was characterized by a blunt distinction between a contemptible, atrophied Diaspora Jewry and the new nation in the heroic land. This perception prompted, according to Avneri, scornful withdrawal from exilic Jewry and rebellion against the “elders of Zionism and the yishuv [pre-state Jewish society]” who were not native Israelis. Such ‘rebellion’ was particularly targeted at the view that the yishuv was established by and for exilic Jews. The resistance to mass immigration in the 1950s was partially the result of this quasi-Canaanite approach. “Hebrew culture” was tested by the presence or absence of sabra traits such as simplicity, unaffectedness, and practicality, and was celebrated as a native identity, but had not come to full fruition and died before its time, according to Avneri. Avneri claimed that the Holocaust induced some retreat from the anti-Jewish antagonism that prevailed among the first Israeli generation under the guise of the ‘negation of exile.’ Meanwhile, establishing the Israeli State exacted a heavy price—thousands of youth killed and injured within a small society that had not grown by more than approximately ten thousand native youths a year. Avneri believed, however, that the ‘cultural collapse’ caused by mass immigration from Muslim countries had in fact been the most detrimental to the State: After the shedding of blood came mass immigration. Within a short time, millions joined the yishuv. The yishuv was not ready for that. All had demanded the immigration of course, but none had considered the true challenges it involved—neither before nor after. The yishuv did not absorb the immigration. Perhaps this was never possible due to the numerical ratio. As the new culture was overwhelmingly Ashkenazi (it was no coincidence that the mythological sabra was blond and blue-eyed, like Nietzsche’s beast), and the mass immigration was largely Mizrachi, cultural integration was problematic to begin with. Avneri 1988, 30

Surprisingly, Buber and Avneri’s view of the immigrants coincided with that of labor movement-affiliated young intellectuals. This was particularly true when it came to their perception of Mizrachi immigrants. In the words of Dan Horowitz, Mizrachi immigrants were believed to have “… pulled the rug from under those who wished to establish in Israel a ‘Hebrew,’ ‘working,’ and ‘pioneering’ society that would cultivate ‘the new Israeli man’—productive, social-justice seeking, and liberated from the reins of exilic tradition” (Horowitz

16

Introduction

1993, 50). These perceptions are another essential dimension of the state of mind and social vision that drove white-collar workers into the wage-gap dispute with MAPAI. These young intellectuals, most of whom were professionally connected to the Hebrew University and included figures such as Dan Horowitz, Moshe Lissak, Zeev Strenhell, Yirmiyahu Yovel, and Menachem Brinker, supported the characteristic approach of the right wing General Zionists. They supported the claim that unlimited Jewish immigration into Israel laid the groundwork for long-term cultural, economic, and political damage to the State (Cohen & Orkibi 2008). These young intellectuals, pupils of the labor movement, accused Ben-Gurion of having retreated from his vision of a utopian, ‘exemplary society’ by initiating the unselective immigration policy. He had traded it, they claimed, for a normalization that weakened the labor movement and its agencies. This group actually saw MAPAI’s version of ‘socialist republicanism’ as part of a process destined to impair the exemplary socialist society at the core of the labor movement vision. This revolutionary period, wrought with the suffering of large immigrant groups, was to them a mere routinization of the Zionist revolution. It seemed that these intellectuals, reared under the pioneering ethos of the labor movement, had internalized its elitist tendency to withdraw from ‘the plebs,’ but not its edict to come to their aid.18 The practical outcome of their disapproval was that many began an academic career at the Hebrew University at the dawn of statehood and joined the struggle to expand wage-gaps between themselves and the lower ranks of civil service. Thus, the normalization of their personal lives was ideologically ‘translated’ into their discovery of the labor movement’s routinization and its abandonment of the original revolutionary ethos it represented. They believed their movement had halted and retrogressed the aspirational crux of the new Jewish society in the State of Israel—to be a ‘light unto the nations’—and had forsaken any hope of fostering a new culture. Instead, the prominent party of the Zionist labor movement demanded total commitment to integrating 18  See the following articles by Gutewin: Gutwein 2010, 248–280, and Gutwein 2012, 21–80; 2013, 83–175), which offer a contrasting view and historical interpretation of the pioneering ethos of the Zionist labor movement. Gutwein strictly emphasizes the political, social, economic, and cultural elitism characteristic of the pioneering ethos. He almost completely disregards the approach of Ben-Gurion and others to this ethos, which, alongside the elitism of settlement that abandons society for the periphery, also emphasizes servicing ‘the people,’ i.e. the lower classes. We will later see how this approach was expressed, for instance, during the Egyptian border crisis, as pupils of the labor movement were asked to aid Mizrachi settlements.

Introduction

17

diasporic populations. MAPAI demanded social commitment to immigrants whose cultural background fundamentally diverged from that of labor movement founding fathers and the ‘first generation,’ i.e. children of the first immigration waves, which included the aforementioned young intellectuals. These young intellectuals, affiliated with labor Zionism, were deeply disappointed with the disparate values and modes of thought among Middle Eastern and North African immigrants. They saw them as almost entirely disconnected from the European cultural climate and its primary catalysts: the industrial revolution, nationalism, and secularization. Therefore, a notable outcome of the immigration absorption process was the formation of two groups that shared mutual cultural estrangement. There was a strong sense among the veterans that the values established during the yishuv period had been compromised. Many feared that cultural and classoriented heterogeneity might lead to an alternate culture that would threaten the cultural superiority cultivated pre-independence. Dan Horowitz saw these social gaps as the foundation of a deeply “divided society,” a concept discussed in the press of the time as a distinction between a “first Israel” and a “second Israel.” The notion of a divided society pointed partly to the extreme socio-economic and political inequality between new immigrants and their absorbers. It also pointed to an economic reality of resource deficits, mainly reflected by paltry and incomprehensive welfare-state mechanisms that fostered almost complete dependency on MAPAI-controlled government systems among the new immigrants. MAPAI, which comprised the vast majority of the Zionist labor movement, was accused of abandoning the movement’s efforts to cultivate a society based on values of “pioneering Zionism” or “constructive socialism,” which were designed to propel social change. During mass immigration, claimed the critics, this effort was replaced with the Party’s agenda to maintain its own dominance through a clientelistic rule, based on fostering dependency and identification via the manipulation of traditional symbols and centers of authority. In actuality, these theories were ‘pioneer-oriented’ excuses for demands to shift class orientation and fortify the status of the academic middle-class. Intellectuals educated within the labor movement claimed that socialist ideology had been consistently corroded and replaced with cynical criteria for the promotion of political party interests. However, their declarative concern for socialist ideology was not in any way reflected by concern for the workers or new immigrants who had undergone an accelerated and painful process of proletarization during the years in question. An important issue enfolded into this discourse is that contrary to the role of intellectuals in other socialist movements, no substantial partnership was formed between labor movement

18

Introduction

intellectuals and the new Israeli proletariat. Young left-wing intellectuals who flocked to the Hebrew University in particular, could not commit themselves to the interesrs of immigrant-workers from Muslim countries. The immigrants ‘interfered’ with the intellectuals’ cultivation of a singular, utopian, socialist national culture. It seems that ironically, the ‘dregs of society,’ or actual proletariat of the time, were perceived as the obstacle to a sought-after socialist utopia. The prevailing notion was that by arriving to Israeli transit camps, urban immigrant neighborhoods, and peripheral settlements and development towns, they had effectively ‘stolen’ the socialist dream. The intellectuals saw them as neither an asset to the labor movement nor a worthwhile resource and subject of valuable, powerful socialist vitality and regeneration. Instead, they were viewed as a hindrance, obstruction, and even potential destruction of the cultural possibilities of Israeli socialism. Essentially, the oriental immigration became the reason—or excuse—for the disintegration of socialist ideology among labor movement pupils and members. More accurately, it became a pseudo-explanation for why this ideology should be replaced with bourgeois standards. These standards coincided with joining the ranks of the Hebrew University or cultivating a governmental or personal career, and were devoid of obligation to fundamental, original socialist concepts (Cohen 2001, 297–330). The idea that mass immigration was responsible for obstructing the labor movement ethos or the vital personal and collective desires formative to the new sovereign state was reflected in multiple ways. It became a significant cause of disappointment in Ben-Gurion and his colleagues in MAPAI leadership, who supported unrestricted immigration and its related policies—the austerity policy, accelerated development policy, public sector wage policy, and cultural ‘melting pot’ policy. This is how a conceptual framework that justified individual pursuit over socialist solidarity was established, and how it became a component of the post-war exhaustion that characterized Israel in the 1950s (Bareli 2003, 6–104; Cohen 2005, 233–262; Rozin 2008; Shavit 1991, 56–78). This state of mind left little room for labor-movement-bred intellectuals to identify with the circumstances of Jewish immigrants at the time, particularly the oriental masses among them. To the contrary—these cultural tendencies actually laid the foundation for intellectuals to join the class-oriented quest of the white-collar workers and senior executives (Cohen 2003, 157–182). This trend was rooted in the characteristic elitism of the highly-esteemed pioneering ethos. It was the pioneering ethos which enabled this sector to develop a right-wing approach alongside a declarative, rewarding identification with MAPAI’s socialist foundations, of which it remained consistently critical in practice.

Introduction

19

The public affiliation of these intellectuals, whose socio-political world and the normative shift that characterized it are exemplified, for instance, by Dan Horowitz’s above-mentioned statements, is an important aspect of the historical events at hand. As far as they and their peers were concerned, these intellectuals belonged to the labor movement and that is how they were perceived. Socio-politically, however, they exhibited increasing alienation from the lower classes in a way that hardly befitted left-wing-oriented intellectuals, whatever their socio-economic status may have been. Thus, they simultaneously belonged and did not belong to the labor movement during the years in question. This affiliative dichotomy was also reflected by the discourse-generated terminology used to discuss the social phenomenon addressed in the current work: In reference to their labor movement affiliation they were called the ‘working intelligentsia,’ while in reference to their disassociation from the movement they were labeled the ‘middle-class’ or considered part of it. In slightly different forms, this ambivalent state of simultaneous belonging and estrangement characterized all of the white-collar workers and senior executives who participated in the strike. As the following chapters will uncover, some individuals and groups among the educated professionals had deep roots in the labor movement and even MAPAI itself and were indeed their ‘working intelligentsia.’ Others belonged to right wing parties that plainly disagreed with MAPAI’s social policy, or to various groups associated with ‘typical’ middle-class opposition to the labor movement or MAPAI. As we saw, these were not so ideolgoically remote from each other. Generally, the group in question had an assorted or ‘love-hate’ relationship with the labor movement. Later in the conclusion, we will revisit the relationship between the labor movement and the middle-class, particularly the professional middle-class. This research prism is a useful vehicle for a potential long-term analysis of the labor movement’s class orientation in generations past the current research scope. The pervasive pessimism in the labor movement regarding MAPAI-led demographic and cultural expansion was met with demands that Ben-Gurion and his methods be supported. Essayist, MAPAI and Histadrut affiliate, and later Davar editor Yehuda Gotthelf, for instance, directly attacked said pessimism, particularly, “the detached, disappointed intellectuals who moan of problems and impairments and ask: is this the state we have prayed for [sic]. Yes, it is this state for which we have prayed and longed in our spirit. In fact, our generation has seen so much more than it wished for one or two generations ago” (Gotthelf 1960, 16). Natan Alterman’s final book of poetry Hagigat Kayitz (‘summer revelry’) should be read precisely in this spirit, as the poet praises the oriental settlers in a southern miners’ town in his work, and launches piercing criticism at the veteran absorbers who alienate them (Alterman 1962).

20

Introduction

The liberal economic approach of the veteran yishuv during the 1950s was frequently exhibited in newspapers such as Ha’boker, Herut, and Ha’aretz. They conveyed that the State’s primary duty was to defend individual liberty and assets, and maintain minimal involvement in promoting socio-economic objectives. This approach held that citizens themselves should ensure their own personal welfare, address their problems, and fulfill their needs. This right and to some extent center-wing political approach viewed government intervention as fundamentally immoral and potentially disadvantageous to the public. A market economy free of excessive government involvement, they believed, was sure to cultivate long-term growth and civic welfare. In fact, this demand suggested an expectation that the mandatory government’s laissez faire policy be preserved. Such policy tended, in true British colonial fashion, toward minimal interference in economic and social life. This liberal policy was expected to cultivate an educated, strong Ashkenazi middleclass comprised mostly of veteran yishuv members who would serve as a social elite. While benefitting from the economic opportunities of mass immigration, this group would stand at the helm of society and prevent regression into Levantinism or a ‘third world state’ in light of unselective immigration, especially from Muslim countries. The 1951 elections mirrored this aspiration: parties who represented liberal economic orientation, i.e. the General Zionists and Progressives, doubled their mandates from 12 to 24 with the campaign slogan “let the people live in this State.” Their road to government leadership appeared to have been paved. Nonetheless, we find that their influence remained weak. The policy adopted by the MAPAI-led government and Histadrut was based on the assumptions that without minimal macro-economic conditions to protect the immigrants, economic freedom would have no significance to them, and that such pseudo-freedom would in fact harm them. The wage policy in the public sector was an important component of the economic protection immigrants otherwise lacked, and its purpose was moderation: maximal restraint of the structural inequality spurred by mass immigration. Therefore, our discussion of wages centers on the governmental struggle for restraint due to an immigration-induced crisis of expanding inequality, which, under the social circumstances of the time, could have been nothing more than a fight to mitigate the implications of this crisis.19 From this perspective, our analysis offers a partial answer as to why wider gaps did not form between Ashkenazi absorbers and

19  On the rise of income inequality through the end of 1969 and later its drastic reducation see Ginor 1983, 71–73.

Introduction

21

oriental immigrants under the unparalleled socio-economic circumstances of the 1950s. In pursuit of this answer, we will test the hypothesis that MAPAI leadership consistently restrained the aspirations of veteran, academically educated professionals to maximize the advantages of mass immigration from the Middle East and Europe. As previously mentioned, much of the veteran Ashkenazi population benefited from improved social mobility at the time. The growing need for development and construction substantially increased the demand for educated labor, especially for workers with professional qualifications. Relatively, the absorbers were highly educated indeed. Amir estimates that the educational capital (index denoting average monetary investment in education) per person among 1950s immigrants was approximately 57% of pre-independence immigrants’ educational capital. Moreover, the particular kind of development the State required demanded workers who were familiar with Israel’s social networks and political establishment, meaning, yet again, the veterans. The oriental immigrants, who comprised a large portion of the new immigration wave, had the lowest educational capital per capita, and the wage conflict therefore assumed an additional, ethnic dimension (Amir 1985). According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, in 1954 22.5% of immigrants from Asia and Africa had no formal education, compared to 2.6% of European immigrants in the same year (Central Bureau of Statistics 1958, Table 11). These educational gaps were overt, and had a significant effect on employment prospects. Under these circumstances, the absorbers did gain material advantage due to the mass immigration that had doubled the Jewish Israeli population. However, the hypothesis we aim to examine in the current work is that contrary to popular belief, the wage policy implemented by MAPAI government and the Histadrut actually prevented the absorbers from maximizing the economic benefits that the immigration might have yielded. In the precarious context of inequality and its destructive potential, the liberal approach was regarded by MAPAI leadership as detrimental to Mizug Galu’yot during the nation building process of the 1950s. Ben-Gurion, for instance, expressed unabashed glee when the General Zionists failed in the Histadrut’s elections. This was one of the most prominent parties of the Israeli middle-class and an outright supporter of the fight for wage-gap expansion. It joined the Histadrut and unsuccessfully attempted to gain support during elections for the Histadrut Congress. They won less than 4% of votes, and were never able to submit independent candidacy for the Histadrut agricultural congress either. Ben-Gurion believed this attested to its character as a political party:

22

Introduction

There is no clearer indication of the national and Zionist hollowness and barrenness of the General Zionists party. With sorrow and concern, it should be noted that this Party—which has considerable support among the executives and liberal professions who are engaged in a class-oriented, anti-proletariat ideology—is lacking creative force, pioneering initiative, and people of action in the domain on which our security and economic independence hinges more than any other—settling the barren regions and periphery, and populating them with immigrants. Even the people of Herut built two agricultural workers’ settlements after the establishment of the State. The General Zionists party, which is linked to the Farmers’ Association and cloaks itself in the garments of a class-inclusive Zionist organization—has not built a single agricultural settlement of workers since statehood. This is a stamp of the most severe national and Zionist impoverishment imaginable. Ben-Gurion 1962a, 187

MAPAI and the Histadrut recognized the concealed and overt resistance among the right and left wings of the veteran yishuv to the mass immigration from Muslim countries, and to the unselective transfer of entire groups until 1952 and again from 1954 onward (Ha’cohen 1998). These were done at a scope and pace that intensified inequality and necessitated controversial government intervention. Aware of these sentiments, Ben-Gurion festively called mass immigration “a miracle within a miracle” (the first miracle being the very sovereignty that enabled mass immigration). He positioned its absorption as the central objective of the nation building process and its political program. He made strong declarations of commitment to the immigrants’ welfare and integration of the immigration wave, “the second Egyptian exodus” as he called it. The subjects of his critique were left and right wing yishuv veterans who had purposely disengaged with the duty of immigration absorption, leaving it to the government: Indeed, we can find those among us, on both the right and left, who were opposed to this mass immigration and worried it would risk national economy. On November 1949, the General Zionists leader declared in the Knesset, as one hundred thousand immigrants sat in transit camps, that “no one can fathom how they will be absorbed.” And when the primeminister at the time interjected and said: “we can fathom it,” he responded “I, in any case, cannot,” and added, “something is tightening around the neck of the State. I do not know how much time we have before we can no longer breathe.” Admittedly, these objections were not unfounded.

Introduction

23

The immigration that followed independence is unlike any immigration during the pre-independence period—or more accurately—before the annihilation of European Jewry. The immigration that preceded WWII usually came with the capital necessary to its settlement, as well as the professional aptitude for nation building. Education and intellectual legacy too, Jewish and European [sic]. Following the entrapment of Russian Jewry and the destruction of European Jewry, immigrants are arriving mainly from the most forlorn and impoverished countries, mostly from Asia and Africa. [They are coming] without capital, many without education, work ethic, or any form of pioneering skill or Zionist education. This State and the small nation within it must ensure the immigrants’ employment and housing, settlement and reeducation, instruction in agriculture, childrearing, defense, and more. Ben-Gurion 1962b, 158–159

Ben-Gurion’s piercing critique was equally aimed at MAPAM.20 This was a polemic over the perception of Zionism as a ‘rescue movement,’ which was reminiscent of polemics in the Zionist labor movement during the pre-independence mass immigration waves of the 1920s and 1930s. Ben-Gurion bitterly noted that his primary disappointment with MAPAM was neither due to its resistance to establishing the State or its members’ support of a bi-national state; nor to its dogmatic support of the Soviet-Union to the point that its newspaper Al Ha’mishmer reinvented history. It was rather their disconnection from immigration absorption and Mizug Galu’yot that had so deeply let him down (LPAJan. 20, 1955a, 7–8). According to Ben-Gurion, MAPAM members were false socialists who had neglected their socio-national mission and abandoned precisely those whose interests true socialists should prioritize. Simultaneously, he believed that MAPAI’s hierarchical, patronizing rule and protection of the immigrants under his leadership was the worthiest form of Zionist and socialist affinity toward the oriental proletariat. Ben-Gurion dismissed calls within his own party for an equal, nonhierarchical partnership with this group. MAPAM members on the other hand, did not attempt to foster any type of partnership with said newcomers, neither patronizing nor equal. Ben-Gurion pointed sharp arrows of class-oriented propaganda toward MAPAM, depicting MAPAI as a proponent of the oriental proletariat’s welfare and MAPAM as primarily motivated to cooperate with the middle-class:

20  Hebrew initials for Mifleget Ha’Poalim Ha’Meuchedet [‘The united workers party’], one of the two small parties of the Zionist labor movement alongside MAPAI.

24

Introduction

There are two parties that try to advance pioneering revolutionism, two factions of MAPAM,21 with whom none can compete when it comes to chatter about the immigration, the scope of immigration, the rate of immigration. But I must, with sorrow and anguish, ask: what have these two factions, both united and apart, done for the immigrants aside from the few absorbed into their own settlements? Has a single member of Ha’shomer Ha’tzair or Ha’kibbutz Ha’meuchad come to offer his aid at the immigrant settlements? In the past two years I have visited dozens of immigrant settlements, immigrants from Persia, Babylon [Iraq], Yemen, Kurdistan, Morocco, and more…. I have not seen one of these people, who call for extensive immigration day and night and promulgate about settling the periphery, come to help the immigrants in their peripheral settlements. The only ones who have come to their aid thus far are members of the moshavim and the Ichud Ha’kvutzot Ve’hakibbutzim [MAPAI members].22 Ben-Gurion 1962b, 159

Ben-Gurion rejected MAPAM’s belief that pioneering or socialist values were the monopoly of the offspring of veteran yishuv workers. He sarcastically noted that members of the second immigration wave were not children of the proletariat but rather of the middle-class; and were the ones who had laid the foundation for pioneering enterprises in Eretz Yisrael. Moreover, he claimed, members of the Ha’shomer Ha’tzair23 movement were not born to workers but rather to successful tradesmen, and that the Movement’s recruiters work mainly in schools of middle-class students, i.e. non-vocational high schools. “To this day, I have yet to find Ha’shomer Ha’tzair recruiters in impoverished neighborhood and immigrant settlements,” he said, suggesting calculated 21  Ben-Gurion made these statements not long after the two entities that had joined to form MAPAM in 1948, Ha’shomer Ha’tzair party with Ha’kibbutz Ha’artzi movement at its center, and the Achdut Ha’avoda party with Ha’kibbutz Ha’meuchad movement at its center, once again parted ways. Ha’shomer Ha’tzair members and those who joined them kept the name ‘MAPAM.’ 22   Ichud Ha’kvutzot Ve’hakibbutzim was the Kibbutzim Movement affiliated with MAPAI. The Moshavim Movement largely belonged to MAPAI as well. 23  The youth movement whose central and eastern European graduates established a youth movement in Eretz Yisrael and established the party then referred to as MAPAM and Ha’kibbutz Ha’artzi movement that controlled MAPAM. This political structure was opposite to that of MAPAI—the urban division of MAPAI was its most dominant, rather than the Ichud Ha’kvutzot Ve’hakibbutzim or the Moshavim Movement, which is highly significant to the discussion at hand.

Introduction

25

alienation on the part of Ha’shomer Ha’tzair. “But it is not necessarily the middle-class youth nor the children of workers who can invoke pioneering forces. The pioneering quality is not a hereditary class trait …” (Ben-Gurion 1962b, 161–162). As indicated by the following chapters, MAPAM was an outright supporter of white-collar workers and senior executives in their demand to expand wagegaps in the public sector. The ‘working intelligentsia’ was a part of the population MAPAM wished to represent and gain support from, unlike the oriental proletariat to which it did not attempt to appeal whatsoever. In this respect, MAPAM was fundamentally distinct from both MAPAI and Achdut Ha’avoda, which withdrew from MAPAM in 1954 and had a similar agenda to that of MAPAI. Beyond propaganda-oriented statements, in retrospect it appears there was a definite distinction between the authoritative or patronizing partnership of MAPAI and the relative apathy of MAPAM toward the proletariat. As we will later discuss, Ben-Gurion was concerned about Mizrachi Negev residents’ ability to withstand the difficult circumstances of a war with Egypt, which became imminent toward the end of 1955. Therefore, he demanded that leaders from the veteran yishuv be sent to the Negev to assist them. A substantial amount of documented statements made by Ben-Gurion paint the oriental immigrants in an unflattering light, and would certainly be construed as politically incorrect by a contemporary reader.24 In the context of his political propaganda, however, Ben-Gurion made sure to praise the Mizrachi immigrants’ potential. During a Knesset speech on unemployment in May of 1953, for instance, Ben-Gurion reproached veteran yishuv members for claiming the oriental immigrants were mentally incompatible with the conditions of the new State and that this was the cause of their unemployment: 24  A typical example can actually be found in Ben-Gurion’s essay Netzach Yisrael [Heb. ‘The eternity of Israel’] in an anthology titled after the essay itself (Ben-Gurion 1964, 133–186). After writing that, “The history of our people in the Diaspora has proven that no tribe—if we use this term do denote geographic location—is inferior or superior to another in its cultural abilities and fundamental characteristics,” and that, each “has has risen, peaked, and set” (Ben-Gurion 1964, 147), Ben-Gurion stated that, “Over the past hundreds of years eastern [Hebrew: kedem] lands have sunken into ignorance, poverty, and slavery, and have fallen immeasurably behind the rapid development of European nations. And this is true for the gentiles and Jews alike. The divine spirit has lifted from the Jews of the east, and their influence on the Jewish nation has decreased significantly or diminished completely.” Therefore, following “the mass influx of Mizrachi immigrants post-independence … a supposedly ‘superior’ race revealed itself [original quotation marks], an Ashkenazi race, that effectively stands at the helm of the nation, and an inferior Mizrachi race …” (BenGurion 1964, 148).

26

Introduction

This is not the social problem of invalids or that of the desert generation, as some of the Khartoumian journalists believe. The press often publishes harsh criticism of the new oriental immigrants. These are baseless denunciations […] in every ethnicity some are qualified for work and some are parasites. They all include decent people as well as criminals. Critics of the immigrants often pose as scientists, attempting to goad us with the horns of national economy. Ben-Gurion 1962c, 213

According to Ben-Gurion, the unemployment of tens of thousands was an imposed unemployment, not an expression of parasitic habits. On June 10, 1954, Ben-Gurion addressed 8,000 high school juniors and seniors and heralded a life dedicated to pioneering and the denunciation of careerism. However, only few of the youths in his audience actually chose such a life of social pioneering or “went to the people” as he had hoped (Kabalo 2000; 2005, 773–802). BenGurion’s failure to ‘educate the masses’ during his year of resignation was perhaps rooted in how difficult it was to decipher which of his statements were true ideological zeal, and which amounted to pitiful preaching. In the socio-political context of the mid-1950s, MAPAI was practically unaccompanied in its confrontation with four central camps of veteran yishuv society. While presumably distinct from one another, all four groups were resistant or at best passive and alienating toward the immigration absorption that Ben-Gurion saw as the core value of his government. He believed the General Zionists, the Progressives, MAPAM, and Herut belonged to the same camp, and that despite their various campaign slogans, were all working to intensify social gaps, thereby impairing Mizug Galu’yot. As aforementioned, MAPAI lost a significant amount of electoral supporters from the veteran yishuv by the mid1950s due to its socio-economic policy, but this did not shift its agenda. At least until the recession (the mitun) initiated by Levi Eshkol and Pinchas Sapir—the Party continued to fiercely defend full employment for the new immigrants and regulated wage-gaps. It is therefore quite evident that during the period in question the Mizrachi proletariat’s support was crucial to MAPAI, which was not only reflected by Ben-Gurion’s political propaganda but also by the wage policy it sought to implement. Nonetheless, it should be emphasized that we do not claim the MAPAI-led government and Histadrut viewed the oriental proletariat or its leadership as equal political partners. Calls to view them as such were indeed made within the political world of MAPAI, but to no avail. Various oppositional factions within MAPAI attempted to transform the Party into a vehicle of broad civic expression and representation through democratization. They were fiercely

27

Introduction

critical of scant involvement on the part of the oriental proletariat in MAPAI and Histadrut institutions. As a remedy, they demanded a more participatory political approach that would allow this sector ownership over the labor movement and its representative agencies via a democratic, inclusive party structure (Bareli 2009, 54–58; 2014, Ch. 2–3, 5). As aforementioned, MAPAI did not adopt the suggestions of its internal opposition under Ben-Gurion’s leadership, but rather promoted the hierarchical institutionalization of political and socio-economic national structures. Therefore, the government system that supported mass immigration absorption in the 1950s was characterized by methods of benefit distribution and centralized political power (Bareli 2014, Ch. 2–3). This conceptual framework is vital to understanding MAPAI’s modus operandi concerning the labor market and wage system during these years. While the Party protected the oriental proletariat’s interests in efforts to establish a necessary foundation of social and national solidarity, its protection took on the form of what can be referred to as a ‘patronizing partnership.’25 The MAPAI-led government protected the interests of weak immigrant groups against those who sought to gain from their absorption; it formed an alliance with them, represented them, and won their political, and primarily electoral, support—all while maintaining their continued socio-economic and political dependence via rigid institutional hierarchy. As aforementioned, this hierarchy both defended and controlled said groups. The ruling class excluded them almost completely in terms of effective political representation. It kept them far from its ‘inner chambers,’ rejecting its opposition’s call to give them demographically proportionate ownership of MAPAI and Histadrut institutions. It was therefore a partnership to some degree, but a patronizing one nonetheless.

…

The wage policy in 1950s Israel was inextricably tied to the status and power of the Histadrut. Immediately following the establishment of the State, the Histadrut expanded at an accelerated pace. Within a short period of time (1949–1952), it became the representative organization of 90% of salaried employees in the State including unskilled and skilled workers, clerks, teachers, and white-collar workers (Histadrut Statistics Manual August 1956, 2–3; also Baharal 1965, 17). The number of Histadrut members also increased significantly—in February of 1949, the Histadrut included 190,000 members, while by May of 1955 it grew to 515,000 members. In the first six years of 25  For discussion on this term, see Cohen & Leon 2011.

28

Introduction

statehood, the population grew by 125% while the Histadrut grew by 270%. In May of 1955, during his election speech in Tel-Aviv, Ben-Gurion announced with unconcealed pride that since the Histadrut’s establishment in December of 1920, the Jewish yishuv had multiplied by 23½ while Histadrut membership multiplied by 111. At the end of 1954, Israel was home to 1,526,000 Jews (including children), 510,000 of which were salaried workers organized under the Histadrut (Ben-Gurion 1962a, 184–185).26 Such pervasive unity of salaried employees under one central union was unparalleled by any Western country. This status quo meant that the government, which represented the public sector, and the Industrialists’ Association that represented the private sector, did not work with separate trade unions. Instead, a fixed, ‘triangular’ center of power developed. As our discussion of the historical period at hand will reveal, the Histadrut and its Trade Unions Division was a central force in this triangle and participated in shaping labor relations and the wage system. It also had significant influence over the various trade associations, although it did not control them entirely. This balance of power did not characterize the pre-independence period. It was established at the dawn of statehood with the enthusiastic approval and encouragement of the MAPAI-led government. MAPAI government saw regulation of the labor market in collaboration with the Histadrut and private employers as a cornerstone of socio-economic and political development. In other words, the events discussed in this work will reveal the central role of the Histadrut within the hegemonic socialist republicanism that characterized the period in question. The Histadrut’s development into the almost exclusive representative of workers in labor-related affairs neither prevented internal divergence and hierarchy between and within the various trades, nor the development of an ethnically divided workforce. Nevertheless, our discussion of the white-collar workers’ strike indicates that the State, via close collaboration with the Histadrut, cultivated a wage policy designed to minimize gaps between the new distinct classes established in Israel. This policy was based on the assumption that wider gaps could prompt acute tensions that could collapse the immigrant society. Additionally, it was based on the assumption that raising middle-class wages would spur inflation with excessive consumerism and private money—which would expand social gaps as well. Therefore, the government and Histadrut effectively ‘shackled’ the middle-class with two 26  We note that Histadrut members were 18 and older; also, some of the national trade associations under the Histadrut, such as the Teachers’ Association and the Israeli Medical Association (IMA), included workers who were not Histadrut members but did pay member dues.

Introduction

29

political, socio-economic strategies. First, Histadrut dominance in labor relations, which enabled it to successfully isolate the ‘rebellious’ professional groups. Second, the willingness of MAPAI leadership in the government and Histadrut to push against middle-class interests, thereby ‘trading’ their political support for that of the oriental proletariat. We are by no means claiming that this policy became a ‘zero sum game’ between the government and Histadrut and the professional, academic middle-class. Ben-Gurion and his colleagues saw this class as key to developing industrial and scientific infrastructure and national institutions and services (Lissak & Cohen 2010, 1–27) and were supportive of scientific development and academic research and teaching institutions (Cohen 2014). Moreover, we agree with Rosenfeld and Carmi that the State was so significant to the cultivation of this class that it could even be considered to have produced it (Rosenfeld & Carmi 1979, 43–84; also Ben-Porat 1993; Domhoff 1996). Along with this cultivation, however, the State also sought to limit and control the middle-class, and as we will show, fought to inhibit any excessive power on its part from impairing the nation building process. It is difficult to consider the austerity policy, the three-year basic wage freeze and erosion, and particularly the wage erosion among the liberal professions that led to a national strike as policies designed to fortify the social status or superiority of the middle-class. Thus, the white-collar workers’ strike drove the two entities into a head-on collision. Therefore, another hypothesis we wish to examine is that the relationship between the academic middle-class and hegemonic MAPAI regime was ambivalent and conflictual, but nevertheless—quite close. We thereby lay the foundation for future research on the transformation of MAPAI and the Labor Party into a predominantly middle-class party during the 1960s and 1970s. Our work seeks to illuminate the evolving class awareness that eventually unified a substantial portion of ‘veteran’ Israelis in the context of dramatic demographic and social transformations. The issue of ‘class awareness,’ reflected by the wage-gap dispute and the public discourse surrounding it, is significant to deciphering the concepts and struggles at the core of various, and at times contradictory, means of attaining ‘social solidarity’ during the 1950s. The politics surrounding wage agreements with the academic white-collar associations are critical in this regard, and their analysis exposes the fundamental perceptions of central players who participated in defining ‘Israeli identity.’ The rationale behind the kind of meritocratic and modernistic ‘credential society’ (based on academic credentials) (Cohen 2001, 297–330; Collins 1979) that white-collar trade associations and right and center-wing parties attempted to establish, reveals their ambitions for a hierarchical socio-economic and cultural order.

30

Introduction

These institutions aimed to establish a new class culture in Israel based on divided class-consciousness and to create an open, western society based on a hierarchy of cultural prestige and material consumption. Notably, these trade associations and parties only comprised one part of a broader phenomenon—the Israeli version of what research literature calls the ‘new middle-classes’ (Abercrombie & Urry 1988; Bain 1970; Baritz 1989; Ben-Porat 1993; Bottero 2005; Burrage 2008; Carter 1985; Dahrendorf 1959; Djilas 1957; Domhoff 1996; Giddens 1975; Gunn & Bell 2002; Vidich 1995). We will try to shed light on a preliminary or initial stage in the political struggle of key figures in the new Israeli middle-classes to foster their own cultural, economic, and political vision. The wage-gap conflict we address should be analyzed within this context, as the first struggle of its kind for the new Israeli middle-classes on their long journey to cultural superiority.

Chapter 1

Distributive Justice and the White-Collar Workforce: The Outbreak of Conflict The terms ‘absorbers’ and ‘absorbed’ are common to sociological and historical research on Israeli society in its first decade of statehood, which began in 1948. Respectively, these terms refer to veteran Israelis who immigrated prestatehood, and to the new immigrants who arrived in 1948–1952, doubled the population, and matched the veterans in number (Lissak 1999; Ofer 1996). Sociological research, be it of a functionalist, Marxist, or post-colonial theoretical orientation, commonly holds that this division produced a rigid ethnic and class-centered dichotomy relatively quickly (Ben-Porat 1989; Cohen 1998, vol. 1, 115–134; Svirsky 1995). These scholarly interpretations all assume some form of fundamental division between the aforementioned ‘absorbers’ and ‘absorbed,’ a division that ultimately explains the social dynamics of Israel in its first years. Eventually, this division crystallized into two distinct demographic categories: middle-class Ashkenazi Jews and oriental Jews who constituted the lower, proletariat class (Elmal’iach & Levin-Epstein 1998, 243–269; Eisenstadt, Lissak & Nachon 1993; Kamp 2002, 36–67; Yiftachel & Tzfadia 1999; Yona & Saporta 2002, 68–104). Studies of the intense nation-building processes that molded Israel into a modern society have primarily addressed the conflicts and struggles that arose between the absorbers and absorbed. These studies vary in their degree of focus on the diverse interests and conflicts within each group, especially within the dominant absorbers’ group, which controlled most of the resources in the newly sovereign society. Devorah Ha’cohen and other historians have discussed divisive conflicts among veteran Israelis regarding Middle Eastern immigrants (Ha’cohen 1998). However, sociological research on nascent Israeli society largely discusses trends that characterized all veteran Israelis or all oriental immigrants, and investigates their relationship as a zero-sum game of sorts between two bluntly distinct groups with contrasting economic, political, and social interests. Notably, sociological literature on the subject tends to avoid discussion of internal conflict among veteran Ashkenazis themselves regarding their approach to the new immigrants. The crux of the current study is the relative status of white-collar workers in the Israeli workforce during the 1950s, and their developing conflict with the ruling social-democratic party MAPAI. This was an internal conflict in © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi ��.��63/9789004357853_003

32

Chapter 1

which white-collar workers and MAPAI leadership took opposing sides. The context of this discussion is the reorganization of the labor market, namely the wage-policy of the economically and socially vital public sector. Whitecollar workers called for wage differentiation; and had their demands been met, new immigrants would have found themselves in a highly stratified labor market.

Low-Resolution Perspective

Seminal works by Shlomo Svirsky and Devorah Bernstein are blatant instances of the prevailing scholarly tendency to distinguish between Ashkenazi and oriental Jews during early statehood without addressing their respective internal conflicts. The writers, highly critical of sociological studies preceding their own, further this trend nonetheless and even take it to an extreme (Svirsky & Bernstein 1993, 120–147). More so than their predecessors, Svirsky and Bernstein have a low-resolution perspective of intragroup interests in both the veteran and new-immigrant groups of early Israeli society. In other words, they unify them without illuminating internal distinctions. In line with this approach, they name several factors that spurred and solidified the inferior status of oriental immigrants relative to the veteran Ashkenazis: (1) Most immigrants lacked capital, making them dependent upon the centralist political system that facilitated the aliyah (Jewish immigration to Israel; literally, ‘ascension’) including absorption, housing, and job placement. (2) Oriental immigrants were not organized effectively, versus the Ashkenazis who were supported by both the government and the socio-economic system of the umbrella trade union, the Histadrut. (3) According to the two scholars, unemployment soared during the first two decades of statehood, weakening the status of the oriental proletariat. (4) The economic systems to which oriental immigrants were accustomed were incompatible with the development strategies of Israeli policy makers. (5) The dominant ideological system, originally Western European and anchored in the particular ethnic orientation of the pre-statehood era, attributed the low status of oriental immigrants to their inferior, underdeveloped culture. Evidently, both researchers completely neglect to underscore the influence that labor movement leaders’ social-democratic heritage had on Israel’s public sector. Like Zeev Sternhell (Sternhell 1995), they do not believe this heritage was significant in shaping its political behavior. Mirroring the direct and definitive assumption of Marxist and post-colonial studies, the aforementioned researchers argue that authorities tasked with immigration absorption, namely MAPAI government and the Histadrut, merely

Distributive Justice And The White-collar Workforce

33

expressed veteran Israelis’ agenda to climb the social ladder and push the oriental immigrants further down its rungs (Svirsky 1981, 1990). Such studies contend that oriental immigrants were neither protected by the government as a political body, nor by the national bureaucratic system or the Histadrut. This lack of protection was reflected in the expanding wage disparity between different professions and workers of various ranks within the same profession; discrepancies that were intended to reinforce Ashkenazi dominance in the middle-class and weaken the oriental proletariat. This analysis, which has gained many adherents (e.g. Kimmerling 1993; Shalev 1992), depicts the State and its agencies as a unified executive committee of sorts, comprised of dominant social forces whose objective is to reinforce and perpetuate a rigid ethnic and class-centered division. This conclusion draws upon a society-centered approach based on conflictual-class analysis; but ultimately, it simply manifests a scholarly inclination to adopt a low-resolution perspective of the new immigrants and the veteran Ashkenazis, an inclination prevalent in research literature preceding Svirsky and Bernstein, which intensified following their works. According to this approach, the MAPAI-led government and Histadrut shaped center-periphery relations, or oppressorvictim relations, within networks of one-sided dependence between the new immigrants and the veteran absorbers. This analysis raises several questions, as a wider view of political-economic events in the 1950s reveals cracks in the allegedly united front between MAPAI and its well-established supporters, the white-collar workers, or ‘would be’ Ashkenazi middle-class. In the early 1950s, MAPAI’s relationship with some of its old-time supporters grew tense against the background of the tzena (austerity policy) and rationing programs, which led to a shortage in provisions and the expansion of the black market. Voting trends shifted, and these once steadfast supporters eventually defeated MAPAI in the 1950 local elections. This trend extended into the 1951 general elections as well, when old-time MAPAI supporters—veteran Ashkenazis—voted for the General Zionists, which represented a more right-wing economic and social platform. They complained of the acute economic implications prompted by doubling Israel’s population in so short a time, and of the government’s overbearing supervision of public finances. This, in fact, indicates that veteran Ashkenazis were not a homogeneous group and furthermore, that they held diverse and conflicting views on mass immigration and the population it would bring into young Israel (Bareli 2014). It is by no means an overstatement to name the absorption policies and their implications the primary reason Ashkenazi voters nearly tripled the power of the General Zionists in the 1951 elections—from 7 Knesset seats to 20.

34

Chapter 1

The veterans objected to more than just the tzena and financial intervention —MAPAI’s hold on the government and Histadrut prevented them from maximizing the advantages that mass immigration from the Middle East and Europe could offer (Ben-Porat 1999). Many of the Ashkenazi veterans enjoyed superior mobility, as the massive construction and development necessary to immigration absorption created accelerated demand for educated professionals. This was especially true for academically trained professionals, and the veterans Table 1

Countries of origin

Jewish adults (males only) by country of origin, length of time since immigrating to Israel, and education—1954 (in percentage). Central Bureau of Statistics (1958, Table 11) Have not Have not attended attained school elementary education

Veteransa Total 4.1 Natives of 2.0 Israel Natives of 21.8 Asia and Africa Natives of 1.0 Europe and America New immigrantsb Total 12.0 Natives of 22.5 Asia and Africa Natives of 2.6 Europe and America a Pre-1948 immigrants. b Post-1948 immigrants.

Have attained elementary education

Have attained post-primary education

Have Total attained percentage higher education

22.3 24.0

39.6 49.8

26.8 21.4

7.2 2.8

100 100

39.8

28.7

7.6

2.1

100

17.7

37.7

33.4

10.2

100

40.8 49.5

31.0 19.5

13.4 7.8

2.8 0.7

100 100

33.1

41.2

18.3

4.8

100

Distributive Justice And The White-collar Workforce

35

were relatively more educated as well as better versed in the inner-workings of local institutions. The average level of education among 1948–1960 immigrants was lower than that of pre-statehood immigrants. Shmuel Amir estimated the educational capital (average investment in education) per capita among post1948 immigrants at 57% per cent of pre-1948 immigrants (Amir 1985). Reports by the General Bureau of Statistics show that 21.8% of Asian and African immigrants in 1954 had no formal education, while among their European counterparts only 2.6% did not (table 1 above). The veterans in the labor market certainly benefitted from the population doubling due to mass immigration. However, the primary assertion of the current study is that during this period, the MAPAI-led government and Histadrut enforced a wage policy that strategically limited veterans’ ability to profit from absorption processes. In the 1950s, most of Israel’s economic activity was centered in the public sector, which was highly significant to institutional economic deliberations (Halevi & Klinov-Malul 1968, 33–38, 147–184) and prompted a heated socio-economic and political conflict between the ruling party MAPAI and the established social class. Both the government and Histadrut pointedly restricted citizens’ ability to earn higher wages, particularly white-collar workers and senior executives, preventing them from gaining significant wage advantage over new immigrants. Moreover, they maintained this agenda to restrain white-collar workers’ ambitions for economic advantage in the year preceding the 1955 elections. As the elections drew near, the government and Histadrut continued to refrain from significant concessions in favor of white-collar workers, despite the relative ease with which they could have retracted pre-election commitments after the votes were in. Meaning, MAPAI leaders were determined to restrict wages, even at the risk of backlash from voters. This undermines the binary ‘absorber-absorbed’ division common to macro socio-political and macro-economic analyses of the first decade of Israeli statehood, particularly the mid-1950s. It also undermines the perception of the government and Histadrut as entities that catered primarily to the interests of veteran citizens and the middle-class. During the period in question, MAPAI enforced a policy that tightly regulated the material advantages mass immigration offered to Ashkenazi veterans, via the government and Histadrut. Furthermore, neither the government nor Histadrut wished to maintain the status quo—instead, they consistently eroded white-collar workers’ wages in relation to the proletariat and junior clerks. This strategy became the cornerstone of conflict between white-collar workers and the government and Histadrut in the mid-1950s, a conflict that exposed ‘cracks’ in the political-­ economic relations between MAPAI and white-collar workers. These ‘cracks’

36

Chapter 1

first became visible during the local elections of 1950 and the general elections of 1951, a few years prior to the events discussed in the current study. This work will analyze government and Histadrut policy designed to regulate socio-economic gaps between white-collar workers and the oriental proletariat. The conflict in question was an internal conflict among the absorbers—with the government and Histadrut opposite the middle-class, particularly white-collar workers, who comprised the Ashkenazi veteran group. The following will discuss the initial phase of this confrontation, beginning with the conflict between MAPAI and Israeli physicians. Gradually, additional white-collar workers’ associations joined the conflict as the general elections of 1955 drew near. The first part of the chapter will describe and analyze the conflict between physicians of the Histadrut’s Kupat Holim (health maintenance organization) and Histadrut leadership in 1954, including the physicians’ strikes in April and May of that year. The second part of the chapter will address the conflict that emerged during the second half of 1954 between physicians employed in state hospitals, and the government and Histadrut. Finally, in the third part of the chapter we will begin to examine early 1955, leading up to the general elections, when white-collar trade associations—including those of engineers, lawyers, and lecturers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem—became entangled in the conflict as well.

The Histadrut and Its Physicians

The mid 1950s saw tension build around the issue of an emerging Israeli middle-class. White-collar workers demanded that the government and Histadrut recognize their unique interests and rights, rooted in their academic credentials and dominance in vital professions and positions in the labor market. Their sense of collective value stemmed from their Ashkenazi ethnicity and their seniority and prestige as members of Israel’s founding generation. These advantages corroborated their demands for a separate pay scale than that of the proletariat. The IMA (Israeli Medical Association, consisting of the Kupat Holim Physicians Association and the State Physicians’ Association alongside independent physicians) had a dominant role in the intensive trade-union action that took place, along with the Engineers and Architects Association, jurists in civil service, lecturers at the Hebrew University, and other white-collar groups. Secretary General Mordechai Namir, a second-tier figure in MAPAI leadership, headed the Histadrut. The government, with Moshe Sharett as Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Finance Minister Levi Eshkol, and Defense

Distributive Justice And The White-collar Workforce

37

Minister David Ben-Gurion (the new-old upcoming prime minister), was facing the mandatory general elections. MAPAI, the majority party in the government, also dominated the Histadrut, and at the time, the term ‘MAPAI rule’ referred to the cooperative and coordinated activity of the two authoritative bodies. The Histadrut was a vital social organization in the first decades of Israeli statehood, and included the political parties and agricultural-settlement movements of the Zionist labor movement, social, cultural, and urban service providers, trade associations, cooperatives, and industrial and construction facilities. For the purposes of the present study, it is important to note that the Histadrut included almost all major Israeli trade associations, including those of white-collar workers, and to some degree, they all recognized its authority. White-collar workers, a crucial component of Israeli middle-class in the 1950s, challenged the egalitarian socio-economic perceptions espoused by the Histadrut. They challenged its policy as the representative workers’ organization, which in fact had a monopoly over workers’ representation, enabled by government policy. The economic, social, and cultural struggle between white-collar workers and MAPAI rule intensified as the 1955 general elections approached; the following will focus on the trade associations’ perspective of this evolving dispute. Aharon Gilat, an engineer, card-carrying member of MAPAI, and member of a committee established during the crisis to investigate new ranking in the labor-market,1 said the following at a Beit Berl (MAPAI’s academic institute) conference several weeks before elections: I believe a war is being fought over the spirit of the working intelligentsia and the senior executives, including those who lack academic credentials, who comprise the entire upper stratum of Israel’s working public. The war is being fought over whether they are part of the working class, or a separate entity. LPA July, 1955

Elections for the Third Knesset were scheduled for July 26, 1955, toward the end of the First Knesset’s four-year term, which began on July 21, 1951. The pre-election period was a window of opportunity for the trade associations, which assumed the government and Histadrut were under public pressure and wished to avoid strikes or labor disputes. The physicians launched a fight for higher wages—independent at first, and later, inclusive of all white-collar workers. 1  A committee headed by MAPAI Knesset member Yisrael Guri (details to follow).

38

Chapter 1

They were not struggling for basic working conditions (such as minimum wage or the right to unionize), but rather for the instatement of a significant and permanent wage gap between themselves and public sector laborers and junior clerks without academic credentials. Setting a wage gap was important to the middle-class, as it sought distinction from the proletariat during the early years of Israeli statehood. This entailed confronting the government, which pulled in the opposite direction as it attempted to prevent stratification of the Israeli economy—a likely outcome of the fact that mass immigration had doubled the population with mostly destitute immigrants. White-collar workers wished to dismantle the comprehensive definition of ‘workers,’ which included themselves, and replace it with terminology that reflected a socio-economic distinction between ‘workers,’ i.e. ‘laborers,’ now largely comprised of oriental immigrants, and educated workers with specific professional or managerial skill. The latter felt deserving of better compensation, and had entirely different needs than the laborers, which they believed should be met. The Histadrut frequently deliberated this class distinction, under the threat of trade associations’ withdrawal from its authority in order to develop it independently (see, e.g., LMA May 16, 1954, 19). In 1954–55, there were 1,750 salaried physicians in Israel, 75% of which were employed by the Histadrut’s medical organization Kupat Holim. The rest worked in government hospitals and Hadassah—a teaching hospital coowned by the Hebrew University and Hadassah Women’s Zionist Organization of America. Even prior to the strike, physicians earned the highest salaries statewide and the Histadrut estimated that about 80% of Kupat Holim physicians also held additional jobs. Therefore, their actual income was significantly higher than the official estimate used to distinguish between them and the laborers. Additionally, physicians’ daily work hours were reduced from eight to seven, and six for senior physicians; which increased their ‘overtime’ hours, entitling them to additional pay (LMA May 16, 1954, 2). Aharon Becker, Head of the Histadrut Trade Unions Division, explained that the Histadrut could not raise physicians’ salaries while there are tens of thousands of low-paid public works laborers, and while industrial workers and civil servants were earning such low wages (LMA May 16, 1954, 3–4). The physicians’ demand for higher pay seemed both practically and ideologically misplaced. Y. Oron, member of the Histadrut Steering Committee, stated that Israeli economy did not have the capacity for a three-fold wage discrepancy, contrary to the USSR, USA, and Europe (LMA May 16, 1954, 14). Mordechai Namir, Histadrut Secretary General, stated that narrowing the gap between physicians and laborers, between minimum and maximum wage earners, is not a strictly economic issue but one of great social significance (LMA May 16, 1954, 27).

Distributive Justice And The White-collar Workforce

39

As 1954 came to a close, Minister of Finance Levi Eshkol decided to persist with the previous wage policy that ‘froze’ public sector salaries: “You are all aware of the negotiations that took place primarily in the Histadrut,” he said to the members of MAPAI Center, “We resisted raising the basic wage. Doing so would have cost the State millions and who knows where we might have ended up. You are all aware of the negotiations with the physicians and senior executives” (LPA Jan. 20, 1955b). What his audience was aware of was that the labor dispute with the physicians that persisted through 1954, had extended into the current election year and was now a frequent subject on the public, Histadrut, and government agendas. The physicians contended that their wages were reduced by 40%-50% during the 1952–1953 fiscal year, and that the government did not agree to negotiate their demands.2 The physicians, including those employed by the Histadrut’s Kupat Holim, declared a one-day general strike on April 12, 1954 (LMA March 30, 1955, IV, 108 Container 1347). The strike affected government and Histadrut facilities as well as those of Hadassah. Prime Minister Moshe Sharett announced that, “The government … will not alter its decisions and cannot satisfy the demands of salaried physicians.” He explained that the government rejected these demands for fear that additional state-employed white-collar workers including “… engineers, lawyers, veterinarians, agronomists, chemists, geologists, pharmacists, bacteriologists, clinical psychologists, etc.” as well as “senior executives” would start making their own demands (Davar April 12, 1954a, 1). As he predicted, on the day of the physicians’ strike the trade associations of civil-service white-collar workers warned that they too intend to strike (Davar April 12, 1954b, 1). One month later, on May 19 1954, a three-day strike swept across all public medical institutions. Prior to the strike, the Histadrut demanded that physicians avoid strikes in general, and that the Kupat Holim Physicians Association withdraw from the IMA (Davar May, 1954, 1).3 During the fierce debate between 2  “Section 6. The Council encourages the National Board to declare a general strike if the negotiation resolution proves unsatisfactory; Section 7. In the last hour, the Council issues a vehement warning to the government, asking that negotiations on physicians’ wages be reopened in order to prevent a general strike. The Council expresses dismay regarding the government’s disregard for physicians’ conditions, stating that its one-sided wage policy is forcing them into organizing in this fashion” (LMA March 29, 1954). 3  The IMA did not belong to the Histadrut, and the two conducted contractual relations, as the IMA oversaw all of the State’s physicians, including independent ones, while the Kupat Holim Physicians’ Association and the State Physicians’ Association belonged to the Histadrut (the former were directly affiliated and the latter through the Civil Servants’ Federation, which belonged to the Histadrut).

40

Chapter 1

the two parties, IMA Chairman Dr. Zalman Avigdori warned that, “The Histadrut is not mindful of the option of losing the intelligentsia” (Davar May 20, 1954, 1). The Histadrut was therefore vehemently opposed to the strike and forbade the IMA to conduct direct wage negotiations with employers, in accordance with the contract between the IMA and the Histadrut, signed in 1951 (LMA March 18, 1954; LMA June 9, 1954; Davar April 8, 1954, 1). The Histadrut was also highly disapproving of the fact that a strike was declared without its approval, and expelled the Kupat Holim Physicians Association. It also called ten physicians on the National Committee of the Kupat Holim Physicians Association to trial. The prosecution demanded their permanent expulsion from the Histadrut, and that their membership be suspended pending trial (LMA May 20, 1954). The Histadrut also informed the Knesset (Israeli parliament) that it must forgo any direct contact with the physicians, as the Histadrut is the sole representative of all civil servants, physicians included (LMA June 29, 1954). In May 1954, the Histadrut Steering Committee held three consecutive discussions on physicians’ wages. The discussions reflected a firm, uncompromising stance against the striking physicians, despite worry that they would withdraw from the Histadrut and all white-collar workers would follow. Namir claimed that complying with the physicians would lead to the collapse of the national wage policy, as the rest of the white-collar workforce was waiting to see how the conflict would play out. Furthermore, Namir claimed that three-quarters of all Israeli physicians work for the Histadrut-owned Kupat Holim, and that if the Histadrut loses authority over its own members, its control of labor relations at large could be undermined (LMA May 26, 1954). The most unyielding voice in Histadrut debates against the physicians was that of Histadrut Treasurer Yitzhak Haskin, who described the Histadrut’s boundaries as follows: … We could eventually find ourselves being grabbed at the throat by sick children. Then perhaps we will give in. As would a man who raises his hands at gunpoint…. However, I believe we should not make any concessions at this point in time. If, God forbid, the prolonged strike declared … by Kupat Holim physicians will come to fruition—the Histadrut Small Council Ha’va’ad Ha’poel4 must see the strike as a war against the working public and the Histadrut. LMA May 26, 1954

4  The literal translation of this important Histadrut body is ‘Histadrut Executive Committee,’ but over the years, this body grew and effectively functioned as a council. We call it ‘Small Council,’ as the Histadrut had a larger body whose Hebrew title connotes the term ‘council’ in English.

Distributive Justice And The White-collar Workforce

41

The battle against renegade physicians was to be held on ‘enemy turf’: Haskin suggested letting every Kupat Holim physician know that declaring strike is an effective resignation, and will have consequences beyond missed workdays. Physicians must assume the same status within the public sector as construction or industrial workers who declare strike without a guarantee of victory. Kupat Holim physicians must understand that their livelihood largely depends on public—not private—medicine, 75% of which is controlled by the Histadrut. Another suggestion for breaking the strike was to allow anyone seeking medical care to visit a physician of his or her choice and be reimbursed by the Histadrut’s Kupat Holim. Haskin demanded that this policy be enforced post-strike as well, which would lead to a mass firing of Kupat Holim physicians. Another proposal was to invite each physician to a private meeting and present two mutually exclusive choices—loyalty to the Histadrut or to the IMA. Anyone who joined the strike would be expelled from the Histadrut immediately. This demand reflected an understanding among Histadrut leaders that many physicians were no longer sure where their loyalties lie. As the approach to Kupat Holim physicians became zealous, Histadrut Secretary General Namir tried to calm matters. He reminded the Steering Committee that many of the oriental immigrants and Arabs joined the Histadrut in order to receive Kupat Holim medical services, and should it collapse, the Histadrut will follow. However, Namir was unwilling to be held hostage by the physicians of Kupat Holim. He asserted that physicians were not only fighting for wages, but wished to actively run the Kupat Holim; to dismantle the authority of Histadrut operators and oversee Kupat Holim as they do state hospitals. Surely, such a development would boost their prestige, influence, and salary. MAPAI institutions joined forces against the physicians’ associations as well. On May 28, ‘The Assembly of MAPAI-Physicians’ convened by MAPAI Secretary Rafael Bash, declared that physicians who are card-carrying members of MAPAI will not strike, or in other words, will break any strike declared by the IMA (Davar May 30, 1954, 4). The threats and determination proved effective—even sooner than Histadrut leaders expected. Mordechai Namir received a ‘letter of apology’ from Kupat Holim physicians, in which they publicly and fully accepted Histadrut authority (Davar, June 1, 1954, 1). The letter was sent following covert discussions during which the Histadrut promised to support several moderate concessions to the advantage of Kupat Holim physicians: the possibility of raising the income-tax ceiling for tax-exempt physicians from 200 IL to 240 IL, which would have raised their salary by an average of 7–10 IL. Kupat Holim physicians were exempt from paying most Histadrut taxes, paying only a marginal amount. They were credited with a monthly allowance of 3–5 IL for purchasing professional literature, and in October 1954 and March 1955, received two loans

42

Chapter 1

for a total of 700 IL. It was decided that the Histadrut Small Council Ha’va’ad Ha’poel would not collect the entire sum of the first loan, and that the Kupat Holim Center would decide whether to turn the loans into grants or alter their terms in some way. Physicians outside of Kupat Holim were not promised a wage increase. The total benefits to Kupat Holim physicians were minor—no more than 20 IL a year, with no change to the 1954 wage agreements. A narrow opening to some policy change presented itself in the form of an investigative committee of physicians’ wages in the public sector. The Histadrut objected to a public committee independent of government or Histadrut supervision, as its recommended wage reforms might appear to be an achievement of the IMA, and therefore, seen as a ‘reward’ for disobeying the Histadrut. Hence, the Histadrut resolved to appoint an inter-ministerial government committee, under the direct purview of both the government and Histadrut. Kupat Holim physicians resumed their work, and it was agreed upon that no further attempts would be made to remove their organization from the Histadrut. The Histadrut trial of the ten IMA members would be cancelled. Aharon Becker, Head of the Histadrut Trade Unions Division, summarized the physicians‘ professional struggle as a ‘Histadrut victory,’ and added, “I think it was also a State victory, but it is a first-rate Histadrut victory, earned without suffering the great punishment of an actual strike” (LMA May 31, 1954).

Unrest in State Hospitals

These events left the matter of civil service physicians working in government hospitals unresolved. They did not receive even the meager benefits offered to their colleagues in Kupat Holim. In June 1954, the government discussed the physicians’ crisis and decided to establish a national committee to investigate issues related to the public health system. Prime Minister Moshe Sharett told IMA Chairman Zalman Avigdori, that the committee would discuss the employment terms and wages of all physicians employed by the government and public medical institutions toward the 1955–56 fiscal year (LMA June 14, 1954). Appointing the new committee afforded the government six months of ‘quiet,’ with the submission of the inter-ministerial government committee’s recommendations due in November 1954. These included a proposed wage increase for senior public-sector physicians—35 physicians who constituted about 10% of all physicians in civil service. The rest were promised a raise of 8 IL toward purchasing professional literature. Physicians as a whole felt that the gap between their wages and those of other public-sector workers had been eroded, and physicians in civil service felt particularly deprived

Distributive Justice And The White-collar Workforce

43

when comparing their conditions to the 1,400 Kupat Holim physicians. This was primarily based on Kupat Holim physicians’ ability to earn a secondary income, as most worked in clinics and had unlimited work hours. Civil service physicians felt discriminated against as well, due to the loans distributed by the Histadrut to Kupat Holim physicians (Michtav Lechaver Dec. 1, 1954; LMA Dec. 2, 1954, 208 IV, Container 1347). The 360 physicians in civil service renewed their struggle vis-à-vis state institutions in early December 1954, about six months prior to the general elections, and unilaterally decided to work a seven-hour workday (LMA Nov. 12, 1954; LMA Dec. 1, 1954). They ended their ‘passive strike’—i.e. slowdown strike—after being promised a loan equivalent to a month’s salary under identical terms as the Kupat Holim physicians’ loan (Davar Dec. 9, 1954; LMA Dec. 12, 1954). The tension between the State Physicians’ Association and the Kupat Holim Physicians Association, both of which were affiliated with the IMA, should not blur the core of our discussion—both entities made but meager progress in their professional struggle. The government had successfully averted physicians’ attempts to expand the gap between their wages and those of other public-sector workers, a gap that, much to the physicians’ chagrin, had significantly narrowed during the years in question for physicians at large. Other white-collar workers’ organizations were equally agitated by MAPAI’s position—in both the Histadrut and the government—on relative equality in the labor market. In early 1955, Head of the Histadrut Trade Unions Division Aharon Becker, reported on the wage demands of various sectors and the government’s response to them, to the Histadrut Steering Committee. Nurses in civil service demanded that the Histadrut implement its decision to reduce workday hours to seven during winter, and six during night shifts, as well as its proposed changes to the overtime policy. Attorneys demanded that their wages be on par with those of judges. Senior clerks, engineers, and professional government employees demanded benefits equal to those of physicians. These demands were tinged with bitterness that the government had not fulfilled its promise to the Histadrut by ensuring a steady supply of food staples—meat, eggs, sugar, and oil—at a consistent schedule and price. No meat was distributed in January of 1955, and in subsequent months, only 100 grams (about 4 ounces) were rationed each month per capita. Aharon Becker decided that all demands, with the exception of those issued by nurses, be dismissed—as they undermined the wage policy and stability of the Histadrut (LPA Feb. 6, 1955, file 2–401–1955–84). However, some voices within MAPAI were not in tune with the vehement objections of the Histadrut’s Head of Trade Unions Division. Head of the Trade

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Chapter 1

Unions Division in MAPAI Headquarters Shraga Minzberg, for instance, suggested a more lenient approach to wage demands in light of the approaching elections. On February 11, he sent a letter to Histadrut Secretary General Mordechai Namir, contesting the unseemly treatment of nurses’ demands, which had been answered with false promises for years. He predicted this would be to the disadvantage of MAPAI in the upcoming elections: The severity of the matter is that we are the ones to blame, as we allowed this to continue into the elections, and it would be disastrous if at this time, we drive the public to despair, justified bitterness, and grave disappointment, which will significantly impair the campaign ahead! This in addition to our already precarious position with the working intelligentsia and its rejection of our authority. LPA Feb. 1, 1955, file 2-401-1955–84

Two weeks later, Minzberg wrote to Aharon Becker that he had investigated matters regarding nurses, civil servants, and engineers, and uncovered acute antagonism between MAPAI leadership and representatives of white-collar workers’ trade associations who are dissatisfied with the wage policy. Minzberg believed this was an important group in the context of elections for the Knesset and Histadrut Congress, and that by engaging these tense relations, “… we are destabilizing the campaign with our own hands and greatly risking its outcomes” (LPA Feb. 27, 1955, file 2-401-1955–84). Thus, the head of the Trade Unions Division in MAPAI Headquarters, recommended wage benefits for white-collar workers—but his suggestions were disregarded, despite the upcoming elections, and despite his substantive assessments of the white-collar workers’ position, of which government ministers and Histadrut leaders were well aware. On May 8 1955, MAPAI won the elections for the Eighth Histadrut Congress.5 During the first half of 1955, as the general elections approached, the conflict with the white-collar workers turned into a general conflict with the government.

5  M APAI attained 57.74%, Achdut Ha’avoda received 14.61%, MAPAM—12.54%, The Progressive Party–5.25%, MAKI (the Communist Party)—4.09%, The General Zionists–3.81%, and The Left Front–1.96%. MAPAI retained its rank (57.06% on the 1949 elections), while MAPAM and Achdut Ha’avoda grew weaker compared to their joint performance in 1949 (34.53% against their combined power in the 1955 elections: 27.15%). Davar (May 24, 1955, 1).

Distributive Justice And The White-collar Workforce



45

The Spread of Unrest

In January 1955, various trade associations began a series of coordination meetings to establish a unified front against the Histadrut and the government. Under the IMA’s leadership, a joint committee was established to investigate white-collar salaries and the wage gap between clerks and white-collar workers. Invitations were also sent to the Engineers’ and Attorneys’ Associations. The IMA did not inform the Histadrut of these activities (LMA Jan. 30, 1955), although the Histadrut followed the organizational process closely and attempted to obstruct it. Aharon Becker wrote to the white-collar trade associations, informing them he had heard they were organizing in a way that undermines the Histadrut, and forbidding all Histadrut members from attending the meeting (LMA Jan. 25, 1955). The coordination committee of the white-collar trade associations convened despite this threat to discuss pay scale policy—professional scale versus uniform scale. The professional pay scale meant higher wages for white-collar workers, which the Civil Service Commission rejected, stating that white-collar workers’ wages should be part of the comprehensive pay scale for civil servants. The Civil Service Commission objected to the idea that a senior government executive would earn less than engineers or physicians—who were his subordinates. The establishment of a Coordination Committee for white-collar associations reflected intensified bitterness among physicians concerning their wages and the wage-gap between them and other public sector workers. The IMA realized that a physicians’ strike would once again face the united front of the government and Histadrut, and therefore expanded their struggle to include all white-collar workers. The physicians presented their case to the coordination committee, stating that their salary was comprised of the following: basic wage; cost of living wage allowance relative to salary; cost of living allowance relative to cost-ofliving index; seniority premiums; occupational premiums; and family-status premiums. The result of these numerous classifications was that in January 1955, “… there were 190 pay scales in Israel. But ultimately it seems these scales are at a 1:1.7 differential, meaning, there is no actual differentiation between them” (LMA Jan. 30, 1955). To illustrate the magnitude of the wage erosion they had suffered, the physicians compared the basic wage, gross salary, and net salary of junior clerks to senior physicians. The basic wages set the gap between the professional ranks; the gross salary included premiums that were at time higher than the basic wages; and the net salary was the actual amount workers received post tax-deductions. A comparison between the three categories in the years 1950–1955 is presented in Table 2.

46 Table 2

Chapter 1 Comparison between the basic wage of a junior clerk in civil service, and a senior physician in civil service (in IL) (LMA Jan. 30, 1955)

Basic Wage

4/1950

1951

1952

1953

1954

3/1955

Junior Clerk Senior Physician Ratio

 12 118 1:10

 26 200 1:7.7

 26 200 1:7.7

 26 200 1:7.7

 32 200 1:6.25

 32 200 1:6.25

Table 3

Comparison between the gross salary of a junior clerk in civil service and a senior physician in civil service (in IL) (LMA Jan. 30, 1955)

Gross Salary

4/1950

1951

1952

1953

1954

3/1955

Junior Clerk Senior Physician Ratio

 34 144 1:4.2

 50 228 1:4.6

 73 254 1:3.5

103 293 1:2.8

137 228 1:2.4

144 242 1.2.4

The physicians claimed that the ‘cost of living allowance’ based on the costof-living index instated in 1951 effectively erodes the wage gap to 60 IL versus 224 IL, creating a ratio of 1:3.8. The physicians complained that over the years, the basic wages of junior clerks increased more than higher salaries had. The gross earnings for a junior clerk and physician indicated the ongoing trend of eroding physicians’ wages. The comparisons between basic wages and gross salaries were applicable to basic wages exclusively, and did not take seniority or family-status premiums into account—two components necessary to an accurate comparison of net salaries as they affected the income-tax bracket. Therefore, the following comparison was based on the salary of a married couple with no children and maximum professional seniority. Seniority increased wages in the higher pay ranks more so than the lower ranks. This example was therefore chosen intentionally, as it represents the greatest possible gap to the advantage of physicians. A senior physician versus a junior clerk without benefits for dependents (which could narrow the gap) and with the highest seniority, which widens the gap in favor of the senior physician. The physicians demonstrated that even in this scenario, the gaps gradually narrowed due to the wage and taxation policies enforced by MAPAI government.

47

Distributive Justice And The White-collar Workforce Table 4

Net salary of a married worker without children and maximal seniority— Comparison between a junior clerk in civil service and a senior physician in civil service (in IL) (LMA Jan. 30, 1955)

Net Salary

1950

1951

1952

1953

1954

1955

Junior Clerk Senior Physician Ratio

 47 130 1:2.8

 65 206 1:3.2

 88 230 1:2.6

124 252 1:2.0

165 301 1:1.8

176 318 1:1.8

The gap between a senior physician and junior clerk consistently decreased from a peak of 1:10 in basic wages to 1:1.8 in net salaries in 1954. The physicians concluded that cost-of-living allowances and income-tax brackets obscured and falsified wage disparity between the different professional ranks in Israel, drastically narrowing gaps until they nearly disappeared, despite an increase in white-collar ranks. Therefore, physicians contended that tax and wage policies by the government and Histadrut were being used to deliberately and drastically narrow wage gaps in the public sector. The IMA aimed to set a permanent and significant wage gap between its members and low-ranking public sector workers. Inflation had rendered the Israeli lira unstable, making it impossible to devise a pay scale system that would protect white-collar salaries from erosion, as all public sector workers received a substantial cost-of-living allowance, which narrowed the gaps. Income tax did not maintain wage gaps either, as in the higher tax brackets each additional IL was taxed at 50%-70%. According to the physicians, this led to two-fold discrimination: on one hand, salaries over 125 IL were not safe from devaluation due to cost-of-living increases, while in terms of income tax, a salary over 200 IL was considered high and remained within the gradually increasing tax brackets. Therefore, the IMA concluded that ‘tax brackets must be adjusted according to the decrease in currency value; a higher minimum must be set; and the [tax] increase must be abated’ (LMA Jan. 30, 1955). The IMA demanded that white-collar workers’ wages be scaled according to four criteria, which became iron rules in any discussion on white-collar wages: length of study and professional training, degree of responsibility, nature of professional tasks, and the social status or prestige of a given profession. There was no doubt in IMA circles that applying such criteria would place physicians highest on the pay scale, as their education and training are the most extensive, and they are required to conduct in-service training throughout their career. The level of responsibility physicians had was extremely high—as they

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were entrusted with human lives. A physician’s work demands irregular and unlimited hours, and physicians, unlike other professionals, are always on call. They believed that the social status of physicians must be high and their salaries should reflect it—and that this was the only way to attract good physicians to the public sector. The IMA’s practical suggestions aimed to form a net salary disparity via a permanent, fixed ratio between a senior physicians’ salary and junior clerk’s salary, such that if the latter’s net was 100 IL, a young physician would earn 200 IL, a specialist physician 300 IL, and the most senior physician—400 IL. Benefits would coincide with seniority, and overall cost-of-living allowance should be allocated to physicians as soon as they were necessary and in proportion to their salary. The IMA determined that in order to maintain its proposed wage gaps, progressive income tax must be restricted from eroding them. Therefore, the IMA demanded that the highest portion of salaries be defined as a tax-exempt ‘occupational premium,’ and that taxes only be deducted from the lower portion of salaries, which should be defined as ‘basic wages.’ The example they used was that of a clerk who earns a 130 IL salary, with a 5 IL income tax deduction and a remaining net of 125 IL. A junior physician’s basic salary would be 130 IL, with an additional 125 IL tax-exempt occupational benefit for a net of 250 IL, which would maintain the 2:1 ratio. A specialist earning a gross salary of 250 IL would have a 40 IL tax deduction for a remaining 210 IL, and with an occupational premium of 165 IL, this would yield a 3:1 ratio between the physician and the clerk’s salaries. Physicians working as department heads would receive a gross salary of 350 IL with an 80 IL tax deduction for a net of 270 IL, and a tax-exempt occupational premium of 230 IL. An additional proposal for establishing wage inequality was to establish gross salaries that preserve the desired net salary ratio. Thus, a physician’s salary would amount to 800 IL or more. The IMA asserted that these pay scales would not burden government institutions, as the existing tax system ensured that most funds would be returned to the government. However, nongovernment institutions, such as the Histadrut’s Kupat Holim, would be required to significantly increase their wages as well, which would strain their overall budget. In order to overcome this obstacle, the IMA recommended that non-government institutions be compensated with designated government allocations. The IMA’s third proposal for setting wage gaps was to add the cost of living allowance to the net salary, at an equal tax-exempt sum for every pay scale. In light of the failed physicians’ strikes in April and May of 1954, their leaders estimated that their demands would be automatically dismissed as those of a single professional group, and therefore demanded complete overhaul of

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the national wage structure in order to improve the status of all white-collar workers and senior executives: Only a fundamental reform in pay scales can stabilize the economy. Only if the worker is sure that his salary can retain its value will he forego additional demands, which would also allow maximal price stability. Otherwise, official ranks will lose value, workers will seek to improve their own income, institutions and factories wishing to maintain a skilled workforce will attempt to bypass pay scales with unofficial and untaxed benefits, salaries will increase in a dishonest and unjust manner, the cost of living will spike, and certain professionals—mainly government clerks—who cannot or do not wish to engage in unjust conduct, will remain deprived, embittered, and preoccupied with gaining pay raises instead of committing to their work… LMA Jan. 30, 1955

The IMA concluded its struggle for better wages in November 1954, following the government’s announcement that a public committee had been appointed to address wage reforms. The committee was headed by Knesset member Yisrael Guri, Chair of the Knesset Finance Committee and member of MAPAI. In chapter 3, we will elaborate on the committee’s discussions and recommendations and the related deliberations and decisions of the Sharett government. In the meantime, we can briefly summarize the matter as follows: the Committee was scheduled to draft its conclusions by April 1, 1955, about four months before the general elections. The Guri Committee did not meet this deadline, and asked for an extension until the end of May. The government committed to publishing the report at that time and avoiding any stall in discussions due to the upcoming elections. The report, however, was not published by the end of May—on June 8, the Committee submitted a provisional report that lacked concrete conclusions on whether to maintain the current wage system or recommend an alternative. The Guri Committee stated that it had yet to compile objective criteria with which to determine the appropriate wage gaps between the different professions, and wished to avoid a decisive conclusion on the matter until more interviews and data were collected. The Committee promised to suggest wage adjustments upon submitting its final conclusions in August 1955 (Ha’aretz June 9, 1955, 1), after the general elections. The physicians and their allies in the white-collar trade associations were left to assume that the government was dragging its feet until the general elections on July 26, 1955 ended. As a result, Dr. P. Noah, Chair of the State Physicians’ Association, declared a renewal of ‘passive resistance’ to begin in mid-June 1955 (LMA May 8, 1955;

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Ha’aretz June 14, 1955, 4) only a few weeks prior to the general elections. As aforementioned, this meant seven-hour workdays for physicians much like nurses and administrative staff in medical institutions. The State Physicians’ Association called to cease all medical clinic services aside from polio clinics, and demanded that all appointments with specialists be cancelled, and that urgent cases be referred to the emergency room (LMA June 8, 1955). Prime Minister Moshe Sharett asked IMA Chairman Zalman Avigdori to order that physicians retract their declaration of passive resistance. Avigdori retorted that he was unable to fulfil this request, as the Prime Minister had failed to live up to his word regarding the improvement of physicians’ wages, based on statements made over a year prior in April 1954 (LMA June 16, 1955). On June 19, 1955, The ‘Assembly of the White-Collar Workers’ Coordination Committee,’ decided to support ‘the struggle of physicians in civil service and associate professors and lecturers of the Hebrew University.’ They also decided to express their dismay regarding the Guri Committee’s provisional report, and demanded that an adjustment of white-collar workers’ salaries be implemented as of April 1 1955, and that an immediate promissory note in line with the future recommendations of the Guri Committee be distributed (Davar June 20, 1955, 1). A general strike of the Hebrew University lecturers was declared on June 22 (through July 6), and a warning strike of white-collar workers in civil service was scheduled for the following week (Ha’aretz June 20, 1955, 1; Ha’aretz June 22, 1955, 1; Ha’aretz July 7, 1955, 1). University lecturers enjoyed support from the Progressive Party, whose representatives, Knesset members Yizhar Harari and Dr. Yesha’ayahu Forder, accused MAPAI of “a conservative approach to excessive wage egalitarianism” (Ha’aretz June 23, 1955, 4). The Histadrut forbade its members from participating in the white-collar workers’ strike scheduled for June 27, 1955 (Ha’aretz June 24, 1955, 8) but the warning strike was conducted nonetheless. The front page of Ha’aretz, the self-proclaimed middle-class publication, read, “The Working Intelligentsia has demonstrated its Resistance” (Ha’aretz June 28, 1955). The white-collar workers staged an additional warning strike several weeks later (Ha’aretz July 19, 1955, 1), while physicians in civil service maintained their ‘passive resistance.’ Nonetheless, the physicians and other white-collar trade associations made no progress leading up to the elections. Despite the upcoming electoral trial, MAPAI leaders did not surrender to acts of protest, strikes, and sanctions by white-collar workers. They showed no intention of fulfilling demands that pre-MAPAI-rule wage gaps be reinstated by reversing the narrowing effect of MAPAI’s wage and taxation policies, and the uniform cost-of-living allowance.

…

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The chapter above closely examines the position adopted by MAPAI rule while the Party was relatively vulnerable due to upcoming elections, the double blow dealt by the Ashkenazi middle-class in the previous local and Knesset elections in 1950 and 1951, and the fact that presiding Prime Minister Sharett won less support than his predecessor Ben-Gurion. This analysis reveals that even while politically vulnerable, MAPAI rule resisted white-collar workers’ demands to distinguish themselves from other workers, thereby suppressing their intensifying aspiration to achieve class distinction in the public sector. This attests to MAPAI’s commitment to maintaining a social-democratic wage policy of relative economic egalitarianism in the public sector, and to its objective to prevent extreme stratification as a result of the balance of power between the emerging Ashkenazi middle-class and the unskilled and uneducated workers, many of whom were oriental immigrants. The fact that the government was unwilling to make significant concessions during an election year, despite internal pressures and regardless of its ability to retract any promises post-elections—reveals that at least in the wage domain, MAPAI and its control of the government and Histadrut posed an obstacle to the middle-class as it sought dominant status in Israeli society.

Chapter 2

The ‘Engine-Coach Car’ Dilemma: MAPAI’s Discourse on Class, Ethnicity, and Modernization The critical dilemma in which MAPAI was embroiled during the 1950s was characteristic of new nation states during post-WWII decolonization. What we have chosen to title the ‘engine-coach cars’ dilemma posed the following question: should the political leadership of a newly sovereign state aspiring to become a ‘modern society’ reinforce its middle-class ‘engine’ with economic advantage and social prestige—even at the cost of significant, intergenerational inequality to the detriment of its proletariat ‘coach cars’? (Todaro 2003) The socio-economic advancement of Israel’s white-collar workers meant acute inequality between an Ashkenazi middle-class, comprised mostly of veteran Israelis and a core group of university-educated professionals, and new oriental Jewish immigrants from Muslim countries in West Asia and North Africa who were quickly expanding the lower strata of Israeli society (Svirsky 1995; Nahon 1993, 50–75; Lissak 1999). The alternative, i.e. supporting the ‘coach cars’ by curbing the ‘engine’s’ progress, would limit inequality between the two increasingly distinct classes. At least in terms of its wage policy, it is quite evident that MAPAI leadership adopted this alternative as a core component of its socio-economic program. Our contention is that in the nation-building context of 1950s Israel, MAPAI grappled with ascertaining the ‘suitable’ degree of inequality between the Ashkenazi middle-class and the oriental proletariat, eventually opting to curtail the expansion of social inequality in the wage domain. Discussing the ‘engine-coach cars’ dilemma can elucidate the formative influences on MAPAI’s political and ideological trajectory during early Israeli statehood. Could this Party, which had led the yishuv through the crucial pre-state period as well as its first post-statehood decades, now be characterized as a ‘workers’ party’ in terms of its social composition and post-statehood interests? Did its leaders champion a strictly socialist ideology, or cultivate a middle-class in pursuit of academic professions? Were MAPAI’s ‘labor-party’ nature and outwardly socialist approach mere tools of the political elite as they established the Jewish nation-state? (Sternhell 1995) If so, was MAPAI a dominant party representing Ashkenazi interests and therefore a vehicle of control over the oriental immigrants from western Asia and North Africa? © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi ��.��63/9789004357853_004

The ‘ Engine-Coach Car ’ Dilemma



53

The Expansion of MAPAI and the Shift in Its Social Approach

During Israel’s first years of statehood, MAPAI developed into an all-inclusive party of the masses, primarily by penetrating a variety of social and economic organizations (Medding 1972, 19–81), and significantly expanding its membership base and the many socio-economic groups under its auspices.1 It evolved into a party that represented diverse socio-political groups, including industrial workers, bureaucratic officials and clerks, white-collar workers, members of agricultural settlements, veteran Israelis, and immigrants from various countries. In the early years of sovereignty, the Party established various departments that corresponded with specific social and ethnic groups within its operational headquarters, a development that reflected MAPAI’s evolution into an entity that centralized diverse social interests, and worked to bridge between them (Bareli 2014). Along with its strategic expansion objectives, MAPAI sought to preserve its ‘worker’s party’ orientation by maintaining its ties with the Histadrut. In addition to its core trade-unions base, the Histadrut was comprised of agricultural cooperatives, welfare organizations, cultural and educational organizations, and various industries. A crucial pre-independence umbrella organization, the Histadrut became even more powerful once the State was established. There was a degree of tension between MAPAI’s expansion objectives and its workers party identity and affiliation with the Histadrut. The expansion trend of the early 1950’s drove several Party members and groups to propose that middle-class members (‘working intelligentsia,’ small business-owners, and artisans) be permitted to join the Party and realize the right to autonomous institutional organization. However, even those who employed few workers were barred from membership in the Histadrut and therefore, automatically excluded from MAPAI. In 1950, a proposal was made to nullify the policy stating that only Histadrut members, who do not function as employers, may join MAPAI (see, e.g., LPA June 18, 1950; LPA Feb. 17, 1951). Opponents of the proposal were troubled by the prospect of ‘internal differentiation within the ranks of MAPAI membership, as this might obscure the socialist, proletariat nature of the Party’ (LPA Feb. 17, 1951).2

1  On 1 September 1953, MAPAI had 132,472 members—a growth rate of about 11.5%. During the years 1949–1953, the number of MAPAI members grew more than 340 percent. Bareli (2014). 2  For another example of the opposition that prevailed among MAPAI circles in the field see Fridkin (April 17, 1951, 24).

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Despite its eventual dismissal, the proposal itself reflected a pragmatic agenda within MAPAI to represent the middle-class, including white-collar workers, and gain their support (LPA no date, 2–932–1951–59b; LPA Feb. 16, 1951). Generally, MAPAI’s early-statehood strategy can be characterized as inclusive and comprehensive.3 The Party aspired to include and represent members from every social standing, from the State’s central region as well as its periphery, and consequently gain their political support. This inclusion strategy gave the Party advantage over its rivals, who lagged in terms of aggregating and articulating social and political interests, and was a significant factor in establishing MAPAI as the dominant ruling party for many years to come. MAPAI did begin to exhibit a predilection toward the middle-class during the 1950s in terms of its members and the societal norms guiding its leadership.4 This trend ultimately yielded fundamental changes in MAPAI’s social composition and policies, as well as in the Party’s basic approach and that of its successor, the Labor Party. However, these phenomena should not detract from the fact that MAPAI remained an essentially grassroots workers’ party during these years, with a stronghold in the urban center and periphery.5 MAPAI factions in the workplace or in certain trade unions comprised one of the Party’s core operating units, forming an entity that elected 40% of appointees to MAPAI institutions (MAPAI Bylaws 1951 Part 7, Section 9; also LPA Sept. 2, 1947, Section 2). Many believed this state-of-affairs guaranteed the proletariat orientation of MAPAI, and a proposal to alter this status quo (LPA July 23, 1950) was rejected by MAPAI’s Council in March 1951, following an animated discussion 3  For a positive theoretical approach toward the middle classes within MAPAI see journal article by Kentzler Ha’poel Ha’tzair, Sept. 22, 1953, 9–10. The orientation of Kentzler’s analysis is that of ‘empirical socialism’, which does not strive to destroy the middle classes of craftsmen, small businesses and academic professions, but rather aims to free them and the rest of society from “the chains of the industrial system that characterize both the capitalist system and the Bolshevik system.” Also see Medding (1972, 53–54, 59–63). 4  On the struggle in MAPAI during those years between ‘proletarian’ norms and hierarchical social norms, see Bareli 2003, 31–62. 5  Thus, for example, the two largest groups within MAPAI in 1950 were those of participants in the large immigrantion waves at the time (about 40 %) and those who fled Central and Eastern Europe after Hitler came to power in Germany (about 25 %). These were the two large waves of immigration that came to Palestine (and then Israel) prior to and following the Second World War. They were quite different from the small pioneering groups that established the values and patterns of Labor Zionism in the years 1905–1922. From the beginning of the 1950s, these two groups already constituted two-thirds of MAPAI, and more than 60% of them were, more or less, ‘new immigrants’ (Bareli 2014, chapter 1). On MAPAI’s stronghold in the periphery see Gonen 1982, Vols, 19–20, 63–87.

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about the proletariat nature of MAPAI (LPA March 16–17, 1951).6 Early 1950s MAPAI was therefore a grassroots workers’ party undergoing internal developments, which in hindsight, reveal that it was edging right during these years, toward the socio-economic and political center.7 Our primary contention is that during the first years of statehood, MAPAI’s macro-economic policy preserved its proletariat nature and egalitarian social orientation, which ultimately placed it on a collision course with the economic interests of the Ashkenazi white-collar workers who were gaining strength under its patronage. We work to corroborate this assumption by examining the ideological debates and extensive discourse on wage policy in the public sector held within MAPAI in 1955—leading up to the Histadrut and Knesset elections—among Party leaders and white-collar MAPAI members and supporters.8 The early 1950s in nascent Israel saw mass immigration waves that quickly doubled the State’s population, spurring severe deficits and the implementation of an austerity policy and rationed provisions. MAPAI leadership in the government and Histadrut enforced consistent, long-term wage policies that significantly restricted wage gaps in the public sector, which was the primary employment sphere of white-collar workers at the time. As we saw, whitecollar trade associations—then under the Histadrut umbrella, and the physicians’ associations in particular—reacted to this policy with a series of strikes and sanctions beginning in 1954 and peaking in the first half of 1955, in the months preceding the Histadrut Congress elections on May 8, 1955 and the Knesset elections on July 26, 1955. MAPAI, however, clung to its wage policies and evidently did not yield to the physicians and white-collar workers’ demands despite the impending elections. Nevertheless, MAPAI could not wholly ‘abandon’ the white-collar workers, for, as aforementioned, it aspired to be an inclusive party spanning the social gamut, and because white-collar workers were seen as central to the establishment and development of a modern economy (Eisenstadt 1989, 241–247). In order to abate the escalating conflict, MAPAI leaders conducted ideologicalpolitical symposia as part of their election campaign, during which they met with key members of the white-collar working class to elucidate the rationale of their policies. These discussions also addressed the formative role whitecollar workers had in establishing a national Jewish state, and the delineation 6  The Party held intensive talks on the topic beginning 1947: LPA (Section 2, 2–23–1947–48); ibid. (Dec. 11, 1949, Dec. 19, 1947, Dec. 5, 1949, Jan. 5, 1950, 2–21–1950–31); ibid. (March 16–17, 1951, 2–22–1951–82). 7  For more details on these developments see Bareli 2014. 8  On the Histadrut’s policy see Horowitz & Lissak 2000, 556–569.

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of their economic-political status. Speeches by MAPAI leaders during these symposia evince that the Party’s complex position regarding white-collar professionals was rooted in a combination of national aspirations and a socialist orientation. The debates we will discuss illustrate the ineffectuality of a sharp distinction, much like Zeev Sternhell (1995) between socialist and national motives while deciphering MAPAI’s social policy (Shapira 1997, 298–317). The debates between MAPAI and white-collar workers also depict the Party’s complex stance on the developing inter-ethnic relations between veteran Ashkenazis and oriental immigrants against the background of mass immigration. MAPAI’s wage policy effectively restrained an important group among the veteran Ashkenazis, which had an unconcealed objective to broaden the economic gap between itself and the rest of the Israeli population. The following debates demonstrate that Ashkenazi Israelis did not represent a monolithic interest group during the years in question. In fact, they unveil a profound socio-economic controversy within this group—between the leaders of MAPAI and its white-collar supporters.

The Rationalization of the Middle-Class: A Case for Better Compensation

Prime Minister Moshe Sharett, old-new Prime Minister-designate David BenGurion, Minister of Education and Culture Prof. Ben-Zion Dinur, Histadrut Secretary-General Mordechai Namir, and Head of the Histadrut’s TradeUnions Division, Aharon Becker were among the prominent MAPAI leaders (Bareli 2004, 31–62) to initiate two symposia and a meeting with key representatives of academia and the white-collar work force (including physicians, engineers, and lawyers), hoping to strengthen the increasingly unstable cooperation between the government and the white-collar workforce. The symposia were part of MAPAI’s preparation for the 1955 elections. Representatives of academic institutions included Prof. Aharon Katchalsky (Katzir) of the Weizmann Institute of Science,9 Prof. Yoel (Giulio) Racah,10 Prof. Sholmo Dov Goitein of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Prof. Rachel Shalon of the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology. 9  For the significance of the involvement of Prof. Aharon Katchalski (Katzir) in the Israeli establishment see Katzir 1989, 30–42. 10  For the significance of Prof. Yoel (Giulio) Racah in the development of science in Israel, see Unna 1997, 589–624.

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The specific political purpose of these gatherings was to enlist white-collar workers and academics’ support for MAPAI and the Histadrut. Nevertheless, the discussions they included deviated from the standard rhetoric of election rallies. Speakers presented comprehensive worldviews on social issues, from which they inferred the appropriate resource allocation programs and the socio-economic domains worthy of development. The point of departure for these discussions was recognition that the movement prioritized a transition to physical labor in agriculture or industry as part of its revolutionary aspirations (Rosenstein 1955, vol. 1, 17–39). This imperative was highly influential despite the inclusion of white-collar workers and academically educated professionals (such as writers, teachers, and physicians) in the Zionist labor movement since its inception. The norm of physical labor had a particular impact on the middle-class, the progeny of merchants and white-collar professionals. The pioneer, the industrial worker, and the farmer were now placed at the top of the ‘status ladder,’ a process that partly defined the character of the pre-state yishuv (Shapira 1977, 15–16). In the Labor Zionist Movement, white-collar workers were viewed as accompaniment to highly esteemed manual laborers. According to white-collar workers, however, the establishment of the State imposed a redefinition of social priorities, and now, in the mid-1950s, the foremost objective was developing ‘a modern society.’ In practice, this was a call to cease relying on manual laborers as the driving force of the industrialagricultural society, and encourage a rapid shift toward professions based on academic training.11 The white-collar workers asserted that they were in fact responsible for planning and implementation processes in every state-supervised field, including health, education, law, and science. Moreover, they were in the midst of an intensive transformation process from a relatively marginal group to a dominant and crucial vehicle of nation building. The majority of white-collar workers comprising this elite-in-the-making were not independent professionals, such as private physicians or lawyers who offered services in the open market. Most white-collar workers were employed by State and Histadrut institutions, along

11  The white-collar work force is not socially homogenous. It is necessary to sub-divide it into distinct groups sharing similar market, work, and status situations. For instance, Goldthorpe 1980 distinguishes between the service class of senior managers and professionals; the junior or subaltern service class of lower professionals such as teachers, junior managers, and administrators; routine non-manual workers such as clerks and secretaries; and owners of small businesses (the traditional petit-bourgeoisie).

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with junior clerks and manual laborers.12 Their demand was that as salaried professionals, their special needs be met, and their unique rights to developing ‘intellectual freedom’ be acknowledged, so they may fully realize their scope of influence and dominance in Israel’s economy. Their primary grievance was that MAPAI, the ruling party, was not sufficiently diligent in creating advantageous political, social, and economic conditions that would enhance the productivity of academic professionals in the white-collar workforce, to a degree befitting of the historical shift in Israel’s post-statehood social composition. At the time, the primary theoretician on the historic role of the middle-class in general and the academically educated elite specifically, was Prof. Aharon Katchalsky (later Katzir), one of Israel’s leading scientists and a close associate of David Ben-Gurion.13 Prof. Katchalsky’s point of departure was the dramatic change in means of production characteristic of the twentieth century, which now dictated the structure of industrialized societies. He pointed to several notable processes as a result: the dissemination of cybernetics, particularly the duplication of scientific methods in social and economic domains, the development of sizable alternative energy resources, and the formation of an expansive social class comprised of the academically educated. Katchalsky maintained that a ‘scientific regime’ now led the international structure spearheaded by the West, meaning, a shift had been incited by the industrial revolution that began in the late 17th century, placed the machine at the center of the economy, and quickly transformed millions of craftsmen into machine-operators. During the 19th century, and especially in the first half of the 20th century, science advanced at a dizzying pace and became the foremost economic stimulant. It was not science as a spiritual framework for enlightenment and the expansion of knowledge that Katchalsky was referring to (like the scientific practice of the English gentleman in Oxford and Cambridge of the 19th century); he was referring to the scientist as an autonomous economic agent at the center of the production and automation process, whose role was to integrate the various structures of modern life and coordinate extensive and complicated mechanical operations. Entire industries were now almost fully automatized, including the automobile, chemical, cement, copper, beverage, and textile industries, as well as fuel refineries, bakeries, and assembly of the machines themselves. WWII accelerated the process by which ‘machines controlled machines,’ as it prompted the development of mechanically 12  On the importance of the academic white-collar work force in Israel during the fifties see Molcho 2005 in: Bareli, Gutwein and Friling (eds.) 2005, 263–294. 13  On the role of scientists during Israel’s first decade of independence see Cohen 2006, 287–304; Lissak & Cohen 2010, 1–27.

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independent weapons that did not require human operation. These operating systems quickly graduated from the military realm into the civilian realm, ultimately expropriating the simple worker (Crowther & Whiddington 1948, 1–23). Thus, claimed Katchalsky, the proletariat that was once the subject of Karl Marx was now gradually diminishing, and being replaced by a new proletariat that must possess technical expertise reliant on academic education.14 Running an office or industrial plant now demanded a new type of professional. This altered the previously narrow division characteristic of capitalist structures—between a small stratum of managers who control information and production processes, and an immense stratum of replaceable laborers responsible for limited tasks. The new ‘academic proletariat’ did not identify with the cultural and social world of the laborer or unskilled worker. These were the ‘new people,’ the white-collar workers, who were proletarian in their relationship to the means of production, but perceived themselves as an intelligentsia. Their challenges and interests differed from those of a classic proletariat; which gave rise to social distinctions and pressures that affected ideological changes in both groups.15 The rise of the white-collar working class was accompanied by the steady infiltration of cybernetics, i.e. a comprehensive process of coordination between human activity and the operation of electronic machines in industrial plants and entire social systems. It was also accompanied by the discovery of immense energy sources available to man, namely atomic energy, which would spur a revolution in transportation and international communication, even beyond planet earth. Katchalsky claimed that the nature of capitalism was bound to shift, and human consumption will change completely. According to Katchalsky, a developed ‘academic proletariat’ was an urgent and universal social need. These professionals comprise 10% of the population, and a much larger ratio was necessary. The United States was at the helm of this trend, with a rapidly increasing demand for an academically educated workforce. Cognizant of the practical inclinations of his listeners, Katchalsky reiterated that his call to cultivate academic professionals within the industry was not the product of a humanistic approach. Rather, its immediate motivation was the need to satisfy an industrial demand for millions of educated workers who would play an integral role in production processes. Under the new ‘scientific regime,’ the distinction between universities and industrial plants was becoming less explicit. States were gradually nationalizing scholarly 14  On the attitudes of European socialism toward post-WWII social changes see Sassoon 1996, Ch. 6, 8. 15  On the rise of the New Class see Gouldner 1979.

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research and utilizing it, and not only in communist countries, but in Western countries as well. The U.S. government, reminded Katchalsky, funds 70% of its scholars’ research expenditures (Shenhav 1999, Ch. 1). An additional necessary process, proposed the theorist, was the ongoing, mass absorption of the academic proletariat into state institutions, such that white-collar workers employed in public institutions become intrinsic to the nationalization process as a whole (Salter & Tapper 1994). Incorporating the academic population into state-run industries and agencies yields challenges that demand a reform of current labor practices. The trade-union model developed in post-WWII Europe failed to adapt to this new prototype, and on the other hand, the academic proletariat suffers from narrow-minded interests and collective activity that are not sufficiently congruent with general social interests (Crouch 1982). Nevertheless, Katchalsky claimed that the white-collar middle-class was indeed united by a common goal and a social awareness distinct from that of the classic proletariat. This awareness has been acquired through socialization processes inherent to scientific institutions, universities in particular, which equip white-collar workers with tools for solving instrumental problems. The infiltration of academia into industry would potentially disseminate scientific values to the public domain: the concept of ‘truth’ as a product of objective discourse rather than authoritative edict; humility vis-à-vis the secrets of nature; and openness to change. The academic proletariat is trained in scientific institutions, and therefore wishes to shape its employment sphere as a system that values freedom, shirks authority, and encourages individualism. These parameters demand reform in working conditions currently designed for a labororiented proletariat (O’Malley 2004, 77–126). Katchalsky followed by introducing an additional consideration: The expansion of the academic proletariat in developed countries has a highly significant ‘Jewish angle,’ destined to become consequential in future Israel-Diaspora relations. For many generations, European Jews showed prominence in international commerce and finance, and therefore turned to academic professions. A similar trend was evident in the U.S., and the number of Jewish scientists in American universities was immense relative to the Jewish population in the general public. Since the mid-1950s, about 60% of Jewish youngsters in western countries obtain a higher education, and within a few years, nearly every member of American Jewry will hold an academic degree, predicted Katchalsky. An educated and economically productive Jewry has developed in the Diaspora, but their academic proclivities had not distanced them from Judaism (Steinberg 1972, 24–72). Moreover, they sought guidance from Israel in this respect. Thus, the cultivation of a counterpart Israeli academic body

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was necessary to ensuring mutual ties and support between Diaspora Jews and Israel. In Israel, maintained Katchalsky, the demands of establishing, developing, and maintaining a sovereign state accelerate the need for a powerful ‘academic proletariat’: I believe that we can only survive if the State maximizes its technical capacity; if it is based in intellectual command, and the highest of cultural standards; as, for us, technical and educational standards are neither mere convenience nor a component of international development trends, but a vital necessity. LPA April 30, 1955; also Keren 1989, Ch. 3

One aspect of national dependence on an academic proletariat is the need for an army that is able to defend the State against Arab armies, which are superior in size and arms. It is the academic proletariat that can innovate and generate the types of operational methods that will ensure successful military missions. Additionally, developing newly acquired territories such as the Dead Sea and Eilat region will require immense technical and scientific capacity. These purposes made it imperative that MAPAI acknowledge white-collar workers as central to national development.16 White-collar workers that followed Katchalsky’s address underscored the crucial function of their particular field in Israeli society. This discourse led engineer Rachel Shalon, who represented the engineers and architects, to focus on criticizing the government, Histadrut, and MAPAI for neglecting the needs of 4,000 engineers in the Israeli public. Shalon warned that the engineers were preparing to break away from the Labor Movement, which would in turn lose the potential they offered. She stressed that the State’s establishment prompted a tremendous range of needs that could only be met by utilizing academic skill, and that new and powerful roles were now available to them, contrary to the marginal ones they previously held. Nonetheless, asserted Shalon, an appropriate shift had yet to occur in political institutions in terms of their approach to white-collar professionals, who felt they had been neglected and economically, socially, and politically cast aside. The number of engineers in the State was small, and the demand for their services was high, as evinced by the fact that graduates of the Technion—Israel’s leading engineering institute—were being snatched-up by industry and government like ‘hot cakes right out of the oven’ 16  This acknowledgment is clearly reflected in the higher education system of Israel during the fifties. See Cohen 2006, Ch. 6.

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(Alpert 1982, 194–227). Shalon stated that the neglect of academically trained professionals was also reflected by their meager representation in the Knesset. There were no white-collar workers among the 58 members of the Histadrut’s Small Council Ha’va’ad Ha’poel. Only 11 out of 128 members in MAPAI Center were white-collar workers. Shalon therefore surmised that MAPAI leaders were dismissing white-collar workers’ demands, particularly pertaining to wages: The Israeli engineer is not demanding the 1:40 ranking that exists in the ostensibly classless regime of Soviet Russia; and does not dream of the wage standards in United States. He does, however, believe that a wage policy that does not encourage professional training and pursuit of significant responsibility—cannot but lead to poor results. LPA April 30, 1955



Social Democracy in an Immigrant Society

At the symposium, attorney Yaakov Shimshon Shapira—Ministry of Justice Director General, Attorney General during the early years of statehood, and eventual Minister of Justice on behalf of MAPAI—opened the litany of severe criticism launched by MAPAI leaders against the white-collar workers. He contended that the thesis promoted by Katchalsky and his associates—which encourages channelling all efforts into strengthening the Ashkenazi middle-class and reinforcing its dominance in the white-collar workforce—represented an only partial truth. Its unconditional implementation did not suit the national needs of the time. This thesis, he claimed, disregarded the developing social relationship between Ashkenazis and oriental immigrants, which was a central component in assessing the status and function of white-collar workers in Israeli society (Lissak 1999; Spilerman & Habib 1976, 781–812; Svirsky & Bernstein 1982). Y.S. Shapira opened by stating that although the symposium included a variety of academically-trained professionals, they represented only one ethnic group—Ashkenazis—while the other half of the public, comprised of oriental immigrants, was notably absent. Shapira urged his listeners to embrace the historical opportunity that emerged out of the demographic changes in Israel over the past seven years, the opportunity to share a common objective that extends beyond superior wage-privileges. Thanks to the relative strength of the white-collar workforce, he stated, it was now able to participate in a fundamental revision of the MAPAI platform. Shapira was not referring to the Party’s 1955 campaign platform, but rather to a shift in its long-standing ideological

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and social approach. The Labor Movement in Israel, in line with the Israeli public and Zionist Movement, was primarily Ashkenazi, and designed to address the plight of Eastern and Central European Jews by enabling aliyah. The Shoah, however, had changed this drastically, and aliyah absorption ceased to be the sole concern of one ethnic or dominant group. The destruction of six million Jews gradually transformed the immigrant population into a predominantly oriental-Jewish one, who up until 1939 had constituted a small minority within the Jewish nation. Shapira posed a rhetorical question to his audience: The Jews of Yemen constitute ten percent of Israel’s Jewish population, but how many of them are engineers? There is not a single physician in Israel of Yemenite descent, he emphasized. Even in the deep American South, in which racism and segregation are prevalent and overt, one can find black physicians; while Israel is free of declarative segregation but implements it in practice. Although oriental Jews account for a large part of Israel’s population, they carry no weight among the intelligentsia and wield no influence on economic and public affairs (Bone 1956, no. 1; 1959, vol. 1, no. 2, 56–77). He surmised that Ashkenazi white-collar workers would not be the vanguard of the change he was seeking, and called upon MAPAI to champion the cultural development of oriental Jews. Shapira dismissed outbursts from the audience to the effect of “us academics are doing our share for the ‘melting pot.’ ” Many countries, some in Eastern Europe, were working to educate the masses, whereas in Israel, the professional intelligentsia seemed to be missing in action: “I, in any case, do not see it.” Shapira protested further: “What are you doing to increase practical opportunities for new immigrants to gain a high school education?” (LPA April 30, 1955, 63) Social activism is not limited to funds allocation and government intervention; the intelligentsia must now assume a central role in educating the masses, rather than insistently advance its socio-economic status.17 The context of ethnicity-driven class relations between Ashkenazis and oriental Jews was also emphasized by Mordechai Namir, Histadrut SecretaryGeneral. Namir was often the target of white-collar workers’ criticism in the public dispute surrounding the strikes and sanctions instigated in April and May of 1954 and the first months of 1955 discussed in the previous chapter. In principle, Namir accepted Prof. Katchalsky’s assumptions about the emergence of an academic proletariat, and believed this was a positive development congruent with a fundamental socialist precept. Socialism would not be achieved by demoting social classes, he said, but rather by promoting the 17  On the stratification of higher education in Israel during the fifties see Cohen 1969; Cohen, In: Bareli, Gutwein and Friling (eds.)2005, 233–262.

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proletariat via education. However, Namir contested Katchalsky’s disregard for the fact that conditions in Israel were unlike those in the West. The vital task Israeli society had yet to accomplish was “to continue transforming our nation into a nation of workers engaged in physical labor” (LPA April 30, 1955, 68), which was particularly applicable to oriental Jews, many of whom were either unemployed, or employed in jobs that required no professional skill. The most pressing objective at the time was to provide employment for the unemployed. Despite the important points made by Prof. Katchalsky about automation and cybernetics, stated Namir, the Israeli economy of the mid-1950s required a large number of construction workers, and industrial and agricultural workers, and the oriental proletariat needed these types of jobs (Myussam 1961, 82–96). Namir raised two key issues with regards to the status of public-sector white-collar workers: the gap between minimum wage for unskilled labor and maximum wage for professions based on academic training; and concerns regarding a possible inflation in the wake of momentous economic demands spurred by mass immigration. Prime Minister Sharett interjected, arguing that MAPAI principles do support a certain wage disparity between white-collar workers and manual laborers. Namir agreed with Prime Minister Sharett, yet immediately afterwards, proudly noted the Histadrut’s policy of curbing whitecollar wages. He believed the erosion of white-collar salaries was a tremendous accomplishment of the Histadrut. In approximately three years, he said, the cost-of-living allowance—one of the main factors in wage-gap restriction— achieved what “no other working class was able to achieve in such scope, although different trades had accomplished this in America and England” (LPA April 30, 1955, 69). This achievement was one of the direct causes of whitecollar workers’ resentment. The Histadrut Secretary-General argued that a cost-of-living allowance that encourages considerable gaps between white-collar workers and laborers’ wages would eventually cause a spiralling inflation, which will work against the white-collar workforce—such as the inflation that prevailed in Germany under the Weimar Republic (1919–1933). Israel’s current cost-of-living allowance method was therefore aimed to curb the accumulation of capital in the hands of the middle-class, by adding a uniform allowance to every salary earned in the public sector, which effectively restricted the gap between minimum and maximum wages. For instance, if an unskilled laborer earns 100 IL and a professor earns 200 IL, their wage ratio is 2:1; when both employees receive a 100 IL cost-of-living allowance this ratio changes to 3:2—thereby reducing the disparity by 50% to the advantage of the laborer. According to Namir, this cost-of-living allowance model maintained a reasonable standard of living for all salaried workers while improving the standard

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of living overall. The Histadrut’s primary objective was preventing the Oriental proletariat from deteriorating into outright poverty and stagnancy, and the allowance method restricting white-collar wages was a way to ‘save ourselves’ according to Namir. In fact, he enthusiastically adopted it as the linchpin of Histadrut wage policy, as it could “advance the lower wage earners more rapidly than the higher wage earners.” Comparing the highest wage earners to the minimum wage earners, stated Namir, made a decline in white-collar workers’ standard of living simply ‘necessary’ (LPA April 30, 1955, 69). Namir announced to the white-collar workers that the government and Histadrut’s policy deliberately eroded their salary on ethnic and social grounds. However, this same policy ensured the valuation of Israeli currency, stabilized product costs, and increased production—achievements that would not be feasible otherwise. The white-collar work force must understand that an egalitarian income policy would bear fruit in the future, much like an unpleasant, anti-inflationary remedy meant to cure the body as a whole. The conflict driving the physicians to strike was rooted not only in wage issues per se, but in the egalitarian wage policy the Histadrut clung to even when physicians resorted to shutting down hospitals, as they had done a year prior, in May 1954 (LPA April 30, 1955, 71). Prime Minister Moshe Sharett matched Shapira and Namir’s assertiveness, and emphasized the lacking representation of oriental immigrants at the symposium. In retort to white-collar workers’ accusations against the government, he stated that anyone familiar with the state-of-affairs at the Hebrew University and the Technion is aware that in the past few years, the government has been universities’ primary financial resource with generous budgets that have enabled significant development (Cohen 2006, 171–200). Sharett also stressed another aspect fortifying the middle-class—isolation from Israel’s Arab neighbors. He did not see the isolation as a disadvantage, as it advanced uninterrupted socio-economic and cultural unity. He expressed concern about possible consequences of integrating with the surrounding Arab population at this formative time, and the ‘devouring, gnawing’ affect it could have, adding: I am familiar with it; I lived and studied in Istanbul; I lived in Damascus and Aleppo and travelled their roads and villages. I know the surroundings. I wish the best for it [the Arab population]; but do not wish to become too socially and culturally involved with it. LPA April 30, 1955, 89

This isolation is necessary to Israel, and therefore, we must not merely educate and acculturate the Yemenites and Moroccans, but also bequeath the complex

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ideology of the nation’s singularity and mission, which means drawing upon scientific resources and harnessing them for nation-building purposes. In this period of development, scientists and white-collar workers must be fully dedicated and supportive to the State rather than work against it, and employ a broad perspective and solidarity. Thus, Sharett tasked the Ashkenazi white-collar workers with educating the oriental proletariat, and denounced their aspiration to set a significant socioeconomic disparity between themselves and the oriental immigrants. This was also the rationale behind Sharett’s attack on the physicians’ strike a year prior. The strike was a symptom of a dangerous trend: white-collar workers’ eschewing the duties of collective commitment, and even emigrating from Israel in favor of “astronomic salaries” and research budgets. The white-collar workers exclude themselves from the collective, and are preoccupied with futile computations rather than future outcomes that would be to their own detriment, said Sharett. Additionally, meeting their demands would spur an acute inflation that would likely shatter the foundation of society and lead to either mass exodus or economic collapse. Prime Minister Sharett therefore resolutely announced he would adhere to the government’s wage policy—even if all whitecollar workers claim that Israel’s egalitarianism is excessive, and its social gap uniquely narrow compared to both capitalist and communist societies. Sharett did not hesitate to use such decisive language despite the impending Histadrut and government elections, evincing MAPAI’s vehement adherence to its wage policies.

The Exacerbation of the Debate

MAPAI’s first symposium involving white-collar workers was conducted at the end of April 1955, about one week before the Party’s victory in the May elections for the Histadrut Congress.18 White-collar workers were a focal point of the MAPAI campaign platform, and for the first time, a separate division was dedicated to the ‘intellectual workers’ and their needs, with the belief that they would play a central role in shaping the character of the nation in general, and that of the working public in particular (LPA July 9, 1955, 2). MAPAI vowed to enhance white-collar workers’ social status and reinforce their connection to the proletariat. However, this was destined to be implemented upon the ‘coming of the Messiah,’ as attorney Chaim Tzadok—Chairman of MAPAI’s second symposium with white-collar workers—sarcastically noted. 18  See note 5 to chapter 1 above.

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The second symposium convened on July 9 1955, just a few weeks prior to the Knesset elections on July 26. Tzadok noted MAPAI’s victory in the Histadrut elections with great satisfaction. He asserted, however, that the white-collar workers’ discontent with MAPAI was mounting now that the Histadrut and government publicly acknowledged the partial validity of their claims. This was the background to a surge of demands made on the eve of elections, along with threats of a strike. Tzadok, a prominent MAPAI jurist active in the private sector and future Justice Minister for the Labor Party (MAPAI’s heir) in the 1970s, stated that parties to the right and left of MAPAI were making tremendous efforts to court white-collar workers. He advised them to be discriminating with their trust as MAPAI’s victory was guaranteed, and post-elections these parties would be in the opposition or marginal coalition factions. He therefore recommended that white-collar workers maintain their alliance with MAPAI (LPA July 9, 1955). The key speaker at the symposium was Peretz Naphtali, Minister of Agriculture, Trade and Industry. Naphtali was one of MAPAI’s chief economic planners, highly educated in social and economic theory, and steeped in German Social Democracy before immigrating to Eretz Yisrael (Rimer 1996). In terms of an ideal social structure, Naphtali vehemently objected to a capitalist framework based on significant class distinction. He opposed the concept of a small upper stratum that wields extensive control over national economy and enjoys superior income, while the vast majority of the public is excluded from influencing the economy, and suffers crippling economic circumstances in comparison. He preferred establishing a socialist society following the prestate model, meaning, a two-sector economy: the private sector alongside a workers’ sector in its diverse forms, including cooperative settlements, and large factories owned by the working public, or in other words, the Histadrut (Barkai 1989, 81–109; Greenberg in: Bareli, Gutwein and Friling [eds.] 2005, 327–364). An independent proletariat economy was established in Israel that comprised a significant portion of overall production, thereby forming the nucleus of a socialist economy, which could sustain itself long-term alongside the second, private-capitalist sector. All this, while government policy supported any form of development, did not attempt to limit private initiative, and encouraged private offshore capital investment. Peretz Naphtali’s conclusion concerning wage policy and the gap between white-collar workers and laborers was that inequality should be abated as much as possible. Although MAPAI did not strive for absolute equality, its policy was intended to prevent a polarized class society, said Naphtali. Such polarization was a very real possibility in light of mass immigration, characterized by “significant standard of living disparities that cannot be so quickly eliminated.”

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“We should always remember: this is a period of transition,” he said. MAPAI’s formula for creating a social structure that prevents acute capitalism and for ending this transitional period, which could become permanent, can be summarized as follows: “if we … want good social conditions for the lower strata, we must restrict the distinction at the top” (LPA July 9, 1955, 11). Thus, Naphtali linked white-collar workers’ salaries and the difficult living conditions in the immigrant transit camps, asserting that raising the former’s wages will render transit camps permanent fixtures of the national landscape—a scenario MAPAI refused to allow.19 Naphtali therefore urged white-collar workers to limit their demands. The minister viewed the sought-after wage inequality as the first step toward creating an overbearing bourgeoisie that impairs a future socialist regime. Like his predecessors, he made no promises to white-collar workers during his address at the symposium, which was designed, inter alia, to enlist their support for MAPAI in the upcoming elections. Naphtali warned that they ought to show restraint, implying that its lack means head-on collision with MAPAI’s socioeconomic vision, and therefore with the government and Histadrut. The immediate context, i.e. the eve of elections, was proof that his words were no empty declaration. Dr. Uri Yadin, Director of the Justice Ministry Legislation Department, fervently criticized policies aimed to restrict wage inequality and the leaders of MAPAI. He was disconcerted that MAPAI did not seek to differentiate between the academic intelligentsia and the proletariat. It was an attempt, he asserted, to persist with the pre-statehood pioneering policy that was implemented when a small, marginal coterie of white-collar workers was contained within a majority of laborers and clerks. This state-of-affairs had shifted according to Yadin, and not of the white-collar workers’ volition—in fact, it was MAPAI leadership that had prompted socio-economic hierarchy. Yadin was vexed that MAPAI and Histadrut executives had climbed the socio-economic ladder, leaving white-collar workers behind as a ‘proletariat,’ along with common laborers. The result of this unfortunate process was that white-collar workers, who can hardly be called capitalists, grew distant from MAPAI. White-collar workers in key positions began to feel uneasy about their socio-economic inferiority. White-collar professions became less appealing, and students were not returning from abroad as they could not resist the high salaries. Yadin dismissed Peretz Naphtali’s contention that increasing physicians or lawyers’ wages would spur arrogance and estrangement from the proletariat—which 19  See Gross 1995; Patinkin 1967 on the economic policy of MAPAI during the fifties.

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earned him a round of applause from his audience. He believed the Histadrut could explain to the working public why paygrades needed to change according to white-collar workers’ demands. He also insisted that the Histadrut permit an independent association of jurists in civil service within the Histadrut framework. If this was not made possible, white-collar associations would be established outside of the Histadrut and challenge its status as the representative union of the Israeli workforce. Dr. Helfman, the physicians’ representative at the symposium, claimed that physicians’ current salaries are “terrible” and insufficient for supporting a family (LPA July 9, 1955, 18). Private physicians’ financial status is equally subpar, he said, as the majority of the public is unable to afford their services. Countering the Histadrut’s accusations, Dr. Helfman maintained that the IMA, the umbrella organization for all physicians in Israel, is not the hub of incitement, strikes, and public irresponsibility as they alleged, but quite the opposite—it was restricting physicians’ demands. Dr. Helfman demanded that physicians receive an immediate retroactive one-month’s salary from April 1955, as a sign of the government’s willingness to repair the injustice they had suffered. He promised immediate political gain for this compensation—full support from all white-collar representatives for MAPAI in the Knesset elections. However, Peretz Naphtali’s speech had made clear to Dr. Helfman that his demands would not be met, a result, he stated, of physicians’ meager voting impact: “Our misfortune is that we are in the minority, if only I had eighty thousand votes!! …” (LPA July 9, 1955, 21) This remark essentially implied that MAPAI’s policy was driven by the demographic pull of the oriental population. Tensions remained high, particularly during the question-and-answer portion of the symposium. Korngold, a lawyer, asked Minister Naphtali how long the government intends to curb white-collar salaries, to which the latter replied, “at least ten years” (LPA July 9, 1955, 21). The audience of white-collar workers applauded any statement that heralded inequality between them and other workers, and laughed overtly when remarks about immigrant workers’ low level of education were made. Batya Rosenstein, a member of the Teachers’ Association Center, agreed that the white-collar workers’ demands should be met and was dismayed about their growing distance from MAPAI and the Histadrut and their gradual establishment of a class distinct from that of workers. In response to comments that this was a natural process, she demanded enhancing their representation in MAPAI-operated institutions. She emphasized the growing absence of academics from the lower-ranking positions of MAPAI and Histadrut operators, such as workers’ council secretaries and party branch secretaries (LPA July 9, 1955, 31). The pattern of preferring non-educated over educated workers did

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not apply solely to the veteran settlements but also the oriental immigrants’ settlements, said Rosenstein, and made the following example: One of the immigrant settlements had to select candidates. A choice had to be made between two immigrants from Iraq; one who simply could not read and write, and another who not only could read and write, but had also likely completed elementary school, meaning, had substantial education. There was competition between the two, and of course, who won?—The one who could not read and write. LPA July 9, 1955, 31

The audience at the intellectual workers’ assembly burst into laughter upon hearing the story. Rosenstein stated that she did not mean to be comical, and went on to say there was an effort from above to change the residents’ decision and appoint the more educated man, but threats were made. The audience continued to laugh in response to what was happening in the immigrant settlements. Again, the speaker said—“I am sorry that there is laughter, but I shared a fact that I believe is typical to more than one settlement town.” (LPA July 9, 1955, 31) Aharon Becker, Head of the Histadrut Trade-Unions Division, was enraged with these displays and demanded that immigrant workers and their representatives be respected. The ethnic undertones were palpable. Becker stated that, “It is perhaps because of these very immigrant settlements, for their operators and residents, that we are all living and sustaining ourselves” (LPA July 9, 1955, 35). He confronted the white-collar workers head-on, belittling the significance of their support for MAPAI in the Knesset elections and stating that the Party was bound for sure victory, sarcastically adding: “I do not doubt the loyalty of every single one of you sitting here”(LPA July 9, 1955, 38). He was also unfettered by the possibility of a white-collar trade union outside of the Histadrut, stating that such a union would not be able to offer better conditions than the Histadrut, which is supported by the government. Becker demanded that the white-collar workers wait until August 7, the date of the Guri report submission, which would present findings on the wage gaps between white-collar workers and the proletariat, meaning, not until after the Knesset elections. He also asked them not to make any new demands until then, and effectively announced to them that none of their demands would be approved. The class conflict was also addressed by Aharon Gilat—an engineer and member of the Guri Committee, which was assigned by the government to assess wage discrepancies between white-collar workers and the rest of the public sector. The issue at the root of the conflict, asserted Gilat, was whether

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the ‘working intelligentsia’ and senior executives, which comprised the upper strata of salaried workers, were still part of the proletariat or had developed into a distinct class. He understood that white-collar workers felt profoundly alienated from Histadrut leadership; but nonetheless, asked that they wait for the Guri Committee conclusions. In response to this speech and the tone of the politicians and Histadrut officials, one of the physicians’ representatives made the following declaration: The intelligentsia is convinced that the Guri Committee is a failure. Some think it is mainly a scheme to buy time until the elections are over, and there is no reason to believe it will make any conclusions in an additional two months that it has not been able to make in six months…. A [wage] gap of 1.2:1 cannot continue any longer. LPA July 9, 1955, 49

He also argued that 40% of medical studies graduates at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem had emigrated in the past three years, and that his American professional counterpart would earn an annual income of $30,000. The last to speak was Finance Minister Levi Eshkol, who briefly and decisively stated that the government will not increase white-collar wages before the Guri Committee submits its conclusions and, naturally, before the Knesset elections. “The government will not grant any concession. It will not comply even at MAPAI’s expense and the potential advantage Yisrael Rokach of the right-wing General Zionists party might gain.” In light of the firm stance of the Prime Minister, the Histadrut SecretaryGeneral, and senior ministers, some white-collar workers felt there was one last resort—founding leader of Israel David Ben-Gurion, who was destined to assume the role of prime minister following the upcoming elections. Five days prior to the Knesset elections, a third symposium was held in Jerusalem that included Ben-Gurion and white-collar workers’ representatives (Keren 1983). At the symposium, it became clear that Ben-Gurion too, was strongly opposed to white-collar workers’ wage demands and seemingly more unyielding than other members of MAPAI leadership were. He launched a fierce attack against the strikes and the ongoing unrest in the labor market incited by the physicians, which he claimed had gained the support of additional white-collar professionals (LPA July 21, 1955). Ben-Gurion asserted that a negative trend of socio-economic disparity between white-collar workers and laborers was continuing to develop. He did not wish for the white-collar workers to forgo their professions for manual labor in the spirit of A.D. Gordon, one of the ideologues of labor Zionism since its

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inception—but rather sought to underscore and criticize the acute alienation of laborers, which had become an essential component of white-collar workers’ self-definition. Minister of Education and Culture, historian Prof. Ben-Zion Dinur from the Hebrew University, supported this critical approach. He explained that Israel’s economy was absorbing hundreds of thousands of new citizens, and the State was primarily committed to ensuring a basic standard of living for them, and preventing widespread hunger among the immigrants. Wage disparities similar to those of the USSR (1:40 between maximum and minimum wages) would prompt starvation among the mass of new immigrants and be the destruction of the State. MAPAI government was entrusted with two central national objectives, which deterred them from complying with white-collar workers’ demands: encouraging settlement in the periphery, and enhancing the level of education among the disadvantaged. A great deal of educated citizens and scientists in Israel, claimed Dinur, neglect national responsibility and exclude themselves from it (LPA July 21, 1955, 14). Dinur opined that the white-collar workers were insistent on a socially destructive policy that would dip into the pockets of unskilled workers who had gained a modestly improved standard of living. “We did not rise to a historical pinnacle to expose our most shameful conduct to the rest of the world,” he asserted, adding, “The physicians’ strike is a disgrace to the Israeli State” (LPA July 21, 1955, 14–15). The renowned orientalist Prof. Shlomo Dov Goitein from the Hebrew University was outraged that the white-collar elite remained ignorant to the status quo in the State and therefore responded with separatism. He wished to establish a type of senate that would include “elderly and respectable” figures who will receive ongoing updates concerning Israel’s foreign policy. This senate of elders would be privy to discrete matters and therefore “have the opportunity to know more than the layperson in the marketplace” (LPA July 21, 1955, 12). This would be a first step in politically institutionalizing the distinction between educated and non-educated citizens, which Goitein believed would dispel white-collar workers’ sense of responsibility for the nation, thereby restoring their support in government policy. Physicist Prof. Yoel (Giulio) Racah of the Hebrew University objected to conducting the symposium before general elections. He argued that Ben-Gurion linked between white-collar workers’ wages, and their role in the State and position on public issues. In Racah’s opinion, Ben-Gurion and his colleagues in MAPAI reversed the proper order of matters at hand; wages must be settled first, and only then could white-collar workers’ national role be discussed. The jurist Dr. Uri Yadin, Justice Ministry Legislation Department Director, confirmed he was among the organizers of the strikes in government offices and

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institutions (on June 27, 1955, and July 18, 1955, a few weeks prior to general elections). He asserted that “The State has the capacity to meet the demands of civil servants … [while] the government is indeed limited by external boundaries, internal allocation within various domains [e.g. social groups] is part of a dispute that is not yet resolved” (LPA July 21, 1955, 17). He was well aware that this was a class and ethnic zero-sum-game. This symposium too, revealed the vehemence of MAPAI’s political leaders. They would not allow the new white-collar class, which was rapidly expanding within government institutions, the Histadrut, and the private market, to attain the kind of economic advantage that would allow it to ‘escape’ from the oriental proletariat. This determination went hand-in-hand with their willingness to relinquish white-collar workers’ political support, as they were sure the opposing oriental group would support MAPAI and the Histadrut. MAPAI’s loyalty to the oriental proletariat in the face of white-collar workers’ pressures and the ensuing conflict between MAPAI government and its white-collar proponents, eventually became an identifying cornerstone of MAPAI as a national, socialist ruling party.

…

Thus far, our analysis reveals that the commonly discussed dichotomy between Ashkenazis and oriental Jews (Hever, Shenhav, Mutzafi-Haller 2002; Svirsky 1981) obscures a discussionon on the political and socio-economic roots of social inequality in nascent Israel and on its ethnic-class structure. It is implausible that a homogeneous approach prevailed among all Ashkenazi veterans when it came to deliberating the ‘optimal’ degree of social stratification. They demonstrated at least two conflicting perceptions on nation building. In terms of wage policy, MAPAI leadership aspired to provide basic equal opportunity for oriental Jews and Ashkenazis, despite the significant social and educational disparities between the two ethnic groups. White-collar workers on the other hand, demanded stable wage differentiation in the public sector, asserting that their private interests coincided with national interests. This chapter describes a specific and significant period in which MAPAI’s policy faced the zealous opposition of its ‘progeny’ and protégés—the white-collar workers. The social-democratic wage policy MAPAI adopted dismissed the universalistic rationalization for allowing the middle-class to gain superiority over a proletariat of laborers. Instead, it channelled its efforts into integrating the oriental immigrant population into the social-national Israeli enterprise. One of Israel’s most prominent scientists at the time, Prof. Aharon Katchalsky (Katzir), presented this ‘universalistic rationalization’ for better compensation

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with great detail and skill—asserting that the natural progression of history inevitably leads to the rise and prosperity of an academically educated middleclass—the ‘engine’ of modernism. MAPAI leadership counter-argued that Israel’s socio-economic status had yet to sufficiently ripen for such developments to occur; therefore, the government and Histadrut had to intervene in order to limit the rise of the middle-class. The symposia held prior to the Third Knesset elections between MAPAI leaders and white-collar workers—who comprised one of the most significant power centers of the Ashkenazi middle-class—reflect acute tension and mutual disappointment within this group. Representatives of the white-collar workers in these symposia were affiliated with MAPAI to various degrees, but found themselves in conflict with its leadership nonetheless. MAPAI instated a policy aimed to protect a proletariat of laborers who were largely oriental immigrants. It did so despite the fact that the State and its agencies were increasingly dependent upon administrative and academic expertise, and significantly invested in higher education and research institutions. Israel’s political leadership did not wish to allow white-collar workers to maximize their advantages and establish steep class distinctions akin to various communist and capitalist countries at the time. The Party therefore imposed a ceiling on public sector salaries, including those of white-collar workers, and restricted income discrepancies between them and the proletariat. MAPAI’s wage policy was neither altruistic nor revolutionary Marxist—but rather social democratic in terms of the values and interests it served. The wage policy was a calculated one, which strove to gain widespread support among the oriental proletariat in Israel’s urban center and periphery, and unify the new society by restraining socio-economic inequality. Contrary to Katchalsky and his colleagues, who heralded a ‘regime of science’ that would render wage differentiation a function of modernization, MAPAI underscored the unjust competition between the State’s different socio-economic groups. MAPAI’s political leadership asserted that Israeli society could not withstand the extreme ethno-class pressures with an Ashkenazi middle-class wielding significant influence on governmental institutions on the one hand, and oriental immigrants in utter poverty on the other. The symposia held prior to the Knesset elections reveal that in terms of its wage policy MAPAI fought vigorously against inequality—by restraining the middle-class. This policy, initiated at the inception of statehood, was foundational to MAPAI’s political approach and activity during the first two decades of Israel’s national existence.

Chapter 3

“In Torn Soles on a Marble Floor”: The Guri Committee and Sharett Government Debates on White-Collar Workers’ Wages, 1954–1955 Several days following the government resolution on November 21, 1954, Prime Minister Moshe Sharett appointed a special committee to investigate the pay scales and pay scale methods applied to civil servants, local councils, and public sector workers, and recommend reforms (LMA Nov. 28, 1954). MAPAI-affiliated Knesset member Yisrael Guri, Chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee, headed the committee (herein referred to as the ‘Guri Committee’), which was tasked with submitting its conclusions within three months.1 The Guri Committee’s conclusions would pertain not only to civil servants, but also to all institutions supported by government funds, including local councils, the Jewish Agency, the Jewish National Fund, Hadassah and especially the Histadrut, which employed tens of thousands.2 The Committee’s discussions are significant for more than the conclusions they generated, as the various groups that addressed the Committee at the time openly articulated the social norms they deemed worthy. Therefore, the data revealed in this discourse sheds light on the wage system, the different objectives of professional coteries, and the rationale at the root of their demands.

The State Services Commission Survey

Guri Committee members were presented with a survey conducted by the State Services Commission. The survey had found acute disparities between 1  Committee members assigned to investigate pay scale and ranking among civil servants and public sector institutions were MK Yisrael Guri (Chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee, MAPAI); MK Michael Hazani (Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi); MK Hannah Lamdan (MAPAI); Dr. W. Abeles; Attorney Schneur Zalman Abramov (General Zionists); A. Bavli; Moshe Bar’am (Secretary of Jerusalem Workers’ Council of the Histadrut, MAPAI); Aharon Gilat (MAPAI member, engineer); Baruch Weinstein (General Zionists). 2  The Histadrut implemented professional wages starting in 1954 and adopted the existing ranking in the government, thereby cutting two of the top ranks and increasing wages among the lower ranks. Guri stated that, “There is no question that uniform ranking would apply to Histadrut workers as well (if uniform ranking is indeed implemented)” (LMA Dec. 20, 1954).

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public and private sector wages, and indicated that since the establishment of the State, civil servants’ wages had been subject to frequent fluctuations. Various groups began pressing the government on the issue as early as the first years of statehood, and four pay grades were added to the 13 originally established in 1949, as well as academic and representation premiums. These premiums “lowered the morale among civil servants, and the academic premiums created absurd situations.” The non-academic head of a government division earned less than his academic assistant, and “such instances completely destabilized the hierarchy among officials and led to various systemic issues” (Guri, quote in: LMA Dec. 20, 1954). To address to issue, the Govrin Committee, which operated in 1951, recommended narrowing wage gaps and eliminating education and other premiums—recommendations that were subsequently implemented. This “gap decrease between the different ranks,” however, drew pressure from various groups of academic white-collar workers. Within two years, 17 professional pay scales, which included 3,500 workers by 1955, were removed from the uniform ranking system. White-collar workers were critical of the significant wage gaps between the public and private sector, and objected to the wage gap erosion between the lower and higher pay grades, the result of cost of living wage adjustments. The State Services Commission’s report counted 14 pay scales, 90 ranks, and 100 different premiums rates. Government industries had supposedly adopted uniform ranking for executives and professionals in the public sector. However, they were effectively allocating 13 unique premiums, including exertion and work-bound premiums, daily expenses, and transportation premiums. State Services Commissioner David Rosolio stated that only 10 civil servants were in fact eligible for premiums at a rate of 80–100 IL, nearly all of which were directors of government ministries. However, upon evaluating the highest paid workers, the Commission discovered that ‘rank one’ engineers has the same income as government ministry directors in light of the wage reform of 1954. Public Works Department director earned the same wage rates as well. However, many government industries gave ‘rank one’ status to their engineers and lead engineers, while the scope of their responsibilities was only a third of that which the Public Works director had to shoulder—an acute discrepancy according to the Commissioner. There was an attempt to set a separate pay scale for each top executive in 1949, but the government did not approve it. Therefore, Rosolio felt that one of the Commission’s main duties was to redefine the scope of various positions in the public sector, in order to establish a new wage system. However, above all the various wage issues at

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hand, the Commissioner announced a distinct and surprising conclusion. Six and a half years post-statehood, Rosolio vehemently declared the following: One characteristic of our pay scale method, both among the executive and professionals, is that the gap between the lowest and highest ranks is relatively the smallest in the world. If we compare our basic wages, the gap there is also the smallest, 1:4.5. If we add the cost of living wage adjustments, the ratio becomes 1:2.2 (gross, pre-income tax), and the net ratio after taxes is 1:1.7. This means that the highest ranking official earns only 70% more than the lowest. Rosolio, quote in: LMA Dec. 27, 1954

Under these circumstances, claimed Rosolio, it is impossible to establish a split ranking, either professional or executive, that is congruent with the many ranks of civil service—as the gap between each rank would be 2–3 IL. A wage system of this sort is a dishonor to the government. He believed the wage gaps must be expanded: “Our gap is so small compared to other countries that without reform, it would be very difficult to establish a proper wage system and impossible to establish a well-functioning administration, as this hinges on fulfilling the needs and demands of the workers who are responsible for it.” Committee Chairman Yisrael Guri replied that the State Services Commis­ sion cannot expect extensive wage reform as long as the cost of living wage adjustment, which maintained the minimal gaps, remained. As it was only allocable for a fraction of the respective salaries, such that a large portion of high-ranking professionals’ salaries was not credited the adjustment and therefore, the gap was eroded. With regard to uniform versus professional ranking, Rosolio explained that the latter was a response to the pressure of engineers and jurists, whose wages the State planned scaled separately following the executive ranking reform in January 1954 (essentially a creation of professional ranking). However, this created a ripple effect of economic disputes, and different groups began acting against the Civil Servants’ Association and its instructions. Rosolio believed that a comprehensive, uniform ranking would make it hard for smaller professional coteries to object. He asserted that the ‘major mishap’ in the attempted wage regulation of the Govrin report, was excluding physicians from the comprehensive ranking and placing them in a separate scale. Additionally, the cost of living wage adjustment tampered with wage regulation in civil service as it gradually increased, thereby narrowing wage gaps. Although the Govrin

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Commission recommended a 6:1 wage gap, the increased cost of living wage adjustment rendered it irrelevant. Guri stated, It is no coincidence that our wage gap is so small. It reflects certain social precepts shared by most of the Israeli public that cannot be uprooted by command, as they have formed over decades. One cannot turn back the wheel. This is why I have said that extensive changes are unlikely. Guri, quote in: LMA Dec. 27, 1954

Unlike Guri, other speakers claimed that the lack of wage differentiation kept 150 young medical school graduates abroad from returning to Israel, which was why, they said, there were not enough physicians in the transit camps and immigrant settlements. Commission member Weinstein (of the General Zionists), fiercely promoted a ranking system that would expand wage gaps: If we consider the best interest of the State, which requires a strong nucleus of intellectuals, then we cannot absorb these with an unrealistic egalitarian ethos. I cannot accept that a guard at Hadassah earns more than its General Director. It is not just a matter of prestige. Workers in the liberal professions are quite embittered, which sometimes interferes with their performance. A physician cannot be on par with a tax officer. Our tax officers studied and developed at the expense of the State when we had no cadre. The physicians arrived educated, and cannot be compared to tax officers or other professionals. How can we invite engineers from abroad this way? They will go to the Weizmann Institute, where conditions are better. You speak of social principles, which Russia also shares, but how will you develop the same work force as Russia? Russia has no private sector. For all these reasons, I am in favor of professional ranking. Weinstein, quote in: LMA Dec. 27, 1954

Guri was quick to retract his support of uniform ranking, and explained that reverting to it while the upper echelon of the government, numbering 3,500 workers, is ranked professionally, is nearly impossible without severe consequences. Rosolio, on the other hand, continued to support uniform ranking, but suggested increasing the number of uniform ranks to 17 or 18. He believed that since February 1949, when an agreement was made between the State Services Commission and the Civil Servants’ Association, the interests of both sides had merged. The Govrin Commission, he asserted, had spurred the crisis. Physicians were excluded from the uniform ranking system and their ‘seniority

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premium’ was based on years of professional experience and service regardless of seniority in the given position, and was allocated among other professional premiums. The last reform to physicians’ wages was overtime pay, a concept previously relevant to lower ranking civil servants only. He asserted that physicians’ professional ethics obligated them to work overtime without additional pay, and what followed was that physicians received their new ranking as of April1 1951 while other workers received their ranking on January 1, 1953. Rosolio offered different examples to prove that the difference between professional and uniform ranking was negligent. A senior government officer, who oversees a ministry of significant authority and works autonomously as well, is in ‘rank three’ and earns a gross basic wage of 195 IL. ‘Rank three’ jurists, meaning legal advisors in prominent ministries such as the Finance and Defense ministries, as well as directors of professional divisions in the Justice Ministry, earn a gross salary of 198 IL. A senior ‘rank three’ physician earns 188 IL as does a veterinarian, while a chief pharmacist earns 198 IL. A medical lab manager earns 198 IL at the height of his career. He asserted, however, that no candidates respond to public tenders for senior positions, even though civil service guarantees job stability, contrary to the private sector. From the address delivered by Abramov3 of the Civil Servants’ Association (affiliated with the histadrut), it can be inferred that until 1950, there was a functional public sector ranking. However, professional premiums were later implemented for white-collar workers at a rate of 10–40 IL in ranks 7–13, which led to pressure from workers in similar ranks, resulting in representation premiums for non-academic workers. In 1952, professional ranking for academically educated professionals was instated, which meant the general director of the Labor Ministry earned 64 IL less than his legal advisor. The Civil Servants’ Association supported the uniform ranking system (Abramov, quote in: LMA Jan. 20, 1954). Despite the Association’s position, however, Committee member Dr. Abeles supported professional ranking. He explained that while the gap between most executives in civil service and their counterparts in the private sector is small, the distinction between professionals’ wages in civil service and their private sector counterparts is significant.

3  Not to be confused with Committee member Attorney Schneur Zalman Abramov.

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The Physicians’ Point of View

During his address, Chairman of the State Physicians’ Association Dr. Noah4 stated, “We believe that professional ranking is unavoidable.” Uniform ranking was implemented upon the State’s establishment and all professions shared one pay scale. This was unrealistic, however, as each profession had its own demands. The physicians, he believed, had a completely different status than other civil servants. They achieved rank at a much older age and therefore, did not gain professional stability until their 40s in most cases, but nevertheless had to undergo a lengthy training process until then. Therefore, he stated, “We must offer them a different progression between ranks than we do a simple young clerk” (Dr. Noah, quote in: LMA Feb. 3, 1955). Moreover, many physicians were only employed part time, which attested to the singularity of the profession. The second line of reasoning Noah shared with the Committee in favor of professional ranking focused on physicians’ status in the broad economical context. He claimed the government must realize that it does not employ professionals in a vacuum, and consider the economic status of other physicians in the State. Lack of such consideration will drive valuable workers to leave civil service, which would deteriorate accordingly. Dr. Noah objected to government members who acknowledged that physicians deserve better pay but opposed to allocating it for fear it would incite an overall wage increase. He believed this was a mistake, and referred to the 8 IL premium physicians received for professional literature as an example. Indeed, all other professions demanded a similar premium, but Noah believed medicine required continuous study and physicians had to be updated on developments in their field post-university, as their profession was subject to frequent innovation. He asserted: With uniform ranking salaries cannot be tailor-made to professions, which professional ranking allows. Every country distributes special wages for special positions. Every profession demands flexibility. The crisis is rooted in the egalitarianism that aligns everyone, which has made us all suffer. We must find a method that allows for more diversity and considers certain parameters, and should not shove everything into the

4  Along with Dr. Noah, the meeting was attended by Dr. Druyan, General Secretary of the IMA, and Dr. Fleisher, member of the IMA Central Committee and Kupat Holim Physicians’ representative.

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same box. Individualization drives progress, productivity, and higher standards, and if everyone is in the same rank, they are not interested in progress. If adjustments are made according to profession and education, they will surely progress. Dr. Noah, quote in: LMA Feb. 3, 1955

Dr. Noah addressed the wage gap as well, noting it had eroded until the gap between a courier and hospital director was 1:1.7; due to price increase, the cost of living adjustment ceiling, and progressive income taxes collected more from the higher earners: “The inflation has created almost total income alignment across professions, and great embitterment.” In light of this, a reform that guarantees a stable inter-rank wage gap is necessary. The situation in Israel is such that lower-ranking workers do not strike because their salaries are guaranteed, while higher-ranking professionals and general managers do strike, which is quite a paradox. According to Dr. Noah, a junior official’s salary should be 100 IL, and instead of 200 IL, a beginning physician should earn at least 300 IL, which would increase to 400 IL overtime—all at net salary. We can thus ensure that, For every IL in cost of living adjustment allocated to a junior official, a physician earns 3–4 IL. It is also possible to distribute gross salaries in a way that maintains the same gap post-tax deduction, for instance, if I want someone to earn 450 IL [net] he must earn a gross 750 IL, and this should be predetermined. There are ways to do so and there is no reason to panic over numbers. If we approve such a reform, we will develop more stability and break the cycle [of eroding wage gaps]. This can affect the economy. Dr. Noah, quote in: LMA Feb. 3, 1955

Essentially, Dr. Noah believed the medical profession should be at the top professional rank, as physicians cannot work set hours and even Kupat Holim physicians are obligated to work overtime; academic education for physicians is the lengthiest, and they must complete internships at the hospital. The State needs excellent, well-trained, experienced physicians, and has incentive to keep them from establishing a private practice and ‘abandoning’ its hospitals. Moreover, Dr. Noah added that for physicians to be effective, they must be able to influence and convince patients, and should therefore be cultured individuals. He claimed that in 1955, there was only one physician for every 450 citizens while upon the establishment of the State the ratio was one per 250. It is therefore quite clear there is much higher demand for physicians nowadays, and

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we must increase their wages accordingly, not to mention avoid lowering their relative economic status. General Secretary of the Israeli Medical Association Dr. Druyan, delivered a lecture in which he presented his organization the IMA as the representative organization of physicians at large and salaried physicians in particular. He stated that the Kupat Holim Physicians are represented by the IMA even though their Association belonged to the Histadrut. He counted 3,700 physicians as members of his organization, 3,000 of which were salaried part-time or full-time physicians. Additionally, he believed that the 700 independent physicians in the State were interested in taking on part-time positions. From the IMA’s perspective, stated Druyan, conditions in the periphery were bleak. During the Tower and Stockade period (the second half of the 1930s), some had volunteered to work under difficult circumstances for five IL. However, in the mid-1950s, “many young physicians study abroad and do not wish to return … they are offered better conditions overseas. Many of them, despite being from good Zionist families, will not return” (Dr. Druyan, quote in: LMA Feb. 3, 1955). Therefore, asserted Druyan, “physicians in the periphery should earn more than those in the cities, otherwise none will go there and no law can change that.” Regardless, he said, physicians in civil service are forbidden to offer private services and it is therefore mandatory that they earn a high salary. Moreover, physicians, particularly during training, work 15 hours a day, often during Sabbath and holidays. He noted that “many visiting specialists from oversees have expressed shock at the state of physicians in our country” (Dr. Noah, quote in: LMA Feb. 3, 1955). Dr. Fleisher, member of the IMA Central Committee and representative of Kupat Holim physicians, explained the difficult position Israeli physicians were in as follows: Have you ever stopped to think about the cost of a physician’s investment from the day he enrolls in university to the day he receives any type of compensation? If you do the math, you will understand the enormity of a physician’s investment, an immense financial investment, which the student spends and does not earn back. Later, the public receives a live fortune in the form of a young physician, a fortune that multiplies when they become experienced, veteran physicians, and this live fortune is underappreciated. The professional workforce is slowly dwindling. A significant increase in physicians’ immigration into Israel is unlikely. The medical school [Hadassah in Ein Kerem] cannot sufficiently answer to our needs. I must warn that our assets are dissolving under these pressing circumstances and we should put our minds to eliminating the

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disparity between budget allocations for different institutions and physicians’ wages. Without the physician, even the most elite building cannot continue to stand. The physicians walk in torn soles on marble floors (Dr. Fleisher, quote in: LMA Feb. 3, 1955). All three physicians agreed that, The working intelligentsia should not bear the brunt of taxes … and physicians should be relieved of the tax burden. Income taxes are so high that working is not profitable, because if two thirds goes to taxes, working is not worthwhile, and this reduces productivity. It is a fête for laziness. This method hurts everyone, but especially the intellectual professions, and should be eradicated, and replaced with an alternative distribution of the financial burden. Dr. Noah, quote in: LMA Feb. 3, 1955

A delegation on behalf of the Hadassah hospital, which was affiliated with the Hebrew University faculty of medicine and was the only Israeli medical training institution in the first decade of statehood, also approached the Guri Committee with an assertive objection to the ‘absurd’ wage practices in Israel during the mid-1950s. The Hadassah physicians’ representative Dr. Mann explained their position as follows: The worker in charge of mopping the floors learns trains for two hours while a physician studies for 7 years. Time invested in education should be considered. It should be taken into account that a physician must also train after completing his studies ... Personal accountability must be considered. Professor Wertheimer [a senior physician at Hadassah] earns only 54% more than a practical nurse and only 10% more than a lab technician. This is absurd. A janitor earns only 71% less than a housecall physician…. Gaps between the lowest and highest ranks need to expand. Dr. Mann, quote in: LMA April 5, 1955

During the Committee meeting, the broad range of gap-restricting premiums was explained, such as: seniority premiums; occupational premiums; exertion premiums; overtime pay; the labeling of positions as ‘high ranking’ without considering professional hierarchy; cost of living wage adjustment; family-status premiums; representation premiums; management premiums; 13th salary (additional salary at the end of the year). Most premiums were not allocable for executives and senior white-collar workers, such as family-status premiums or overtime pay, as well as the cost of living adjustment, which was limited to the lower salaries’ ceiling.

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The Jurists’ Point of View

The Guri Committee was also addressed by a delegation of chief civil service jurists: State Attorney Colin Gluckmannn (Gillon), Director of the Ministry of Justice Legislation Department Uri Yadin, Ministry of Labor’s Legal Advisor Zvi Bar-Niv (future state attorney), and Tel-Aviv District Attorney Uriel Gorny. The legal field counted 180 civil servants including attorneys fulfilling judiciary roles mostly in the Justice Ministry, and others working as legal advisors in different government ministries. Within the civil service ranking system, they earned a special occupational premium between 10–40 IL. Overtime, this method changed and the occupational premium was replaced with special ranking for jurists, which was reflected in their income. All jurists were placed in ranks 1–6. Rank one included 2 workers; Rank two 6; Rank three 24; Rank four 36; Rank five 48; and Rank six 61. This ranking system did not include judges or the government legal advisor assigned the rank of Supreme Court Judge. Once the special ranking was implemented, jurists’ salaries became higher than the judges,’ until the Knesset Finance Committee and the government decided on different wages for judges. According to Uri Yadin, “The net salary of a ‘rank one’ married jurist (on a 226 point basis), after all deductions … is 309 IL. The ‘rank six’ net salary is 233 IL” (Yadin, quote in: LMA Feb. 10, 1955). Yadin stated that these were not suitable amounts for judiciary service, and that the government was effectively damaging the stability of the field. A Magistrate Court judge that is married with two children earns 334 IL and a Supreme Court Judge earns a net salary of 401 IL. Yadin stated that appointed judges mostly come from judiciary service, and not from its highest ranks, but rather from ranks five—six in which they earn 233–246 IL net. Once appointed as Magistrate Court judges they earn 30 IL more than their attorney colleagues—which he believed was unjust. State Attorney Colin Gluckmann (Gillon) claimed he has difficulty supporting his family. When the government appointed him as State Attorney, he was asked that his wife cease working as a private attorney, a request he could not fulfill. The engineers bitterly complained to the Committee about the wage gap erosion as well. They presented data showing that engineers in municipal and Zionist institutions earn more than civil servants do, with the wage gap reaching 70–100 IL a month. Engineers therefore withdraw from civil service and young engineers are disinterested in joining it. The engineers’ representatives stated that one of the vital components in establishing TAHAL (Hebrew initials for ‘water systems planning company of Israel’) was the new company’s ability to recruit a team of expert, young engineers thanks to wages that were much higher than government pay. In order to relay the severe inferiority of

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civil servant engineers’ wages, the engineers’ representatives explained that for a full year, they were unable to recruit an engineer to serve in the Zefat region. They presented the following chart: Haifa District Engineer Haifa District Deputy Engineer Supervisor Gravel Spreader Steamroller Operator Carpenter in Afula

250.880 IL Net 253.780 IL Net 253.670 IL Net 242.650 IL Net 244.600 IL Net 255.754 IL Net

They also noted that carpenters and steamroller operators receive overtime pay while engineers do not (LMA April 5, 1955).

The Senior Executives’ Point of View

Representatives of senior executives that addressed the Guri Committee claimed that after the increase of the consumer price index as of October of 1953, the gap between the lowest and highest ranks was blurred; reaching a 1.7:1 ratio at net salary—a gap that is unmatched worldwide. To substantiate their claims they quoted “investigative research on civil service” published by the UN in 1951. It determined that in Switzerland, the gap between the lowest and highest salary stood at 6:1; in the United States and France at 10:1; in Belgium at 12:1; in Britain 25:1; and in the Soviet-Union 55:1. Moreover, the representatives of senior executives in civil service were outraged about the fact that in pre-statehood Jewish yishuv institutions, the gap between the lowest and highest salary reached 5:1 by 1939, before income tax even existed. They therefore demanded a 5:1 gap at gross salary and a guaranteed 3:1 gap at net salary after progressive taxes (Memorandum, LMA April 5, 1955).

…

Some of the Guri Committee members believed that adopting professional ranking would neutralize the government’s ability to influence wage ceilings, and create a whirlpool of wage demands. Changes in the private sector would draw demands for equal conditions in civil service, they claimed, and any national trade association would use these raises to demand better conditions for its members. Even if private sector does not shift, physicians will seek the same

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premiums that engineers receive. They believed that since the Committee was government-appointed, it could not minimize government influence or steer it into an imposing state of affairs. Therefore, even if they do agree on professional ranking, they should include a chapter forewarning the government of its dangers, and the number of professional ranking should be kept to a minimum. Committee member Schneur Zalman Abramov supported this position, explaining that he had made a 180–degree shift from supporting professional ranking to guarantee wage gaps, to favoring a republicanist approach to senior officials. The senior officials in civil service, he claimed, have a sense of mission that should be reflected in their pay scale. We do not see the State as an employer, but as a system meant to serve the public: The hierarchy war that is legal and necessary in every branch of public life must end as soon as one takes on civil service…. Professional ranking splits the loyalty of the worker, when we should be developing his loyalty to the mission and duty of civil service. Professional ranking has been illegally birthed due to pressures from certain trade associations, and is the result of coercion. S.Z. Abramov, quote in: LMA May 12, 1955

According to Abramov, a member of the General Zionists party, the physicians had coerced the State and destroyed the uniform ranking system. He concluded by stating that, “A healthy republicanist [mamlachti] approach, whose essence is shaping the character of a public servant, would be incomplete without a uniform ranking system” (S.Z. Abramov, quote in: LMA May 12, 1955).

The Committee Recommendations

The Guri Committee concluded its investigation in June 1955. It was published that the Committee proposes wage uniformity in public institutions, while recommending that all civil servants be placed in eight different ranks: administrative workers; physicians; engineers; jurists; nurses and social workers; teachers and pre-school teachers; police; military. The Committee found that a significant portion of institutions and factories in the public sector pay considerably higher wages than those offered in civil service—particularly in the upper ranks. The Committee demanded an adjusted policy that would unify wage methods in the public sector. It stated that 60% of salaried workers are

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employed in public service and public enterprises, and it is therefore likely that the general working public would be influenced by public sector policy, and not the other way around. This important remark by the Committee signifies the impact of the debate on wage-gaps in civil service and the public sector on the Israeli labor market as a whole. White-collar workers claimed that since the establishment of the state the wage-gap between the lowest and highest ranks in civil service had significantly decreased. According to the Guri Committee findings, this was mainly due to the cost of living adjustment being applied to a mere portion of salaries (the first 125 IL of basic salary; and until December 1953—the first 80 IL only). White-collar professionals had to invest ongoing efforts and additional work hours without compensation, while mid-ranking workers were paid overtime. The Committee found that director-generals of government ministries had previously received a special premium of 25 IL per month, and their assistants a 10–15 IL premium per month. However, this premium was revoked in 1951 following the implementation of new ranking. According to the Committee, the low salaries of white-collar workers and senior executives caused a flight from civil service and lessened its appeal to valuable professionals. This cultivated a policy for bypassing civil service ranking by using premiums and assigning higher ranks than customary for counterpart positions in state institutions. The Committee found that bypassing professional ranking has become a widespread phenomenon. It had tampered with public service operations, created an atmosphere of injustice, and led public sector workers in every rank to press for pay-raises. Therefore, the Committee concluded that the pace of wage-method alignment should be determined, and enforced across the public sector: in local councils, government companies, unions and companies in which the government had majority stocks and management and public institutions such as the Jewish Agency, Keren Ha’yesod, Jewish National Fund, Hadassah, the Weizmann Institute, the Hebrew University, the Technion, and public entities supported by public funds. In the beginning of June 1955, the Committee determined it was not yet ready to submit detailed recommendations to the government concerning wage gap reform. In fact, two months passed before these were submitted, and in the meantime, the Committee recommended forgoing one uniform ranking system—believing separate pay scales were the best possible route. Aharon Becker, Head of the Histadrut Trade Unions Division, addressed the Committee and presented the Histadrut’s position. He emphasized that the principle of a balanced wage system for the different professions, as well as that of equal pay for equal labor, guides the wage policy of the Histadrut.

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Becker stated that under certain circumstances this policy could be implemented even with separate pay scales for respective trades. It was preferable for the flexibility it offered, he said, and because it acknowledges the workers’ wishes to be aligned with their own professional colleagues in terms of wages (Davar June 9, 1955, 1). On August 9, 1955, following the Knesset elections (July 26 1955), the Committee submitted the second part of its recommendations to provisional government under Prime Minister Moshe Sharett. Its first recommendation was to change the cost of living wage adjustment method. At the time, the adjustment was allocated after the retail price index increased by over 201 points—in the maximal amount of 125 IL per month for overall salaries. The Committee recommended changing this ceiling to the maximum of overall salaries in every rank of civil service. The recommendation was relevant to all public services, while in other branches of the economy the decision would depend on the Histadrut, the Industrialists’ Association, and other ­employers. Its primary objective was to prevent wage erosion between the different salaries due to a cost of living adjustment that was only allocable to a portion of salaries. The Committee’s second recommendation concerned overtime. Low and mid-ranking workers (ranks 7–15) were enjoying overtime pay, while upper echelon executives or employees in parallel professional ranks were not— despite having to shoulder more responsibility, overload, and exertion. The Committee recommended that professionals in ranks 1–6 receive the following overtime stipends, which should be tax exempt: Rank 6 Executives Rank 5 Executives Rank 4 Executives Rank 3 Executives Rank 2 Executives Rank 1 Executives

20 IL per month 40 IL per month 60 IL per month 80 IL per month 100 IL per month 120 IL per month

Furthermore, the Committee recommended establishing special ranking for faculty of academic higher education institutions. The Histadrut supported the demands of the Hebrew University faculty. The Guri Committee decided that direct negotiations should be conducted between the human resources department and the administration of the institutions themselves (Commit­ tee Report Part B, LMA August 9, 1955; also Davar August 9, 1955, 1; Davar August 10, 1955, 2).

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The Sharett Government and Provisional Government Debates

Government debates on the wage issue are an important vehicle of analysis when investigating the class-centered, socio-economic, and political orientation of ministers and the parties and political organizations they represented. Debates in the governmental sphere were relatively insular compared to other spheres, and the government was also the decisive body. Therefore, its debates and voting processes are far more ‘exposed,’ revealing the true interests that the ministers are promoting and defending. The commissioning of the Guri Committee and the launch of its investigation did not quell the agitated labor relations among civil servants, nor did it mitigate wage demands, which had escalated and even morphed into active labor disputes. Matters regarding wage policy continued to preoccupy the government even after the Committee was appointed, and it was repeatedly tasked with these issues as the Committee deliberated throughout 1955. Justice Minister Pinchas Rosen reported, for instance, on the grievances of jurists in civil service (SA Jan. 30, 1955). The government was told that the legal field includes over 100 attorneys,5 most of which worked in the Justice Ministry, and several of which worked as legal advisors in other government ministries. Jurists in civil service approached Justice Minister Pinchas Rosen and asked that their wages be aligned with those of physicians or judges. Rosen was not only the Minister who supervised them, but also leader of the Progressive Party—whose target-audience was white-collar workers. According to Rosen’s report, jurists complained that their pay was unsuitable, which they substantiated by claiming that the State Attorney, in his senior position, earns less than a magistrate judge. State Services Commissioner David Rosolio wrote a letter in which he recommended the government discuss this as part of the overall wage issue concerning whitecollar workers and executives. He reminded government members about the State’s incentive to maintain its agreements with as many trade associations as possible, and to avoid negotiating with multiple professional groups. Justice Minister Pinchas Rosen on the other hand, stated that an ad-hoc committee should be established to represent the judiciary service professionals; even if it operates in parallel to the public committee headed by Yisrael Guri. Labor Minister Golda Meyerson (Meir) of MAPAI objected: “This is out of the question, jurists should be referred to the Guri Committee so it can hear 5  However, the Guri Committee was told there were 177 employees in judiciary service. See below in the current chapter.

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them, express their opinion, and wait patiently for the Committee to say its piece (authors’ emphasis)” (SA Jan. 30, 1955). Meyerson believed that every white-collar profession would eventually seek representation vis-à-vis the government, which would make the entire governmental wage system disintegrate. MAPAI Minister of Development Dov Yosef supported her position, and was particularly dismayed that all professional coteries were threatening to strike and tamper with important public services. Health Minister Yosef Serlin of the General Zionists responded to Meyerson and Yosef with a disparaging tone. It was best, he said, that the government avoid adopting too strong of an initial stance, only to end up making agreements with the strikers, which he said had happened with the physicians. It is therefore best to negotiate with the jurists and prevent a strike. Finance Minister Levi Eshkol of MAPAI supported Meyerson and Yosef’s vehement approach (SA Jan. 30, 1955). Hovering over these debates and David Rosolio’s letter was the matter of the Histadrut’s representation of civil servants. MAPAI ministers Meir, Yosef, and Eshkol supported the Histadrut, while ministers to the right of MAPAI, Rosen and even more so Serlin, were not committed to preserving the Histadrut’s status. However the government had its own incentive to conduct centralized negotiations with the Histadrut. Following these remarks, Commissioner Rosolio addressed the issue of the Histadrut’s status in a brief on labor relations in the public sector. He stated that the contract between the government and the Histadrut from 1949 determined that the Civil Servants’ Association and the Histadrut to which it belonged, would represent civil servants in negotiations on labor wage conditions vis-à-vis the government. In January 1955, debates were held on the civil service law proposal at the Knesset Labor Committee, and specific clauses were drafted indicating the link between the Civil Servants’ Association and the Histadrut. Physicians were the only exception to the rule. They achieved unique status through an agreement with the Histadrut, which the government supported. In light of this labor contract, stated Rosolio, the State Services Commission does not conduct separate negotiations with organizations on wage and labor issues. Occasionally, however, the Civil Servants’ Association or the Histadrut decided to include representatives of a certain trade in negotiations, to which the government did not oppose. The nurses’ representative, for instance, attends all negotiations regarding nurses’ work hours alongside the Civil Servants’ Association and the Histadrut representatives. Rosolio went on to claim that the Guri Committee was established to address the ranking and operation of civil servants, including jurists, and the

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different trade associations had come to present their case. He emphasized that, “The government decided a year ago there would be no change to civil service salaries during the year of investigation (i.e. Guri Committee operation)” (SA Jan. 30, 1955). Rosolio therefore asked that the government postpone the jurists and Rosen’s request and await the Guri Committee conclusions. In response, Pinchas Rosen objected to a discriminatory government approach to different groups of civil servants; for instance, income tax clerks’ wages had been increased. Rosen stated that his only wish was to prevent what he believed was a justified strike among jurists: I believe that generally, our wage policy is not a good one…. Once again, we are losing two of our best jurists. They joined us as young attorneys, Vince [?] and Negbi. After we have invested 20,000 IL in them over five-six years, [and] they have each become specialists in their field and highly successful jurists—they are leaving civil service due to a 50–100 IL monthly wage gap…. They claim they cannot get by on the salary they earn. SA Jan. 30, 1955

Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Moshe Sharett refused to meet the jurists’ representatives, fearing this would undermine the Guri Committee’s authority. However, the government decided the Prime Minister would summon State Attorney Collin Gluckmann (Gillon) along with several of his jurist colleagues, and relay the government’s position on their demands. Two weeks later, Rosen reported to the government that jurists in civil service were to conduct a three-day warning strike as of the following morning. Incoming Defense Minister David Ben-Gurion suggested that strike days be deducted from their pay. It was decided to attempt stalling the strike until Finance Minister Eshkol returned to Israel (SA Feb. 12, 1955).6 Along with the demands of jurists in civil service, the Nurses’ Association threatened to strike in demand of special compensation for working on Shabbat and holidays, in-line with the Knesset law on working hours and vacation days. The desired compensation amounted to ½ million IL. The government rejected this demand and began working to amend the law. Two additional demands by the nurses concerned reduced working hours during the summer and at night. This demand required an additional 120 nurses, 6  The government decided to appoint a ministerial committee to discuss matters with jurists in order to prevent further disruption, but on April 14 it had yet to be established, and Rosen was promised it would be (SA April 14, 1955).

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which meant expanding the budget by 170–220 thousand IL. Nurses claimed that electricians who worked the night shift at the hospitals worked six-hour days and were only there to repair sporadic issues, and nurses were worked longer hours than them (SA Jan. 30, 1955). Labor Minister Meyerson responded angrily to the nurses’ demands, claiming that many of them had completed their studies around the age of 21 or 22, and by 26 or 27 would begin, according to their demands, working sevenhour shifts. They had not paid tuition for their studies and received gradually increasing wage adjustments. They may work over the course of their studies, but she believed it was unjustified for a young nurse to work a mere six or seven-hour shift. “I told the nurses, and the Histadrut representatives,” she said, “that if they prove there is one single case in the world where nurses get such conditions, I take it upon myself to make sure they receive them as well.” Golda Meyerson said she had been hospitalized in Switzerland the previous summer, and the two nurses in the department each worked a 12–hour shift, while in the United States nurses worked eight-hour shifts. One of the issues raised in the discussion on nurses’ salaries was that, “Whoever receives funding from the government, cannot give his employees better conditions than the civil servants get.” This was stated in reference to hospitals such as those of the Histadrut’s Kupat Holim or Assutah, who had begun compensating nurses with higher wages than the government paid its workers. Minister of Welfare and Religious Affairs Moshe Shapira of the Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi religious party suggested giving the Tel-Aviv Municipality an ultimatum—if it pays nurses higher salaries than those of State hospitals, the State will discontinue its 500 IL per bed contribution. Shapira stated that if the Histadrut did not pay Kupat Holim physicians a higher wage than that of physicians in civil service, “We could object to the demands of civil service physicians.” He believed that competing against employers who were not under the government’s authority could spur deficits “That we cannot in any way withstand.” Therefore, he stated, “We must sit with the Small Council [of the Histadrut] and find a way to get out of this crisis. Because this is not our crisis alone, but theirs as well.” As the debate concluded, it was decided that nurses’ demands would be rejected and that the State Services Commissioner would inform them of the fact. Additional wage demands discussed during the government meeting at the end of January 1955 included the Haifa port workers’ request that their wages be aligned with those at the Jaffa port. The gaps between the two reached 50–80 IL. Interior Minister Yisrael Rokach of the General Zionists told the ministers that the demands for wage alignment were accompanied by slowdown strikes at the Haifa port. These included ceasing overtime work and assembly during

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work hours, which were now limited to 5–hour shifts (SA Jan. 30, 1955). The Jaffa port was administratively separated from the Tel-Aviv port in 1953, but its wage practices had remained congruent with the Tel-Aviv port and were incomparably better than salaries in Haifa. Its workers received a 13th salary (additional salary at the end of the year) and other premiums. The highest salaries at the Jaffa port reached up to 350 IL and upwards of 500 IL per month and were higher than those of senior government officials. The State Services Commission dismissed the option of a 13th salary, but agreed to discuss premiums for workers in typical maritime professions—longshoremen, porters, and the like—as long as this does not lead to demands from other workers. However, the Haifa port workers’ demands were also made on behalf of managers, stock keepers, and even clerks, to which the State Services Commission objected. The Commission assumed that complying with such demands meant that Public Works Authority and railway employees would also request wage alignment and were in fact “sitting on the fence,” waiting to see the results of the Haifa port wage struggle. Labor Minister Meyerson claimed that the salaries distributed at the TelAviv port were unrealistic to begin with, and Moshe Sharett responded that it was a “spoiled” port. Meyerson cited a wage premium called “the first bag of cement,” stating that this ‘bag’ cost the Israeli state millions. The ministers discussed the fact that although there were 17 monthly workdays at the port, its workers receive a full month’s salary for 25 workdays. Pinchas Lavon stated that uniform labor conditions must be established for all Israeli port workers. Facing threats by jurists, physicians, nurses, and Haifa port workers, he said to the ministers, “Do not be such cowards.” Meyerson on the other hand, asserted that, “We are not that strong facing the Haifa port workers” and the government does not have an answer for why they should be paid less for doing the same job (SA Jan. 30, 1955). One month prior to the submission of Guri Committee’s preliminary conclusions, Finance Minister Levi Eshkol acted first and alerted the government of worrisome developments that might be incited by the Committee’s impending conclusions. He began preparing to obstruct implementation before the conclusions were even submitted, requesting a special government meeting. There, he called the attention of his government colleagues to the possible outcomes of implementing the Guri recommendations. These could be, he said, “an additional obstacle to our [ability] to prevent inflation, which every expert—from Finance Ministry officials to the Bank of Israel Governor to [Eliezer] Hoffien [the director of Leumi Bank]—warns us of daily. They are discussing savings, cutbacks, while we are to give tens of thousands of workers more money to spend. Distributing millions of IL for thousands, and hundreds

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of thousands to spend in the Israeli market, is bound to have some type of consequence” (SA, Jan. 30, 1955). Justice Minister and Progressive Party leader Pinchas Rosen objected to this approach and claimed that pay raises for the upper five echelons of civil service would not cause inflation, as this was a limited coterie of workers. “I do not believe it for a second,” responded Labor Minister and one of Mapai’s main leaders Golda Meyerson. Her statement was not unfounded, as she was closely tied with the Trade Unions Division of the Histadrut. The divergence in government positions was already evident during this debate: MAPAI ministers on one side, and General Zionists ministers and Progressive Party leader on the other. The majority of the government voted against the four right-center ministers, rejecting the General Zionists suggestion to implement wage reforms as of April 1, 1955, which would have meant retroactive compensations for previous months. Furthermore, the government would demand that workers cease any disturbance of routine operation in their workplace until the Guri Committee submits its conclusions to the government. Lastly, the ministers decided that the government would address the Guri recommendations immediately upon their submission and determine the date of their implementation, meaning, the extent to which they would be implemented in the 1955/56 fiscal year (SA Jan. 30, 1955). The government convened to discuss the preliminary Guri Committee recommendations on June 12, 1955. The meeting began with State Services Commissioner David Rosolio’s analysis of the recommendations (SA Govern­ ment Meeting, June 12, 1955). The Commissioner presented three fundamental questions facing the Committee. First, which ranking method was optimal for civil servants—uniform ranking across all trades and workers, or professional ranking for different trades. Second, whether it was necessary to reform the uniform as well as separate pay scales that include the physicians, engineers, and jurists. Third, was it possible or desirable to implement uniform wage practices and ranking across the entire public sector—including the ministries, local councils, unions, state-owned businesses, Zionist institutions, and other public enterprises. In response to these dilemmas, the Committee recommended establishing eight different pay scales: for general directors, physicians, engineers, jurists, nurses and social workers, teachers, policemen and standing army personnel. The Committee recommended that each ranked profession have its own national trade association or union in order to prevent the kind of competition between trade associations that can lead to disorder and special demands. It further recommended that wages be made uniform across the public sector,

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and that different salaries for identical work in the public sector should be prohibited. This recommendation should be implemented, they stated, by establishing a supervisory institution. It will ensure, for instance, that the various municipalities distribute equal pay to the different ranks that would eventually be established. The Guri Committee’s preliminary recommendations were unanimously approved. Among other things, they determined that the white-collar workers’ complaint regarding wage-gap erosion was corroborated by tables reflecting changes in overall wages between 1948 and 1954 in absolute numbers and percentages.They also reflected salary shifts due to family status: single workers, married workers, and those with families consisting of three, four, and five children. Rosolio explained that the Committee felt unable to reach a general conclusion on desirable wage gaps between the lowest and highest professional ranks. It named three reasons for this: (i) there was no objective rationale on which to base an ‘optimal’ wage gap (ii) the decision hinged on social precepts, which are not for the Committee to impose (ii) projections of Israel’s financial capacity in the coming years were inconsistent and were not fully presented to the Committee. One of the Committee’s significant conclusions was that citing broader wage-gaps in other countries was irrelevant, as the socio-economic status of Israel was entirely distinct. It therefore discounted various groups that substantiated wage-gap demands by using international examples. Therefore, the Committee’s initial conclusion was that the government must first decide whether to adopt the ranking system the Guri Committee proposed, as well as its recommended wage reforms. It is only if the government adopts these initial recommendations, they said, that the Guri Committee will reconvene and submit a “detailed proposal concerning wage amendments no later than two months from the time of this submission” (SA June 12, 1955). Therefore, based on the Committee’s June recommendations, new wage gaps would not be determined until August or September of 1955. Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Sharett summarized the initial recommendations as follows: gaps should be expanded; the government must decide immediately when public sector wage reforms will be implemented; the Committee will devise a concrete implementation strategy based on the government’s decision. Defense Minister David Ben-Gurion, MAPAI’s candidate for Prime Minister in the upcoming elections, asked whether the current government’s decision obligates the next elected governmen. He suggested postponing a ruling on wage gaps until after the elections. Minister of Transportation Yosef Sapir of the

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General Zionists and Prime Minister Sharett on the other hand, believed the effective date of wage reforms should be determined in current fiscal year, in order to prevent the ‘working intelligentsia’ from striking. Interior Minister Yisrael Rokach of the General Zionists objected to the Guri Committee conclusions. It had deliberated for nearly a year and a half without fulfilling its duties, he said, and contradicted the Govrin Committee decision to establish uniform ranking: This is simply an evasion, everyone is going to be involved in the elections, and the Committee will resume operations at the end of August or September (Prime-Minister Sharett: Mr. Guri is not involved with the elections). The best-case scenario is that they would finish by the end of September or October. This means we will have a final conclusion over a year and a half after deciding to appoint a public committee. It would be unjust to postpone our decision until then. I propose making April 1, 1955 the effective date for amending salaries. SA June 12, 1955

Two days later, the government continued to discuss the initial Guri Commit­ tee recommendations (SA Government Meeting, June 14, 1955). Right and center government ministers were displeased with the Committee’s preliminary conclusions. Much like Interior Minister Rokach, fellow leader of the General Zionists Transportation Minister Yosef Sapir, felt that the Committee had not functioned properly. There was no need for it to detect whether there was a problem with current wage gaps, he said—the government had already concluded this was the case. In light of Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Sharett’s summary, the government adopted the Committee’s three recommendations: to establish five different pay scales (with an additional three for teachers, pre-school teachers, and military personnel), to expand wage gaps, and to prolong the Committee’s operation for an additional two months. Regarding the effective date of compensations, Sharett suggested August 1, 1955, in order to prevent an inflationary whirlpool. Itwas four months later than the date suggested by General Zionists ministers in the previous government meeting. Finance Minister Eshkol proposed October 1, saying to Rokach, “You probably remember that in winter of last year we eagerly awaited a ship delivering wheat.” Economic conditions have improved somewhat, “… and our stock is now full,” said the Finance Minister. Nonetheless, he announced, he regularly distributes delayed salaries to ensure at least a one-month fiscal surplus of 50 million IL, does not pay contractors on time, and cannot honor payment dates for Jewish

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Agency promissory notes. Additionally, there is no exact distribution date for government salaries, and at times, public works employees are not accurately compensated. “This is a recipe for disaster,” he stated (SA June 14, 1955). Transportation Minister Yosef Sapir asserted “… We [government members] know that the inter-rank wage gaps is unjust and must be fixed…. The demand to repair the gaps is perpetual. One thing is certain: if we fix the gaps, it must be sooner rather than later. I do not know what the final suggestions will be regarding pay scales, I do not know what each rank in each scale would be, but it is clear to me that the higher ranks will earn more in order to mend the discrimination they have suffered over the years…. This is years-long discrimination, which we recognize and can fix,” said the General Zionists representative (SA June 14, 1955). Labor Minister Golda Meyerson of MAPAI claimed that upon the State’s establishment, uniform ranking was instituted for all civil servants and that gradually, due to strikes and disputes, the physicians and engineers were excluded from it. This is why the Guri Committee was appointed—to regulate salaries comprised of basic wages, seniority premiums, family premiums, and rank—and not in order to expand wage gaps. Adding “a new shmendrik called wage gap” is a “real disaster,” Said Meyerson…. “I will not accept discrimination, maltreatment, and injustice,” she sated vehemently, adding that the gap between an unskilled and skilled worker in the construction field was marginal and negligible. “I am not sure whether government members know that the gap between a simple laborer and the top ranking laborer is precisely eight hundred pruta, no more. Construction workers have been outraged for years, at least one and a half years, exclaiming that it is unbearable …”. Meyerson had implicitly revealed her own struggle with the veteran construction workers, mostly comprised of skilled Ashkenazi workers. They demanded higher wages than simple construction workers, the majority of whom were new immigrants from Muslim countries (SA June 14, 1955). In response to the ‘left-leaning’ MAPAI leader, Head of the Progressive Party Justice Minister Pinchas Rosen stated that anyone who has read the Guri report knows that, “what they ultimately propose will be a very small increase.” The Committee does not seek to define what a “decent” quality of life consists of, he said. It is to be expected that its conclusions will not be satisfactory to officials in general and certainly not to the senior executives. Disappointment was also discernible in statements made by General Zionists leader Minister of Trade and Industry Peretz Bernstein. As the discussion came to an end, the ministers decided that the Guri recommendations would be effective as of August 1, 1955 rather than April 1, which meant dismissing the General Zionists’ demands (SA, June 14, 1955).

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It was not merely the right-wing leaders of the General Zionists and the center Progressive Party who were displeased with the Committee’s preliminary conclusions or the government’s decisions. The recommendations did not include an effective increase of higher-ranking civil servants’ salaries, nor a wage increase for the professional pay scales the Committee recommended establishing. They did not include the desired wage gap between ranks, nor a reliable system for maintaining the gap and preventing its erosion with cost of living wage adjustments. The government decisions did not commit to a wage increase or a wage-gap maintenance system either. It was therefore quite predictable that mounting disquiet continued to surround the issue of employment conditions offered by the government to physicians, engineers, white-collar workers in civil service, and senior executives. The government debates held toward the end of Sharett’s brief term as Prime Minister reflected the support that these professional echelons received from the right and center political wings. Several days after submission of the initial Guri conclusions, Sharett reported to the government on his meeting with the State Physicians’ Association representatives, which included Finance Minister Levi Eshkol and Interior Minister Yisrael Rokach as substitute for Health Minister Yosef Serlin (SA Government Meeting, June 19, 1955). During the meeting, the three attempted to sway the physicians from sanctions or shutting down the medical system several days before the July 26 elections, and tried convincing them to accept the government decision to amend wage gaps as of August 1, 1955. However, the State Physicians’ Association representatives demanded that the government change its decision, and expected advance and retroactive payments congruent with the wage increase that would be implemented. Finance Minister Eshkol replied that he was only willing to distribute loans to physicians based on the promised wage increase, and deduct 5–10 IL from their salary in the months following. This was the only way to avoid exceeding the scope of the budget, he said. Prime Minister Sharett was concerned that the physicians’ demands could lead to “A dangerous destabilization of the entire national wage system” and noted that as far as he was concerned, he had led a “liberal step” toward them on the government’s part. Nevertheless, reported Sharett, the IMA had decided to declare a strike, though not a comprehensive strike. There was also agitation, he reported, among the senior officials and he had had to conduct two lengthy, unofficial conversations with Finance Minster Levi Eshkol in order to prevent a strike among them as well. Interior Minister and substitute Health Minister Yisrael Rokach reported that physicians have decided to work seven-hour shifts only. He also shared that clinics under the State have remained closed, which primarily affects

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childhood illnesses. Defense Minister Ben-Gurion interjected and asked whether these were children of the veteran yishuv or from the new immigrant communities. Rokach replied that conditions were worse in the immigrant transit camps, with the most prevalent affliction being dehydration: “They are not accepting new patients, only disasters [emergencies] and children. I do not want to use the word disaster, but the situation is dire” (SA June 19, 1955). The physicians’ slowdown strike has persisted for eight days and “its consequences are increasingly severe,” reported Sharett to the government a week later. Now, The Hebrew University professors have joined with a strike of their own, which could tamper with semester exams (SA June 26, 1955). Heavy clouds began gathering over the government, and the unstable labor relations gradually assumed the form of a class-centered dispute between the government and the middle-high class in the public sector. About 20 of the white-collar trade associations were now organized in a coordination committee meant to orchestrate their joint struggle. Sharett relayed to the government that the Hadassah Association had decided to give significant wage increases to its physicians in Israel, without consulting with government representatives. The professors’ strike at the University was a result of Hadassah’s decision, as the faculty of medicine—university workers in every respect—were now earning 50% more than other faculties directly from Hadassah. Members of the academic faculty were at an uproar and unanimously decided to launch a comprehensive strike. The Weizmann Science Institute, whose budget was also government supported, decided to independently increase the wages of its academic faculty. This did nothing to encourage a spirit of compromise among the physicians, reported Sharett, and neither did physicians’ claims that the government had cheated them out of the increase it committed to implementing as of April 1, 1955. The aforementioned coordination committee expressed embitterment regarding the preliminary Guri Committee, claiming it was in fact futile. Therefore, the associations it represented were now ready to declare a general strike in the public sector on June 27, 1955, to demand that wage reforms be implemented as of April 1, 1955 as promised. To complete the picture of the class-oriented confrontation at hand, Sharett told ministers that the Histadrut had begun negotiating with the government and asked, first and foremost, that the Guri Committee complete its duties by the beginning of August 1955. Secondly, it asked the government to try and discuss its conclusion immediately upon the report’s submission. Third, that it agree to resume discussions on the implementation date based on proposals submitted by civil servants’ representatives (SA, June 26, 1955). Sharett did not mention the demands of the various associations under the Histadrut. However, it was abundantly clear that the Civil Servants’ Association (overseen

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by the Histadrut) was bound to demand pay raises for officials and other lowerranking civil servants. According to Labor Minister Golda Meyerson, the act of forming a coordination committee for white-collar associations in the public sector was “devoid of any moral validity.” It meant, she said, assembling salaried physicians in civil service along with private physicians and hospital directors, and designating them as the arbiters of what salaried physicians should demand from the government and whether or not they should strike. Some of the private architects—such as the accomplished Sharon and Rechter, who sit in large offices and oversee many employees—are taking part in the decision to declare strike among engineers in civil service. “What a mess of elementary concepts, of common decency …,” fumed Meyerson. MAPAI ministers were not deterred by the upcoming elections, and the government rejected a suggestion made by General Zionists ministers Rokach and Sapir to rush the effective date of the Guri recommendations—by majority versus three. They also rejected the proposal made by Progressive Party leader Rosen to distribute advance payments to the physicians or any other professional group (SA June 26, 1955).

…

Three days later, Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Moshe Sharett resigned from his role, which meant the effective resignation of the entire government. Sharett resigned due to the refusal of the four General Zionists ministers to resign themselves. Peretz Bernstein, Yisrael Rokach, Yosef Serlin, and Yosef Sapir, had abstained from the no-confidence motion against the government following the Kastner Affair, which significantly weakened the Sharett government. The Prime Minister did not have the legal authority to fire ministers at the time, and therefore had to resign and establish a new coalition in order to exclude them from the government. MAPAI, however, had already decided to reinstate Ben-Gurion as prime minister in place of Sharett. Thus, the new government established by Sharett at the time was actually a provisional government leading up to the Knesset elections to be held one month following its establishment on July 26, 1955. However, the establishment of the new elected government was delayed until the beginning of November 1955, and thus, the Sharett-led government was instated for almost six additional months. The provisional government began operating without the General Zionists ministers and in the shadows of unstable labor relations in the public sector. Minister of Development Dov Yosef was now appointed Health Minister as

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well. He reported to the government in the beginning of July about the ongoing, tense negotiations with State Physicians’ Association in light of the sanctions it had launched (which they called a ‘passive strike’ that meant limiting their workday to only seven hours). He announced to physicians’ representatives that no self-respecting government would commit to substantial concessions three weeks before elections. “I found them to be highly embittered that the government dragged them along for two years,” he said. Yosef told them he would stand by his obligation to ensure accessible medical services, even by employing 50 additional physicians in light of the sanctions. In turn, they threatened to prevent new physicians from performing their duties, to which Yosef replied that they would be violating their own commitments. He further threatened to instruct hospital departments to operate under nurses’ supervision only, while following physicians’ instructions. The physicians’ representatives replied that a hospital cannot operate at night without a physician present, to which Yosef answered that one physician would be present so that the hospital could remain open. Yosef informed the ministers he was planning to meet with physicians’ representatives again in the afternoon. He promised to make no financial commitments nor offer anything that would obligate the government (SA July 3, 1955).7 The government sensed that physicians were no longer counting on the Guri conclusions, believing they would lead to a very limited pay raise of 15–20 IL in net salaries. Dov Yosef therefore concluded that, “We are facing a challenging situation, even if the results of the Guri Committee turn out to be more or less in their favor.” Meyerson, however, refused to be alarmed: “[The situation] is not so serious, if the Kupat Holim physicians strike—the [Histadrut’s] Kupat Holim will refund any payment for care provided by private physicians based on receipts, and it will be no great disaster. Just avoid any agitation, panic, or groveling to Avigdori [IMA Chairman]” (SA July 17, 1955).

The Sharett Government’s Partial Approval of the Guri Committee Recommendations

In August, the provisionary government convened in order to discuss the final Guri Committee report, three days following its submission (SA, August 11, 1955). The discussion opened with an analysis of the report by State Services

7  S A July 3, 1955. For more reports by Yosef, Rosen, and State Secretary Ze’ev Sherf on the slowdown strike and contact with jurists and senior executives, see (SA July 17, 1955).

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Commissioner David Rosolio. He stated that the gross salary of high-ranking civil servants “does not increase by much” based on the recommendations. Rosolio believed the Committee had reached an important conclusion: overall compensation should replace any other special premium allocated by the government rather than add to it. This was particularly applicable to government-owned businesses that typically distribute special premiums to their employees. Another significant conclusion the Committee reached, explained Rosolio, was that lower ranking civil servants were not eligible for a wage increase, but only high-ranking civil servants. Statistics submitted to the Committee by Professor Roberto Bachi on the salaries of officials in national and State institutions, indicated that since 1939, the real wages of low-ranking civil servants increased by 30–50%, while in the higher ranks it had decreased by 30%. The recommendations for ranks 1–6 were relevant to high-ranking police officers as well. The Committee suggested a salary increase among all lowerranking officers and policeman by one pay grade. According to Rosolio, the Committee did not agree to pay raises in the lowest four ranks of army officers by two pay grades, as this was the domain of the IDF. It deferred this decision to a committee comprised of Defense Ministry and Police Ministry representatives and the State Services Commissioner. The Guri Committee concluded there were no issues pertaining to army personnel wages, and suggested they be considered by the Defense Minister. The Committee did not propose wage reforms for teachers, pre-school teachers, nurses, and social workers. “The problem with the teachers is highly complex and demands research,” said Rosolio. For this reason, the Committee left the matter up to negotiations between the Ministry of Education and the teachers, and between the relevant government ministries and representatives of the pre-school teachers, nurses, and social workers. The Committee also proposed that the salaries of higher education workers be negotiated with the relevant administrative bodies. Rosolio stated that the recommendations were applicable to physicians’ wages as well. Additionally, the Committee determined that the internal structure of physicians’ ranking system demanded reform. In reply to the ministers’ subsequent questions, Rosolio said that physicians’ occupational premiums would remain as they are, seniority premiums would be discussed as part of the debate on reforming the internal ranking system, and there would be no overtime pay, according to the Committee’s recommendations. Special tax breaks, which had been temporarily implemented leading up to the report’s submission, would be eliminated according to Government Secretary and State Revenue Supervisor Ze’ev Sherf. Only professional literature in the amount of

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240 IL will be tax exempt. Development and Health Minister Dov Yosef commented that an executive officer will receive a 120 IL increase, which was more than physicians would receive, as they were no longer eligible for the previous tax breaks. Rosolio further reported that the Guri Committee demanded alignment between government-business wages and civil service wages. Although the Committee had not addressed the matter of a ‘gap’ between ranks or professions, Rosolio compared the current wage gap and the new gap bound to form should the recommendations be adopted: With regards to the wages of single employees without seniority, the gap at gross salary is currently 1:1.7, and 1:2.25 at net salary, while the Committee-recommended gap would be 1:4 at gross salary and 1:3.15 at net salary. This would be achieved by lowering gross salary and increasing net salary. With regard to the wage of married employees with two children and no seniority, the gross salary gap is currently 1:2.2 and the net salary gap 1:1.95. Following the changes recommended by the Committee it will be 1:3.44 at gross salary and 1:2.72 at net salary (SA August 11, 1955). Rosolio’s summary omitted an important recommendation by the Com­ mittee: to amend the 125 IL cost of living allowance ceiling, in order to limit the future erosion of high public sector salaries relative to blue-collar salaries, most of which did not exceed the 125 IL ceiling (LMA Jan. 20, 1954; also Ma’ariv August 8, 1955; Ma’ariv August 22, 1955). After his report, Rosolio summarized the subjects on the government’s agenda as follows: to approve or dismiss the recommendations; to defer implementation to the State Services Commission; to determine an effective date for configuring pay raises based on the recommendations; to determine whether to distribute advance payments in August congruent with the pay raises; to appoint a designated body for coordination and oversight of salaries in government businesses and public institutions (SA August, 11, 1955). Sharett reported to the ministers that prior to the report’s submission, he had received a blunt letter from physicians instructing the government on what to do, and how to do what was asked of it. Once the report was published, they sent another letter that he claimed “aligned itself” more or less with the recommendations (it seems Sharett was in fact mistaken about this).8 The letter demanded special ranking for physicians and announced that they will not 8  By now Rosolio had shown the ministers that in their letter to Sharett they demanded higher raises than the Guri Committee offered. Sharett was therefore inaccurate in his impression, and the physicians did not initially accept the Guri Committee recommendations. It was only later, toward the end of 1955 and beginning of 1956 that they focused on defending these in the face of Eshkol’s attempts to cut them back as well.

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accept being ranked within the comprehensive civil service ranking system (SA August 11, 1955). The white-collar representatives, physicians especially, reacted negatively to the Guri recommendations (Ma’ariv August 9, 1955a; Ma’ariv August 9, 1955b). Physicians in civil service threatened to collectively resign, and began fighting to significantly improve the recommendations along with representatives of senior executives and engineers (Ma’ariv August 17, 1955).9 Rosolio responded to Sharett’s report on the physicians’ letters by refuting the claim that physicians had been included in the comprehensive civil service ranking, as the Committee explicitly stated that the internal structure of physicians’ ranking must be changed. The Committee had indeed concluded that physicians should be ranked within “… the framework of the other professional and executive rankings of civil servants (high-ranking civil servants).” Rosolio explained that the “Committee was therefore expressing it did not believe discrimination to (high ranking) physicians’ advantage was justified” (SA August 11, 1955). However, “The Committee did not discount the possibility of higher internal ranking than that of the other ranking systems.” He agreed with the physicians that between April 1 and October 1 of 1953, they earned much higher salaries than senior executive officers. “… This is precisely why the government has amended the executive (high ranking) salaries and postponed conclusions regarding the physicians’ demands at this time,” he stated. Rosolio added that the physicians’ letter ignored the significant premiums some received between 1954–1955, when, following their demands, the wages of physicians in civil service was aligned with that of Kupat Holim physicians. He concluded by stating that physicians’ demands in the letter to Sharett were highly incompatible with the Guri recommendations (SA August 11, 1955). In reply to a question posed by Dov Yosef, Rosolio explained that a physician who received an 80 IL increase last year would not receive an additional 100 IL increase but only the difference—an additional 20 IL. Whomever had not received the increase will now be compensated in full. Rosolio explained the dynamics of physicians’ demands: “The physicians started a cycle and the executives have finished it, and now the physicians want to start a second cycle.” If the Guri recommendations are applied to physicians’ ranking and compared to current executive ranking, said Rosolio, it appears that the highest paid physician would earn the same as a ‘rank one’ executive. A beginning physician earns less than a ‘rank six’ salary and more than a ‘rank five’ salary in the executive ranking system.

9  The government suggested setting 9 pay grades with a net wage of 210 IL–50 IL. Physicians demanded only 6 pay-grades be set with a net wage of 260 IL–495 IL.

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The senior executives and white-collar workers in civil service also wrote to the Prime Minister with three comments on the report. First, they claimed, section one of the report stated that the gap in basic wages should expand while section two contradicted the idea. Furthermore, the basic wage was left unchanged and wage amendments were made in the form of cost of living adjustments and “overall compensation.” Second, they wrote that the matter of “… a tax-exempt increased cost of living wage adjustment” was not addressed. Third, they wrote that suggested amendments of the different professional ranks were not delineated—including the physicians’ ranking system and that of the higher education staff—but only the executive ranks. They felt that while physicians and lecturers had room to negotiate additional pay raises, an impenetrable ceiling had been placed on potential salary increase for the ­executives (SA August 11, 1955). Nevertheless, stated Rosolio, unlike the physicians, senior executives and other white-collar workers in civil service (jurists, engineers, economists, and others), while having mixed feelings about the recommendations— accept them. He addressed their complaints in their letter to Sharett. Firstly, he stated that the Guri Committee recommendations did not address the issue of a basic wage gap between the lower and higher ranks as it had learned that future inflation would alter the gap. That is why it had suggested a cost of living wage adjustment applicable to overall basic wages in order to maintain the gap. He claimed that this method serves the executives and white-collar workers. Secondly, the Committee assumed the cost of living adjustment would be tax exempt, while overall compensation would be taxed as usual. Third, he agreed to the letter’s statement that recommendations regarding physicians and university lecturers’ wage increase were not concrete, and left this matter to be negotiated under the general guidelines the Committee proposed. In government discussions on the Guri recommendations, two MAPAI ministers, the two future prime ministers Finance Minister Levi Eshkol and Labor Minister Golda Meyerson, stood alone in outright objection to the Committee’s conclusions. On the other end of the discussion stood the Progressive Party leader. In the absence of the four right-wing ministers from the General Zionists, Rosen expressed his support of the Guri recommendations, but was somewhat disappointed with the increase they proposed for senior officials and white-collar workers in civil service. Most ministers under Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Sharett tended to support the recommendations and merely expressed different reservations. Postal Services Minister Yosef Burg (of Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi) objected to the fact that the family status premium was smaller for the higher earners. This position characterized him and his party leader, Interior and Religious Affairs

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Minister Moshe Shapira, throughout the discussions: reserved support of wage gap expansion between senior executives and white-collar workers and the lower ranks. Development and Health Minister Dov Yosef of MAPAI warned that the physicians and jurists would not accept the Committee’s decision to deduct previous allocations from the proposed wage increase. He suggested that the government allow physicians to negotiate the more vague aspects of the Guri recommendations. On the matter of government-owned businesses (many of which were under his authority in the Development Ministry), Yosef commented that there was competition between governmental and private businesses, and at times, partnerships between the two, and that both scenarios require alignment with private economical practices. A clerk in a government owned company compares himself to a clerk in a private company rather than a clerk in government administration (SA August 11, 1955). Finance Minister Levi Eshkol of MAPAI confronted the recommendations head-on: “I am a bit depressed…. This is a real and significant blow to our economy. This report includes 20,000 to 80,000 workers. ‘What I have feared or what we have feared has come upon us.’” He further stated that he does not believe this matter would remain limited to these tens of thousands of civil servants: “The first telegram the Prime Minister received [following publication of the Guri report, was] from civil servants in ranks 7–14,” meaning the lower ranks. Eshkol was already feeling the Civil Servants’ Association of the Histadrut breathing down his neck. There is sure to be an upward surge of wages at large, said Eshkol, as Development and Health Minister Dov Yosef states that physicians would not find the Committee recommendations sufficient and demand more. Eshkol disagreed with the distinction between civil service and government businesses: “If this is the salary a general director receives, it should be enough at the quarries or … at Mekorot.” He dismissed the fear that workers would resign from civil service, and ruled out the option of tax exemption for physicians’ professional literature, as he worried other workers would demand the same. Immediately following publication of the report, the gold and dollar rates increased—“where are we to get this money?” he asked. He said the following in an attack on the Sharett government, in which he himself served as Finance Minister: To ask me [as Minister of Education Ben-Zion Dinur of MAPAI had] what I have to offer is futile. If a thoughtful and united government was operating three months ago, we would not have gotten to this point. We certainly would not be hearing physicians declare that if we do not meet their demands, they will collectively resign. It should at least be noted

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that we have found ourselves at a very dangerous crossroads. Whatever will be, will be, we will see…. We have to settle at least 50 thousand Jews [from Morocco]. I have to invest a million to a million and a half for every thousand people, not to integrate them into the workforce and economy, but just in order to build them a shack or a home and employ them in public works, as the market is unable to absorb them organically. SA August 11, 1955

One can sense the deep concern Eshkol felt—as well as an implicit bitterness over lack of support from Prime Minister Sharett, who swayed in favor of expanding wage gaps in civil service. As we will later see, the change in prime ministers in November gave Eshkol a free hand to object to the recommendations, which he believed had extremely dangerous implications. On the other end of the governmental dispute, the Progressive Party leader Justice Minister Pinchas Rosen had entirely different concerns regarding the report. He believed the gap that would form between the highest and lowest rank in light of the recommendations, 1:1.27 at net salary, was insufficient. Rosen claimed that, “The Committee neglected to state that a clear distinction must be made between the high ranking officials and low ranking officials, as it did not find the courage to say: they are getting this raise because they belong to the higher ranks.” Without this principle distinction, indeed, “everyone will eventually make demands.” During the exchange between Eshkol and Rosen, Eshkol explained that the damage of fulfilling recommendations that were applicable to 70,000–80,000 workers was not merely spending 15 million IL, but also increasing consumer demand by 15 million IL. Even Pinchas Rosen stated that physicians’ demand that 90% of them receive a similar wage to that of a 2nd rank civil servant is highly problematic. 1,800 of 2,000 salaried physicians wished to be aligned with a rank currently comprised of 50–60 civil servants. He justified their demands for new ranking, but did not support the physicians being placed in the highest ranks. It was clear to him too, that physicians’ demands far exceeded the Guri Committee recommendations (SA August 11, 1955). Minister of Agriculture and Trade and Industry Peretz Naphtali of MAPAI, supported the warnings issued by Eshkol regarding an inflation outbreak due to the Committee recommendations. It was bound to increase public consumerism without any change to production rates or merchandise. Thus far, the cost of living adjustment ceiling was 125 IL (which had gradually narrowed the wage gap between ranks and professions), whereas the Guri Committee suggests allocating an adjustment with no ceiling. “From an economic perspective I believe these statements to be insane,” said Naphtali to his fellow ministers, and

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yet, saw no choice but to accept the unanimous recommendations of this public committee. Nevertheless, he said, we must “say to the public and to these workers: we are unable to implement these recommendations all at once.” He suggested implementing half of the adjustment proposed by the Committee “and if possible, the other half at the beginning of the next fiscal year.” Ze’ev Sherf, Government Secretary and State Revenue Supervisor, claimed that increasing the amount of tax exemptions would destroy any possibility of educating the public for mutual responsibility in matters of state. Furthermore, claimed Sherf, the recommendations tamper with the anti-inflation function of income tax. The tax exemption would mostly be applied to higher incomes, “and the economy will absorb amounts superfluous to a basic standard of living. These will be spent on luxuries, which stimulates an inflationary spiral while disabling income tax from mitigating it” (SA August 11, 1955). He believed the tax exemption would inevitably be applied to other workers as well, as the law would prevent discrimination. Sherf relayed that “we were not able to bring this forth to the Committee, as we were not aware of it [the intention to grant exemptions],” and the Committee “did not include a single member or speaker that was aware of income tax functions.” Sherf suggested that the government reject the recommendations on cost of living wage adjustments, and if it must, commit to advance payments only (SA August 11, 1955). Two MAPAI ministers, Minister of Education and Culture Ben-Zion Dinur and Transportation Minister Zalman Aran, supported Sherf’s suggestion to allocate advance payments only, which would reduce the amount of budget allocations. However, although Aran was politically close to Eshkol, he believed that any unanimous arbitration was “ironclad and could not be shifted.” Therefore, he disagreed with Naphtali’s suggestion meant to relieve the budgetary and inflationary risk, to initially implement a mere half of the basic wage adjustments the Committee proposed. Development and Health Minister Dov Yosef also claimed that Naphtali’s proposal would only lead to the government complying with certain pressures based on the Committee’s conclusions, while Pinchas Rosen stated that Naphtali’s suggestion would cause injustice and was not the way to fight inflation. It appeared that Eshkol had yet to fully gain the alliance of MAPAI ministers in the Sharett government. Labor Minister Golda Meyerson, however, was already his steadfast supporter. Her interests at the time were fighting social inequality during mass immigration, and ensuring that wage increases among executives and white-collar workers would not come at the expense of immigrant housing and development investments. Eshkol shared these motives as development was particularly important to him, but his interest was first and foremost economic-budgetary—driven by his fear of an inflation and financial

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crisis. He proposed that part of the wage adjustments would be given in the form of “savings secured with certificates” (SA August 11, 1955). The government debate had not yet come to a close, and in the interim, Prime Minister Sharett summarized his understanding of the report: The majority of the Guri-led Committee strove to balance fulfilling the just demands of white-collar workers with maintaining economic stability, which led to dispute within the Committee itself. Several members suggested increasing basic wages without tax exemption, but this required a substantial increase to gross salaries, which could lead to other workers making demands that cannot be met without suffering inflationary deterioration. On the other hand, in order to reduce the increase, Guri and the majority of the Committee suggested exempting the salary increase. By doing so, they wished to reduce the additional increase required to mend the imbalance in white-collar workers’ wages, including the wage gap between them and other workers. Sharett told the ministers that the government is not obligated to adopt the tax exemption for all of the future increases as the Committee suggested. An exemption of this kind could tamper with the income tax system and even be legally dismissed as discriminatory to the advantage of a specific group (SA August 11, 1955). The government continued discussing the final Guri Committee recommendations several days later, and once again heard the vehement warning of Finance Minister Eshkol. This will not end with ranks 1–6 whose wages the Committee recommended adjusting, he said, and trade associations have hardly been able to prevent the lower ranks from striking. He therefore requested that a decision be made regarding the financial angle only—without additional changes to ranking, taxation, or cost of living adjustment—and that advance payments not exceed 85% of the monetary value of the Guri recommendations. His rationale was that surplus had to be reserved for the lower ranks who might strike as well. It appears he was seeking to ‘buy time’ that would allow him to restrict the Histadrut and later establish a joint plan of attack with it to halt the budgetary deviation. In general, he needed time to enlist the various branches of MAPAI, particularly the Histadrut and his fellow ministers, in preparation for the inevitable struggle against difficult circumstances. Undoubtedly, the future incoming Prime Minister Ben-Gurion had a decisive role in this preparation, and was a more convenient partner for Eshkol given that his approach was quite close to that of Meyerson (SA August 14, 1955). Leader of the Progressive Party and Justice Minister Rosen relied on the above mentioned research by statistician Bachi, which showed that since 1939 real wages had significantly decreased in the upper ranks and increased in the lower. Bachi had concluded that wage adjustments should stop at rank 6 and there was no reason to be deterred by the demands of lower-ranking officials

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or workers represented by the Histadrut. Indeed, the government remained undeterred by Eshkol’s warning and adopted the Guri recommendations for civil servants by a majority of eight, despite their cost. It resolved to discuss distribution details at a later date, and it seemed the sweeping tax exemption proposal would not be approved. Until a decision was made regarding the form of payment, they planned to allocate advance payments to physicians, white-collar workers, and senior officials in August 1955, at Guri Committeerecommended rates. The effective date of payments was to be determined the following week (SA August 14, 1955). The Guri Committee recommendations and their adoption by the government did nothing to calm the volatile labor relations in civil service. On one hand, the outgoing Sharett government did not appease the physicians, whitecollar workers, and senior officials in civil service, and they persisted with service disruptions. On the other hand, there was also displeasure in the government. Two weeks after the recommendations’ adoption Eshkol requested that the government revoke its decision, and continued to appeal and try to minimize them in coming months. This resistance was shared by the Finance Ministry, the Bank of Israel, and the Histadrut and trade associations under its umbrella. There were divergent interests among these groups, but opposition to the Guri recommendations proved to be common ground between them, and they joined forces in trying to derail their implementation. The government meeting meant to determine the effective date of the Guri recommendations opened with a report by Minister of Development and Health Dov Yosef on continued sanctions by the physicians. State Services Commissioner David Rosolio reported a predictable outcome: a partial strike of lower-ranking officials in several government ministries, in demand that the ranking be adjusted for everyone and not exclusively the upper ranks, as the Guri Committee had recommended. The Civil Servants’ Association and its umbrella organization the Histadrut both object to the rogue strike, he said, and met with the “strikers committee” that morning. However, the Civil Servant’s Association itself demanded that Rosolio begin negotiations on adjusting all civil service salaries. Moshe Sharett responded negatively to this demand: this entire battle is over a very small gap between the lowest and highest ranks. The Guri Committee suggested raising wages in the upper ranks to expand the inter-rank wage gap, and now civil servants are stepping forward and objecting to the wage gap expansion. This remark revealed Sharett’s basic support of wage gap expansion. Rosolio announced that he agreed to negotiate with the Civil Servants’ Association and the Histadrut, and asked their representatives to submit numbers. The government decided to appoint a three-minister committee:

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Levi Eshkol, Zalman Aran, and Pinchas Rosen, later to be called ‘The Aran Committee,’ to discuss “all matters relating to the [Guri] Committee’s debate and configuration of civil servants’ pay rates” (SA August 21, 1955; also BGA Sept. 20, 1955). As aforementioned, the government was to discuss the effective date of Guri-recommended pay raises. However, in his efforts to prevent implementation, Eshkol made a different suggestion—that the cost of pay raises be funded by making cutbacks in every sphere, except education. Eshkol was attempting to provoke resistance to implementing the recommendations for several reasons. First, as the ministers had learned from Rosolio, “This (the white-collar workers’ and senior officials’ wages) is not the entire nor the only flood we face. We must be on our guard.” Moreover, he announced that he would present options of budgetary preparation for the North African immigration (from Morocco, post-1954 independence), “which is the second flood” (SA August 21, 1955; also BGA Sept. 20, 1955). In one week, the deterioration of security would also be discussed along with the need to significantly expand the defense budget.10 A typical argument developed between the ministers concerning cutbacks. Eshkol mockingly noted that each was looking to find money in the other’s hands, and dismissed the idea that it was easier to make cutbacks where there were more low-ranking officials. “On an educational level, it is important to me that members of every ministry know: we have gotten what we demanded, and that is why people have lost their jobs,” he stated. The debate served its purpose and concluded with a decision to cutback all government ministries’ budgets, and in ministries where increases are over 2.5% of salaries, the Finance Ministry will determine where to make additional cuts. The government decided on the effective date for pay raises according to the Guri recommendations. Rosen suggested April 1, Sharett July 1, and Eshkol August 1, 1955. All ministers aside from Rosen and Eshkol supported Sharett’s suggestion. At the end of the meeting, State Services Commissioner Rosolio noted that the government has decided not to adopt the Guri Committee recommendation regarding a cost of living adjustment applicable to overall salaries. This was a significant matter, a primary vehicle for preventing wage gap erosion in the future. It was added to the protocol at the final hour—but now it had been rejected (SA August 21, 1955). The accelerated immigration from Morocco and the escalating threat of the Egyptian army continued to overshadow government wage debates. These 10  On conditions near the Gaza border and funding for the Moroccan immigration see SA Government Meetings, August 28, 1955 and Sept. 1, 1955.

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helped Finance Minister Eshkol’s cause as he sought a revision of the government decision to adopt the recommendations two weeks earlier. When the government approved the Guri Committee recommendations we “dreamed it would linger at ranks 1–6,” said Eshkol, but they were now aware it would not. There are demands on all sides, which he believed corroborated his request for the government’s reconsideration. His current proposal: reducing the Guri Committee’s increases by a third, and allocating small increases to all ranks that would calm the wage issue. It is probable that at this time his proposal was already coordinated at least with Chairman of the Histadrut Trade Unions Division Aharon Becker, as Eshkol explained his rationale as follows: “If this is approved, we will have the support of the Civil Servants’ Association and the Histadrut” whose representatives negotiate with the government. Confrontation with the physicians was inevitable anyhow, and Eshkol was seeking closure for the issue of lower-ranking civil servants (SA Sept. 1, 1955). As we will later see in chapter 5, in November 1955 this cooperation became evident in the densely-attended meetings convened by Eshkol, in the presence of ministers belonging to the Histadrut, the Histadrut Steering Committee, and numerous additional attendees, including leaders like Ben-Gurion, Hazan, Ya’ari and Tabenkin, Knesset members and chairmen of the labor movement parties. It was clear that Eshkol’s proposal meant confronting not only the physicians, but also civil servants in ranks 1–6. In response to the warning issued by Development and Health Minister Dov Yosef with regard to impending strikes, Eshkol said: Here [with the Civil Servants’ Association that is representing the lower ranking civil servants] is where we conduct negotiations. If a strike breaks out somewhere—let it. We cannot do it any other way. I am not saying with full confidence that this [his above-mentioned proposal] will fix everything, [but] if we only give to ranks 1–6 [as recommended by the Guri Committee], strikes will certainly break out in ranks 7–15. This will not remain limited to the upper ranks, and we will not give these ranks what they never prayed to get from the Guri Committee. We will reduce it, even if there is trouble here and there. SA Sept. 1, 1955

There is no doubt, therefore, that the Histadrut and the Civil Servants’ Association under its authority pressured the government to obstruct the recommendations to expand wage gaps between ranks, and assisted Eshkol in chipping away at their implementation. There were now shared incentives

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between these two sides of the MAPAI party, which also stemmed to some degree from common values. Prime Minister Moshe Sharett asked, “What would be our reasoning for altering the government decision?” to which Eshkol replied: the fact that we cannot tend only to ranks 1–6 as the Guri Committee wrongly assumes. Progressive Party leader and Justice Minister Pinchas Rosen announced his outright objection to Eshkol’s suggestion and to any adjustment or change to the Guri Committee recommendations, and intimated the political consequences of such a decision. The Guri Committee concluded there was no justification for reform in ranks 7–15 and therefore decided to make adjustments in ranks 1–6 exclusively. He clarified as follows: The issue here is with the concept of a gap, which has a value in itself. We are aware that the gap remains narrow even after the Guri recommendations and should not be made narrower by implementing these [Eshkol’s] alterations. We cannot cutback at the top and add on the bottom…. I am certainly in favor of a gap. If we could pay every civil servant a net of 400 IL each month, I would oppose it, as I believe it is a detriment to the concept of officials’ advancement, of expertise and training, of learning a trade and climbing up the ranks. SA Sept. 1, 1955

Dov Yosef vehemently objected to Eshkol’s suggestion as well: “It is unjust, it is unreasonable, it will not be.” To which Eshkol responded: “I described the tragic state of the budget and you remained unimpressed.” Yosef: “We cannot make a mockery of the State.—To suddenly say we are changing our decision … because others are making demands too, so we are going to take from these and give to those …?” You have decided that the lower ranks should benefit because otherwise they will strike, said Yosef, “I am telling you that physicians and engineers will strike.” Yosef said he would have agreed if Eshkol simply said there are no funds with which to fulfill the Guri recommendations, but he cannot agree to transferring money from the high ranks to the low. Eshkol wished to form an alliance with the Histadrut and the low ranks it represented facing the impending confrontation with the higher ranks and white-collar workers—and it was this political catch that Yosef did not understand. Eshkol was seeking to resist the recommendations of a reputable public committee and push against prominent socio-economic and political forces. Had he adopted Yosef’s suggestion, he would have undoubtedly failed. He saw the alliance with the

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Histadrut as vital. He still had not gained the support of all MAPAI ministers (SA Sept. 1, 1955). Minister of Transportation Zalman Aran of MAPAI and Postal Services Minister of the Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi Yosef Burg, suggested that the Aran Committee (Eshkol, Rosen, and Aran) appointed with implementing the recommendations and negotiating with physicians, discuss the Eshkol proposal. Burg asked that it also discuss removing the 125 IL limit from the cost of living adjustment, which was vital to preserving the gap between the lowest and highest ranks (SA Sept. 1, 1955). It was clear that the government did not generally support Eshkol, but his prominent position gave his proposal a certain weight. Burg and his party leader, Welfare and Religious Affairs Minister Moshe Shapira, asked how much Ehskol’s proposal would cost versus implementing the Guri recommendations, and what was the advance payment to be distributed at the end of the month? To the second question, Eshkol replied that he intends to pay an advance in the amount of two months’ pay and a maximum of two thirds of the current suggested raise. Minister of Labor Golda Meyerson of MAPAI, who sided with Eshkol, launched a vehement attack against the distinction between a gross and net salary and against a “matter of sanctity not to be tampered with—a gap.” She claimed there was a pre-tax gap of 1:4, and the tax was irrelevant as it narrows the gap in light of family size and the number of dependents. Her blunt irony implied the ethnicity-oriented angle of this debate: The State has endured a disaster, and those in rank 14 have more children, more dependents, parents that need to be supported … and the law [income tax] allows them certain measures of relief. SA Sept. 1, 1955

Meyerson claimed that if wages are determined ‘individually,’ meaning in consideration of those with large families and many dependents—characteristic of the oriental families that included several generations and many children— then there is a gap of 1:4, but this is not enough for those who demand a gap. They demand a gap between the net salary of the higher ranks and white-collar workers and the net salary of the lower ranks, even when tax exemptions acting as a cushion do not affect the gap. She refuted the idea that the Guri Committee was established to address senior officials’ bitterness over wage gap erosion. Meyerson was in fact quite critical of the recommendations, thereby revealing a unified front between Eshkol, herself, and Histadrut representatives. Rosen interrupted her, stating

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they had assessed the wages of lower ranks and found there was no justification for increasing them. In retort, Meyerson directly attacked the committee and its chairman, member of her party, and minister Yosef Burg: … If the demand was a 1:4 gap—it exists. The Guri Committee was a disaster. Guri thought he had to reach a unanimous vote. I have nothing against him, but he achieved a unanimous vote that can be disastrous…. I do not think that a man who earns 615 IL each month needs to strike—as the Justice Minister says—because those who earned 146 IL will now earn 150 IL. Could this possibly be cause for a strike? Postal Services Minister [Yosef Burg], also believes this could justify a strike, as it damages the status of those earning 615 IL a month. SA Sept. 1, 1955

This was a very effective left-wing attack by Meyerson, with a clear reference to Ashkenazi-Mizrachi social relations, and significant support for Eshkol and the Histadrut. The ministers postponed voting on Eshkol’s proposal to reduce the cost of implementation by a third and apply them to all civil servants rather ranks 1–6 exclusively, including physicians in civil service, as well as give a small raise to ranks 7–14 (SA Sept. 1, 1955). The government therefore heard Minister Aran’s report, who was assigned to addressing the “hot potato” between physicians who were tampering with hospital services because they disapproved of the Guri recommendations, and Eshkol. Aran sided with Eshkol, and facing the resistance of a third committee member, Rosen, the ministerial committee approved Eshkol’s proposal to give a small raise to ranks 7–14 and slightly increased the wages of ranks 2–5 despite Eshkol’s suggestion (“increase what has been decreased,” the Prime Minister commented sarcastically) by 5–15 IL. Aran further reported that the ministerial committee adopted the proposal of Government Secretary and State Revenue Supervisor Ze’ev Sherf to separate discussion of general executives and their equals, a total of 21 workers, from that of civil servants at large. Prime Minister Sharett objected, stating that the gap between them and the next lower rank was a mere 100 IL (SA Sept. 11, 1955). According to Aran, he met with the physicians, the Histadrut, the Civil Servants’ Association, and additional bodies. The Aran ministerial committee suggested that physicians “earn wages congruent with the financial content of the Guri Committee recommendations;” negotiations regarding their rank will be held between the Health Ministry and the State Services Commission once the Guri Committee proposes a new ranking to the government; these negotiations would only begin when routine operations in state medical institutions

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resumed. Aran relayed to the physicians’ representatives Dr. Noah and Dr. Zilberstein that the maximum amount they would receive was that which the Committee recommended, no more. Nevertheless, the ministerial committee received a blunt response letter with demands that exceeded the Guri recommendations, which ended with a threat that physicians will have to make certain conclusions if they do not get an answer. Aran also worried that conflict could develop with the jurists and engineers, who are bound to demand what the physicians receive, and with civil servants at large. Eshkol and the ministerial committee’s recommendations may have been coordinated with the Civil Servants’ Association and the Histadrut, said Aran, but there was also agitation outside of them among civil servants in ranks 7–15. Progressive Party leader Pinchas Rosen was the physicians’ primary supporter in the provisional government after the General Zionists withdrawal. He supported the Aran Committee’s proposal regarding physicians, but opposed its proposal concerning the other civil servants and wished to heed the Guri recommendations on this matter. He stated that the difference was not significant, and he saw no reason to change or reject the recommendations of a public committee and retract the government’s adoption of them, only to appease civil servants in ranks 7–14. Prime Minister Sharett summarized the state-of-affairs as follows: the senior officials’ demands were justified, in his view, but we warned them that fulfilling these would invite additional demands, “justified or unjustified,” which would spur inflation and eventually reset the wage increases. “What we warned against has happened,” he said, “if we allow all of these increases we would have to give more to the lower ranks, which is why we must reduce their [senior officials] allocations.” He stated that accelerated immigration and the growing defense expenses in light of the Egyptian threat are bound to cause inflation, and raising wages at such a time was extremely unwise. The Development and Health Minister also retracted his vehement opposition to Eshkol and supported the Aran Committee’s proposal (SA Sept. 11, 1955). The committee’s conclusion was not to adopt Eshkol’s proposal to cut back the additional wages the Guri Committee recommended allocating to physicians. It was decided that a special pay scale would be established to determine physicians’ ranking in civil service according to the fiscal content of the Guri recommendations. Additionally, they decided to reassess the internal structure of physicians’ ranking in light of the Guri recommendations, but negotiations on the matter would only be held once physicians resumed routine working hours.

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With regards to the Guri recommendations on civil servants’ wages, the ministers voted by a majority against one (Rosen) to allocate a small increase to ranks 7–15, to eliminate all tax breaks for civil servants as of the coming fiscal year, and to upgrade every policeman in the lower ranks (from ‘policeman’ to ‘first lieutenant’) by one rank. They also decided that the government would separately discuss the wages of executives and their equals. No reference was made to the Committee’s recommendation to amend the cost of living allowance ceiling in order to maintain a proper wage-gap in the public sector (SA Sept. 11, 1955). Davar reported that clerks at the top four pay-scales of government administration were promised a significant wage increase: the wage of a single clerk in the second wage-grade was increased from 340 IL to 530 IL (over 55%); the wage of a single in the third wage-grade was increased from 310 IL to 445 IL (over 43%); the wage of a single clerk in the fourth wage-grade was increased from 285 to 370 IL; and the wage of a single clerk in the fifth wage-grade was increased from 263 to 310 IL. Conversely, the lower level clerks received almost no wage increase. For instance, the wage of a clerk in the eighth wage-grade was raised by a mere 13 IL, from 201 to 214 IL (Davar Sept. 12, 1955). The physicians, however, found the Guri recommendations unsatisfactory. They therefore continued engaging in the labor dispute even though the government had decided to follow the Guri recommendations and not to adopt Eshkol’s proposal to cut back their pay raises. According to Sharett, “The IMA is now functioning as the coordinating body of physicians’ rebellion against the State, and has the gull to dictate its demands to the State and establish a physicians’ dictatorship in public medicine.” The Sharett government had therefore gotten itself into a tricky situation. It did not adopt Eshkol’s plan against the physicians, white-collar workers, and senior government executives, and relatively worked in their favor. Nonetheless, the white-collar workers, especially the physicians, decided to adopt a militant approach. On September 19, 1955, Sharett told his fellow ministers that although the government decisions discriminated against other civil servants to the advantage of the physicians, they had decided to proceed with their sanctions. In light of this, the government resolved to cease negotiations with them. Sharett also reported receiving a letter from the engineers, architects, chemists, and agronomists in civil service, stating that they do not accept the discrimination to physicians’ advantage, demand identical wage reforms, and threaten to strike if they do not receive them (SA Government Meeting, Sept. 19, 1955). The physicians’ militancy played into Eshkol’s hands, helping

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him sway MAPAI ministers in the direction he and the Histadrut were pulling. He wished to demonstrate to strikers that their government is one that stands its ground, calling the crisis “a peak of the mayhem that is collapsing our economic foundation.” While production has increased, he said, export has not, both due to merchandise quality and labor costs, and increased production is locally absorbed, “as we ourselves have money in our pockets and can eat.” Eshkol was concerned about production workers’ salaries edging upward, and about inflated expectations. The public now felt that, “the government itself must have decided on inflation,” he claimed. Defense Minister David BenGurion mentioned the option of revoking physicians’ medical license. Minister of Education and Culture Ben-Zion Dinur called the strike a moral outrage and a scarlet letter upon the State of Israel, and proposed forbidding the physicians’ strikes. Labor Minister Golda Meyerson stated that the IMA is not representative of the salaried physicians, and the Histadrut refused to negotiate the employment terms of Kupat Holim physicians with it. She stated that physicians could be confined to their place of work on certain days according to the existing terms (SA Sept. 19, 1955). Defense Minister and elected Prime Minister Ben-Gurion was a bit more cautious, believing it was unwise to use severe measures like confinement, military overtake of the hospitals, or drafting of physicians. “This is unheard of,” he stated. He believed the government had the authority to revoke physicians’ right to practice medicine, but he was aware of the Supreme Court’s ability to dismiss revoking licenses, as well as the political difficulty of passing a law that would give the government such authority. He also implied the right wing and perhaps center parties as he mentioned “Those who claim to be in favor of the State’s rehabilitation, [but] do everything in their power to sabotage it,” and would therefore not allow such legislation to pass. He offered to meet with the physicians’ representatives before the government takes extreme measures against them. The ministers decided Ben-Gurion would try to ‘soften’ the physicians, but there would be no negotiations until they cease their sanctions. If they do not, emergency measures for human resources recruitment would be implemented and the Minister of Health would be authorized to place hospitals under military authority (SA Sept. 19, 1955).

…

As its brief term ended, the provisionary Sharett government tried to accommodate the physicians, white-collar workers, and senior officials. They found some supporters among government ministers, particularly General Zionists ministers Bernstein, Rokach, Sapir, and Serlin, and Progressive Party leader

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Rosen. Prime Minister Sharett and Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi ministers Shapira and Burg leaned toward supporting their demand for wider wage gaps as well. The latter tipped the scale in favor of appointing the Guri Committee and adopting its moderate conclusions following their submission in June and August of 1955, conclusions whose significant implication was inter-rank wage gap expansion. Finance Minister Eshkol stood almost alone in objection to the recommendations, with only Labor Minister Golda Meyerson by his side. The remaining MAPAI ministers supported Sharett’s approach. Two weeks following the adoption of the recommendations, Eshkol rushed to limit their implementation. He referred to the wage demands of various associations under the Histadrut as indication of an unraveling wage system. In turn, he offered a one-third reduction of the Guri-recommended increases and allocating small increases to other civil servants in order to deter their opposition and appease them. The government turned down his proposal only to later realize that the labor dispute had all but ended, as the government decisions were unsatisfactory to the physicians, white-collar workers, and executives in the public sector. The physicians found the Guri recommendations insufficient, while white-collar workers in general were dissatisfied with how they would be implemented. However, at this point in the developing dispute, an important alliance had formed between Eshkol and the Histadrut, which would later be a significant factor in the conflict at hand. Eshkol was indeed worried about the Histadrut’s wage demands, but he also used them in order to reduce pay raises for whitecollar workers, as he believed he could satisfy the trade associations with small wage increases that would mitigate the fiscal damage to the State. The Histadrut and Meyerson would later lean on their alliance with Eshkol in order to sway the rest of the MAPAI members—and would find powerful support in the new government leadership. In November, David Ben-Gurion resumed his role as Prime Minister. His approach to the matter was driven primarily by issues of social solidarity and the fiscal needs of development and security. The Egyptian threat that began escalating toward the end of the provisionary government term and the beginning of the Ben-Gurion government term would later help the Eshkol-Histadrut-Meyerson-Ben-Gurion alliance change the trajectory the Sharett government had chosen.

Chapter 4

“On Your Mark!” Public Discourse after the 1955 Elections The class-centered relationship formed between the Ashkenazi, professional white-collar middle class and the oriental proletariat, or the ‘distressed oriental sector’ during the 1950s is undoubtedly one of the core issues of Israeli society. This matter was on the Israeli public agenda as early as the years in question. The current chapter will examine the public discourse of Israel’s dominant politicians at the time—i.e. MAPAI leaders—and members of their party on wage issues, inter-class, and inter-ethnic relations following MAPAI’s relative decline after the 1955 elections1 leading up to the 1956 white-collar workers’ strike. This discourse conveyed disputes over the strategies necessary for national up building and the absorption of massive oriental immigration into Israel’s newly sovereign society. Our analysis rests on the assumption that the government and Histadrut, the two dominant authoritative bodies under MAPAI leadership, formed an autonomous and highly influential entity. We also assume that they were at times a decisive and formative force in shaping inter-class relations between the sectors—rather than a tool wielded by veteran citizens of the Ashkenazi middle class. These assumptions rely on the theoretical and conceptual framework of the state-centered paradigm, which contrasts with the society-centered paradigm. The state-centered paradigm anchors the analysis of economic and political processes in the autonomy of the state and its institutions, and its relationship with various social power agents. It assumes that the state is a pivotal factor with a high degree of maneuverability, able to define its policy independently and actively, and effectively shape class-relations. This counters the society-centered approach, which depreciates the significance and dominance of the state as an autonomous entity. Proponents of this approach do underscore the substantial power of the state, but also believe it is the byproduct of class-driven mechanisms or the influence of non-governmental interest groups. According to the society-centered paradigm corporations, business professionals and entrepreneurs, and trade unions, shape the actions 1  The forty mandates MAPAI received during the 1955 elections were the worst election results out of five independent campaign runs, sans partnerships—1949 (forty six mandates), 1951 (forty five), 1955 (forty), 1959 (forty seven), 1961 (forty two).

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of governments. Therefore, it does not regard the state as a fully autonomous body. The society-centered approach does not discount the weightiness of socially driven pressures, but its focus is conceptualizing the significance of other factors that motivate the actions of politicians and bureaucrats in state institutions. This approach contends that under certain circumstances governments may isolate themselves from dominant social interests. This may occur particularly during in contexts such as the intensive up building of a nation, which involves complex, comprehensive, and frequent crises, as was characteristic of 1950s Israel. The current chapter will reveal that this active and independent function of the State and the Histadrut was reflective in nature. By analyzing MAPAI leaders’ discourse on wage policy at the time, one can learn that their involvement in shaping inter-class and inter-ethnic relations was based on an awareness that they are striving against strong currents within Israeli civil society of that time. In line with the state-centered paradigm, examining public discourse enables to uncover that the politicians and bureaucrats of MAPAI were, among other things, driven by the pursuit of certain world-views, bureaucratic duties, and institutional incentives that isolated them from the pressures of civil society (Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Skocpol 1985; Nordlinger 1981; also Skocpol 1992, 521–542). The reflective nature of their praxis will also be revealed in the next chapter through the analysis of their internal deliberations, which were concealed from the public eye.2 The current discussion references the primary communication channels of MAPAI leadership—the Histadrut’s daily newspaper ‘Davar,’ the weekly publication Ha’poel Ha’tzair, and the independent journals Molad and Beterem.3 2  Such internal deliberations also reveal that MAPAI considered itself autonomous in establishing a systemic policy to inhibit the professional middle-class for social and economic reasons. See for instance: exclusive consultation between Prime Minister Ben-Gurion, Histadrut General Secretary M. Namir, the two party secretaries Y. Kesse and R. Bash, and four senior party reps. in the Knesset and Histadrut (LMA Jan. 23, 1956). The consultation was conducted in the Prime Minister’s Jerusalem Office, following Ben-Gurion’s January 5 speech at the Histadrut small council meeting (see below) and in preparation for his speech at the next Histadrut committee. Knesset member Akiva Govrin suggested that Ben-Gurion openly call for the professional middle-class to support, rather than confront the workers, as “without the mutual aid of the Histadrut and the development initiatives of the labor government … the working intelligentsia would be without employment. There is good cause to tell them so.” Thus, Govrin essentially stated that MAPAI’s deliberations be made transparent and public. 3  At the inception of the 1950s, a substantial amount of MAPAI members wrote for the Beterem journal, even though it criticized the party from a right-wing socio-economic perspective.

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It also adresses MAPAI discussions in the Histadrut Small Council (Ha’va’ad Ha’poel) from September 1955, when the government decided to adopt the Guri committee’s recommendations in principle, through the outbreak of the general white-collar workers’ strike in the public sector in the beginning of February 1956. As indicated by the previous chapter, the Guri committee was appointed in the twilight of Moshe Sharett’s term and the eve of the general elections in summer of 1955, in response to the tension, labor disputes, and warning strikes between 1954–1955. Post-election the committee recommended a wage increase for white-collar workers and executives in the public sector that would expand wage-gaps between them and other public sector workers, in light of the significant wage-erosion they endured. The committee’s recommendations were adopted by the Sharett’s interim government in September 1955, only to be dismissed by Ben-Gurion’s newly appointed government. In the next chapter, we investigate significant details of the political process that led to this dismissal, while here we focus on the public discourse that led to it, and in turn, to the white-collar workers’ strike that followed in February 7, 1956. The background to the government’s decision was an Egyptian-military threat, which, among other necessary measures, demanded economic reconditioning. News of a substantial arms deal between Egypt and Czechoslovakia, then a Soviet satellite state, had arrived midway through the new government’s establishment. This news meant the Soviet-Union had embarked on an arms race in the Middle East. On September 27, 1955, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser announced the arms deal, which violated Western restriction on armament in the region (Bar-On 1991, 13–14). Nasser called the additional arms a step forward in the battle for Israel’s destruction (Herzog, quote in: Shemesh & Troen 1993, 4). The scope of the arms deal was initially unknown, but this was clearly a severe deterioration in the Israel-Egypt power balance. The arms deal was extensive, and included advanced weapons such as medium and heavy tanks, fighter jets and bombers, cannons, and large amounts of ammunition. The government began collections for the ‘Magen Fund’ [defense fund] in order to purchase additional arms (Bar-On 1991, 13–24, 29–30). The general IDF headquarters assessed that “Egypt alone will now have three times the amount of arms Israel has ever had or can expect to procure in the near future” (Bar-On Beterem, edited by Eliezer Livneh (Liebenstein), was unofficially the publication of MAPAI activists during the 1940s. Livneh was a MAPAI Knesset member, but had gradually withdrawn from the party between 1953 and 1957, following criticism of his lifestyle, which was considered bourgeois, and was not elected for the third Knesset on July 1955.

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1991, 31). The power shift in fall of 1955 added to the overtly pan-Arabic and anti-Israel strategy and rhetoric Nasser had expressed since 1954 and the mutual raids on the Israel-Egypt border since the outset of 1955. The border escalations, destabilizing arms-deal, and intensified anti-Israel rhetoric on Egyptian media that followed, roused an atmosphere of emergency in Israel (Bar-On 1991, 24–27; also Golani 1997; Bar-On 1990). By analyzing the active public discourse within MAPAI toward the end of 1955 and beginning of 1956, we aim to examine what motivated the retraction of commitments made to white-collar workers and senior executives. Were they strictly retracted due to the Egyptian-Soviet threat, or was their dismissal not only an immediate response to emergency, but also the outcome of BenGurion, MAPAI, and the Histadrut’s fundamental socio-economic approach? The current chapter will work to substantiate that the demands of the 1956 security crisis were in fact interwoven with the urgent socio-economic demands of mass immigration between 1948–1952 (Ha’cohen 1993). These demands had only intensified in light of mass North African immigration in 1954 (Picard, in: Bareli, Gutwein and Friling [eds.] 2005, 581–614). The demands of immigration and military reinforcement–as well as fear of inflation due to expanded absorption and development expenditures–concurrently led Ben-Gurion’s new government to dismiss white-collar workers and senior executives’ demands in January of 1956. The government’s decision was anchored in an egalitarian ethos stemming from a social-democratic, republicanist approach, and an underlying objective to foster solidarity between the new and veteran citizens.4

Ben-Gurion Leads Ruling against White-Collar Workers

From MAPAI’s perspective, the July 1955 general election results were a disappointment. The Party dropped from 45 to 40 Knesset members and from 37.3 to 32.2 percent of total valid votes (Knesset Website). In an article published by Beterem journal, General Zionists and Guri Committee member Schneur Zalman Abramov, claimed the most significant development spurred by elections was the increase of Herut Knesset members from eight to fifteen. He claimed this was the ‘first indicator of the political rise of a sector that now accounts for nearly half of Israel’s population, whose quantitative weight is only destined to increase’—the oriental immigrant sector (Abramov, Beterem, 4  For a pragmatic illustration of this approach to wage policy see, for instance, statements made by Histadrut General Secretary P. Lavon in 1960, a few years after the above-mentioned dispute (Lavon, in: Lavon 1968, 183–200; also Becker 1981, 103–112).

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Sept. 1, 1955, 11–12). According to his July 1955 article in the Molad monthly newspaper, Davar editor Herzl Berger agreed. He stated that MAPAI lost votes to Herut because the new immigrants and residents of Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem’s impoverished neighborhoods were embittered, writing that the “… development initiative, which fortifies the nation before their eyes, has yet to improve their private quality of life to the level of many other parts of the yishuv [Jewish population].” He added that, “The current pace of development is not enough to dispel the sense of neglect and estrangement from national authority.” The solution is “improving quality of life, road paving, education, and the social advancement of underprivileged ethnic groups.” However, Berger did not merely urge MAPAI to strengthen ties with the oriental proletariat through development and education. He stated that while the strength of a socialist party may be in its affinity toward the organized working public, its ideology and agenda could only become hegemonic through a broad network of alliance with diverse middle class groups. Berger therefore believed MAPAI had taken a blow on two electoral fronts: that of the oriental proletariat and that of the Ashkenazi middle class (Quote in: Molad July 1955a, 259–261; also see Molad May 1955, 129–133). The Party was trapped between two social classes with conflicting interests.5 Along with others in MAPAI circles, Berger claimed that a wage increase for the so-called ‘working intelligentsia’ would come at the expense of public-sector manual laborers, mostly new immigrants, or the development budget for their absorption (See, e.g., Ha’poel Ha’tzair, Gertzberg, August 10, 1955, 10; Ha’poel Ha’tzair, Blum, Sept. 1955, 8–9). Indeed, the Guri committee recommendations had suggested a distinct course of action: significantly expanding wage gaps between the two sectors. As indicated by the previous chapter, between the end of summer 1955 elections and January of 1956, MAPAI had seemingly adopted this strategy (Ha’poel Ha’tzair, Carmi, July 12, 1955, 4). However, conflicting class-centered priorities continued to echo in the two opposing voices characterizing MAPAI’s public discourse.6 One belonged to those in agreement with the working intelligentsia’s demands, in-line with the Guri recommendations, who believed it was “vital to provide the highest compensation for the most complex and 5  For an analysis of MAPAI’s ballot-decrease in four Jerusalem areas—the Talpiot transit camp, typical immigrant housing, the Makor-Haim neighborhood, a typical Eastern-European immigrant neighborhood, the Bakaa neighborhood, an Asian and African immigrant neighborhood, and the Beit-Ha’kerem neighborhood, which was populated by veteran citizens—see (Molad July 1955b, 247–262). 6  For observations on this division in MAPAI discourse see (Ha’poel Ha’tzair, Ben-Natan Jan. 17, 1956, 5).

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challenging intellectual professions” (Ha’poel Ha’tzair, Blum Sept. 6, 1955, 8; also Id., Blass Dec. 6, 1955, 7–8; Id., Na’aman Dec. 29, 1955, 7). The other voice belonged to those in vehement opposition to singling-out the intelligentsia, believing this would bode disaster (Ha’poel Ha’tzair, M. Bareli Oct. 4, 1955, 9; Ha’poel Ha’tzair, Svorai Nov. 8, 1955). Avraham Ofer, a key member of the tze’irim (younger generation of MAPAI leadership), expressed this position with a fervent critique of “an ideology that heralds ‘gaps for the sake of gaps’ […], that tries to divide the working public into prestigious and inferior professions. Instead of the just and necessary demand for appropriate gaps between excellent engravers and beginning industrial workers, between expert construction workers and manual laborers, between seasoned engineers and beginning en­ gineers—there is growing demand for significant, permanent wage gaps between different professions.” His socialist approach to nation building made him denounce this ideology and offer an assertive counter-discourse: “If we accept this notion, our society will consist of layers upon layers, each living a different lifestyle, never to merge. This type of stratification between the intelligentsia and ‘prestigious’ professions on one hand and workers and manual laborers on the other, is not a healthy one, and could undermine the spirit of our nation and damage national economy” (Ha’poel Ha’tzair, Ofer Feb. 20, 1955, 6–7). This was the majority opinion within MAPAI’s public discourse. The old-new Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ben-Gurion expressed it zealously. So did the head of the Histadrut Trade Unions Division Aharon Becker and Head of the Industrial Workers’ Association Yeruham Meshel, as they prioritized wagegap restriction and the transfer of funds to the defense and development budgets. The following discussion indicates that at least in terms of its wage policy, prior to the white-collar workers’ strike MAPAI ruled in favor of the oriental proletariat. Therefore, in order to gain headway in the mid-1950s wage disputes and yield a socio-economic gap out of their pivotal role in Israel’s absorption economy, white-collar workers and senior executives had to overcome MAPAI’s propensity to restrict wage-gaps. The overt collision between MAPAI and the professional middle class began on January 4 1956, upon publication of the MAPAI Center discussions on public sector wage-gaps after three years of a basic-wage freeze endured by state and Histadrut employees. The main issue was how to retreat from increasing white-collar workers’ and senior executives’ wages. It was clear that such retreat would drive their unions to declare a general strike across the entire public sector. As aforementioned, the Guri committee had recommended wage increase, which the government conceded to in September 1955. Its recommendations hardly satisfied the white-collar workers’ demands, especially not the physicians’, and now Ben-Gurion and his colleagues discussed a

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considerable reduction if not a dismissal of Guri’s recommendations. In light of clear danger that the entire white-collar workforce might declare a general strike, the first vote in MAPAI Center showed equal support for two different proposals. Thirty six Center members supported a proposal to freeze wages at large, including those of white-collar workers. Thirty seven members believed the wage increase should not be entirely dismissed, but merely postponed in light of the security emergency, and replaced with a limited and scaled pay raise for employees of the state (Al Ha’mishmar Jan. 5, 1956). At this point, Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ben-Gurion wielded his influence. He convened a special meeting with the Histadrut Small Council (Ha’va’ad Ha’po’el), and on January 5 1956, addressed them with an hour and a half long speech on the State’s national and security status and its implications on Israel’s economy (Davar Jan. 6, 1956). A week later, the full speech was published in the Davar daily newspaper (Davar Jan. 12, 1956a). Ben-Gurion repeated his zealous warning in the Knesset, stating that during this state of emergency they cannot improve the lifestyle of “the State’s most veteran population, but instead dedicate all means available to improve living conditions for new immigrants” (Al Ha’mishmar Jan. 6, 1956). His primary contention was this: It is the government’s foremost obligation to minimize the gap between the established, veteran Israelis and new immigrants in the border settlements and the periphery. Histadrut General Secretariat Mordechai Namir followed Ben-Gurion in full agreement. Regarding the ‘blessed obligation’ by which every state-employee must contribute at least six work days to the ‘Magen Fund’ [defense fund], Namir was highly critical of the ‘affluent classes’ who had mostly had ‘not risen to the occasion’ (Davar, Jan. 6, 1956). We will later revisit Ben-Gurion’s speech, as it not only alerted the military for battle, but also waged an internal ‘socio-economic battle’ of great significance. The speech verbalized the sociopolitical approach that led MAPAI leadership to collide with state-employed white-collar workers and senior executives. On January 6, 1956, one day after Ben-Gurion’s address at the Histadrut Small Council (Ha’va’ad Ha’po’el), an impromptu meeting convened that included the MAPAI Secretary, the Party’s government ministers, and representatives of the Histadrut Steering Committee and the Histadrut’s Trade Unions Division. MAPAI’s spokesperson later announced a unanimous decision to reject the proposed wage increase for state-employed white-collar workers and senior executives, as well as public institution employees such as university lecturers. The decision to forgo pay raises also worked against construction and metalworkers, who were promised pay raises as well. Instead, MAPAI decided on a limited and gradual increase for all workers. This meant reducing the Guri-committee

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recommended wage increase for white-collar workers by more than half, and avoiding substantial compensation for previous wage-gap erosion (Davar Jan. 8, 1956a). The conflict was made public. Adjacent to Davar’s report on the decision, was printed an eye-catching announcement about 51 British army-surplus tanks arriving at the Alexandria port (Davar Jan. 8, 1956b). The MAPAM daily Al Ha’mishmar added that the proposal eventually approved at the MAPAI meeting, was made by Meshel, Head of the Industrial Workers’ Association from 1950–1960. The pay scale adopted following Meshel’s recommendations was designed to avoid reformed wage gaps between industrial and white-collar workers (Al Ha’mishmar Jan. 8, 1956). Two days later, MAPAI Center convened once again to discuss the wage issue that had split its members in two equal parts at the previous vote. This time, the majority voted for the agenda Ben-Gurion laid out in his speech at the Histadrut Small Council meeting on January 5—with 39 in favor versus 19 against, with nine abstaining; followed by the unanimous supportive vote of MAPAI ministers, heads of the Histadrut, and members of the Secretariat on January 6. Ben-Gurion’s political influence was apparent. The pay scale adopted by MAPAI’s Center determined that basic wage would increase by 2.5– 7%, meaning white-collar workers and senior executives would receive only half the previously promised pay raise. Even this meager increase led Finance Minister Levi Eshkol to announce that he will “… construct an efficient dam against the inflation caused by pay raises” (Davar Jan. 9, 1956; Al Ha’mishmar Jan. 9, 1956). Effectively, this was a statement of determination to obstruct white-collar workers and senior executives’ wage demands. Leading up to an assembly of the Histadrut’s Trade Unions Division headed by Becker, workers began voicing criticism about the aforementioned threeyear basic wage freeze. Physicians and engineers were the most radical. They announced they would not comply with a retroactive decrease of the pay raises promised by the government on July 1, 1955. Justice Minister and Progressive Party leader Pinchas Rosen, supported the physicians and engineers and threatened to resign if they did not receive the full wage increase that had been promised (Al Ha’mishmar Jan. 11, 1956). Of course, the determination shared by Ben-Gurion, MAPAI ministers, and heads of the Histadrut and the Party to restrict pay raises for liberal professions and senior executives is quite understandable in light of impending threat posed by increasingly powerful Egypt. The security crisis was not only an ill-fitting context for pay-raise implementation but also intensified the need to abate gaps between the established middle class and the new immigrants, and the obligation to support the latter. This was underscored by an additional

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priority advanced by the Finance Ministry and Bank of Israel and expressed by Finance Minister Eshkol. They stressed a need to avoid expenses that surpass the state’s financial resources, a need for frugality that according to the economists was exacerbated by the defense reinforcement and absorption expenditures. The additional expenses raised concern of an inflation much like that which the 1952 financial strategy was designed to prevent.7 This multi-layered reasoning was articulated by Ben-Gurion in his abovementioned January 5 address at the Histadrut Small Council, which was, as aforementioned, published in full by Davar within a week (Davar Jan. 12, 1956a). Ben-Gurion contrasted the wage and lifestyle enhancement of Israel’s stronger population with three social and national objectives he saw as intertwined. First, military reinforcement—a need imposed by Egypt’s rising power—which meant an expanded defense budget (which Defense Minister Ben-Gurion himself had significantly reduced several years prior for absorption purposes)8 and a restricted wage budget. Second, developing and supporting the new agricultural settlements, most of which were populated by immigrants from Muslim countries in Asia and Africa. Third, cultivating social solidarity by inhibiting social gaps between manual laborers, and white-collar workers and executives. The title Davar chose for Ben-Gurion’s speech was ‘Nikon! ’ (Heb: ‘on your mark!’), which emulated the urgency spurred by the Egyptian threat. At the center of the article, the newspaper bluntly displayed an excerpt from American Time magazine announcing Ben-Gurion’s concern that Israel was on borrowed time with regards to the impending threat. Ben-Gurion claimed the September 1955 arms deal between Egypt and the Soviet-Union via Czechoslovakia, destabilized the balance of power between Israel and the Arab states due to both the quantity and quality of weapons delivered to Egypt: “The Soviets have provided Egypt with high quality arms that we do not possess: jet fighters, jet bombers, premium tanks, and some say submarines as well” (Al Ha’mishmar 7  A prominent representative of this approach was D. Horowitz, head of the Bank of Israel, which was established two years prior. See (Horowitz 1957, 37–84). The 1952 program was a monetary and fiscal strategy that was announced in the Knesset by Finance Minister E. Kaplan in February 1952, but had been implemented since 1951. Its objective was to inhibit inflation resulting from mass immigration in 1949–1951, and the extensive financial means used for its absorption. For more on the program see (Alexander 1991, 79–93; Barkai 1989, 54–69; Gross 1999, 325–341, 344–346). 8  The demand for military reinforcement was not Ben-Gurion’s default position or the standard approach of whomever headed matters of defense. For instance, on December 1952, under different security and social circumstances, Ben-Gurion made significant cutbacks to the defense budget, prompting the resignation of then Commander in Chief Y. Yadin.

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Jan. 12, 1956a). Ben-Gurion noted that the leader of the opposition’s Herut party, Menachem Begin, and prominent security spokesperson of the coalition’s ‘Achdut Ha’avoda’ party Yig’al Alon, both stated that Israel was already in the midst of war in the Knesset. He on the other hand, predicted a substantial, imminent war, but believed it could still be prevented, avoiding the ‘hunger for battle’ he attributed to Alon and Begin. Ben-Gurion believed that preventing war hinged on arming Israel with weapons that matched the quality of arms the Soviet-Union, Czechoslovakia, and even Britain had provided to Egypt. This alone would deter Egyptian President Nasser, “who stands at the helm of a military cult with imperialist ambitions,”9 and keep him from attacking Israel. He had no doubt that the new arms were intended for the destruction of the Israeli state, and that in a matter of months the Egyptian army would absorb the new weapons into its various divisions with the aid of Czech experts. The Prime Minister and Defense Minister therefore declared that, “Failing to foresee the oncoming danger of war and make every effort to prepare for the terrible and daunting trial, means self-sacrifice and destruction, although there are still ways of averting danger” (Al Ha’mishmar Jan. 12, 1956a). Ben-Gurion proceeded by focusing on young Israeli society, the degree of its solidarity and ability to withstand war, and especially on the reciprocity between new immigrants from Muslim countries in Asia and Africa and the European veterans. He believed this relationship was crucial to the resilience of Israeli society in case of war, which influenced his position on the wage-gap issue. He underscored the weakness of Israeli society at the time, as opposed to the Jewish society that had withstood the War of Independence seven years prior. The Jewish society counted 650,000 members then, and although by 1956 population had grown by two and half, the essence of its people had changed, and now, “we are a nation in theory but not in practice” (Al Ha’mishmar Jan. 12, 1956a). Ben-Gurion was referring to the ethnic composition of the nation. He worried that at the decisive moment, immigrants in the new settlements would be unable to withstand the challenge as border-settlement residents had in the War of Independence. Therefore, he asserted that it was a chief national, social, and security priority to reinforce these settlements immediately with crews of agricultural experts, seasoned soldiers, teachers, physicians, and nurses of the veteran yishuv. Simultaneously, he emphasized the “hidden creative .

9  Ben-Gurion was referring to a book published in Nasser’s name at the close of 1954; the book was translated that year by IDF intelligence officers, and was later published in Hebrew (Nasser, 1958; also Bar-On 1990, 36–37). The true author of the book was likely Muhammad Hasnin Haykal. See Id. 421.

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ability” of the new immigrants, stating they were now the central force of Israeli settlement and periphery: “More than eighty three percent of all agricultural settlements founded post-state were established by new immigrants, the vast majority hailing from Asian and African countries, and this is what the future will hold as well.” He therefore regarded oriental immigrants as the new pioneers, while vehemently assailing veteran Ashkenazi citizens in the collective ‘we’: “And may we possess the moral strength to recognize our grievous blame! We have heavily sinned against the new immigrants […] we have ostracized and abandoned them” (Davar Jan. 12, 1956a). This outlook drove Ben-Gurion’s criticism of the “‘selfish’ and ‘demanding’ conduct of the veteran population, particularly with regard to white-collar workers and senior executives” wage demands and desire to set a sectorial gap. “It would be an irreparable sin if we now invest in improving the lives of the veterans in the cities and large settlements […],” he said. “The question we face is: higher wages and better quality of life—or new immigration and settlements.” We cannot comply with the wage demands of the established stateemployed workers, “as we will be expanding the dangerous gap, the material and spiritual gap, between the veterans in the cities and settlements and the new immigrants,” thereby damaging settlements in the periphery and border settlements (Davar Jan. 12, 1956a; also Molad June 1955b, 204). Therefore, the defense budget was not the sole motive behind Ben-Gurion’s objection to white-collar workers, senior executives, and construction workers’ wage demands. It was equally exigent to halt the expansion of social gaps, vacate the transit camps, and develop settlements with the mass immigration wave from North Africa that had resurged in July of 1954.10 Ben-Gurion’s vehement objection to expanding social gaps and his commitment to settling mass immigration guided MAPAI’s approach in confronting the white-collar associations.

10  According to a report by the Labor Ministry, since the beginning of 1954 the government and Jewish Agency facilitated the extensive transfer of transit camp settlers to permanent settlements. On January 1954 there were 18,170 families in transit camps and shacks, and within two years, by January 1956 more than half, 9,700 families (40,000 individuals), had moved to permanent settlements, see (Davar, Jan. 18, 1956b), on immigrant settlement see (Ha’cohen 1998).

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The Histadrut vs. White-Collar Workers

The Histadrut became significantly stronger in the 1950s relative to pre-State years.11 Its members tripled to over a million, comprising 60% of the State’s Jewish population. In terms of ethnic origin, the composition of Histadrut members had changed significantly—with one third now originating from Asia and Africa. Table 5

The Histadrut population relative to the general Jewish population (1950–1960). Chart in (Harpaz 1960, 584)

The beginning of year:

Total Histadrut population

Total Jewish population

% Histadrut population of Total Jewish population

1950 1955 1960

372,328 789,540 1,100,000

1,013,871 1,526,009 1,858,841

36.7 51.7 59.2

Table 6

The composition of Histadrut members by origin (1937–1958). Chart in (Harpaz 1960, 602)

Country of Origin

1937

Beginning of 1956 Beginning of 1958

Europe 84.5 58.3 Asia & Africa (not including Yemen) 4.2 24.3 Yemen 2.9 4.2 America and Australia 0.3 1.0 Native Israelis 8.1 12.2 Total 100.0 100.0

53.8 27.5 3.9 1.2 13.6 100.0

11  For the counter-approach, according to which the first decade marked a “significant fraying of the political, economic, and cultural power of the Histadrut sector,” see (Horowitz & Lissak 1990; Horowitz & Lissak 2000, 556–569, especially p. 567).

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The Histadrut also gained substantial financial strength in the 1950s. Through its trade association and economic enterprises, the Histadrut presided over hundreds of thousands of workers as well as the development of the periphery.12 The Histadrut’s support of Ben-Gurion’s position was therefore a definitive factor leading up tp MAPAI’s confrontation with the white-collar workers. In the next chapter, we will see the political and ideological mechanisms that led to an alliance between the Histadrut, Eshkol, and Ben-Gurion on this front. The Histadrut’s Small Council (Ha’va’ad Ha’poel) assembled on January 12, 1956, one week following Ben-Gurion’s programmatic speech, and a month before the collision with white-collar workers. The Small Council supported the decision made by MAPAI Center and adopted the proposal by the Histadrut Trade Unions Division to postpone the previously approved wage increase for white-collar workers and senior executives. Instead, they resolved to advance a comprehensive, gradual wage increase for all workers, thereby inhibiting the expanded wage gap white-collar workers demanded. On February 9 1956, the debate was published as ‘The 1956 Wage Policy’ across two pages of Davar, two days after the outset of the strike. During the debate, Histadrut Secretary Namir claimed that the meticulous wage regulations at the core of the 1952 economic policy had managed to prevent inflation. Currency and product pricing was stabilized, food and basic supply provision increased, and the rationing system for products and goods (the austerity policy) therefore receded gradually. According to Namir, the economy was beginning to indicate increased output, production, and export, and the beginnings of an improved trade balance. This relative success aided in absorbing the renewed immigration of 1954 and abating emigration, and state leadership therefore considered thawing the wage policy, which he admitted was “centralized and restrictive, even severely at times.” In light of the commitment to substantially increase white-collar workers and senior executives’ wages, he added, MAPAI intended to approve a comprehensive wage 12  Among the Histadrut corporations are the construction and public services concern ‘Solel Boneh’, ‘Bank Ha’poalim’, ‘Ha’sneh’, ‘Ampal’, ‘Shikun Ovdim’, and ‘Ha’zerah’. The ‘Kur’ industrial corporation was a division of ‘Solel Boneh’ at the time, and owned large factories such as ‘Alians’, ‘Mif’alei Tzinorot Haplada’, Sultam’, ‘Yuval Gad’, ‘Telrad’, ‘Hamegaper’, ‘Hasin Esh’, ‘Merkavim’, ‘Gamid’, ‘Yizrom’, ‘Tadir’, and ‘Finitzia’. Additionally, the Histadrut owned the ‘Ti’us’ industrial corporation and was a partner in large companies such as ‘Mekorot’, ‘El Al’, ‘Tzim’, and ‘Yachin-Chakal’. On the Histadrut’s economic enterprises see (Greenberg in: Bareli, Gutwein and Friling [eds.] 2005, 327–364; Greenberg 1991, 94–115; Gross & Greenberg 1994).

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increase for all trades by a minimum of 5% and a maximum of 15%. He mentioned “Varying scales for each trade and within each trade itself.” This increase was designed to restrict wage gaps that would have otherwise deepened due to white-collar workers and executives’ proposed wage increase (Davar Feb. 9, 1956a). Namir claimed that the military threat prompted by the Czech armsdeal had rendered the previous increase impractical. He therefore suggested its postponement, asking that those affected exhibit ‘national responsibility.’ These statements suggest that heads of MAPAI planned to limit wage-gaps prior to, and regardless of, the state of emergency. Statements by the Industrial Workers’ Association Chairman Yeruham Meshel more closely resembled Ben-Gurion’s approach, and far more than Namir had, emphasized socio-economic considerations. Meshel stressed the need for a substantial development budget to prevent unemployment and absorb new, unskilled immigrants,13 and the need to restrict gaps between different sectors within the working public. These combined objectives drove the heads of MAPAI to revoke the promises made to white-collar workers and senior executives. They also led them, even prior to the Czech arms-deal, to consider a wage increase of 5–15% for all production workers in order to restrict wage gaps. Meshel claimed there was a zero-sum game between the need to prevent unemployment among unskilled laborers, and raising salaries in the liberal professions: We must […] demand an expansion of the development budget on which thousands of families depend. The agenda for increased wages […] [at the expense] of the development budget could deprive thousands of immigrant and workers’ families of their livelihood and sentence them to atrophy and poverty. This overt contradistinction was not necessarily a result of the state of emergency. Meshel explained that from 1953 until the end of 1955 wages had risen substantially, due to bonuses for high productivity rather than an increased basic wage—meaning, thanks to incentive pay. His statements revealed an important mechanism of MAPAI’s wage policy: abating wage gaps through compensation programs unrelated to basic wage rates. It was this tactic precisely that white-collar workers and senior executives opposed. Meshel stated that within three years, the government and Histadrut’s wage and development policy had enabled “an industrial revolution in Israel, improving the lives of 13  The economic enterprises of the Histadrut were an important implementation vehicle of the development policy. See Molad June 1955a, 208–210 and Greenberg 1991.

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thousands of workers without raising the basic wage. Wages increased and the economy benefitted as well. We must stay on this path and promote the incentive pay method [depending on productivity], which has pushed our national economy forward.” Meshel believed the most important task at hand was broad-scale investment in workers’ professional development, aimed to transform as many unskilled workers as possible into professionals. He claimed a paradox had developed in Israel: thousands of unskilled laborers in need of work on the one hand, and a severe lack of professionals on the other. Three different groups now comprised the job market. First, a particularly large group of unskilled workers, mostly immigrants from Asia and Africa with limited bargaining power in the job market, who were vulnerable to unemployment and inflation and earned little. This group had over-expanded, spurring the kind of stratification that might undercut a modern economy’s development, jeopardize the economy overtime, and even prompt its collapse. Second were the skilled workers, mostly relatively veteran European immigrants, and third was a group of workers in the liberal professions and clerks, also composed of veteran European immigrants. This job-market structure, a byproduct of mass immigration, allowed veteran professionals with more bargaining-power to demand higher wages and an expanded wage-gap between themselves and unskilled workers, the vast majority of which were oriental immigrants. Meshel believed the wage policy should go against the current—i.e. the jobmarket structure formed in light of mass immigration from Muslim countries and Europe. Without the authoritative counter-action of the state and the Histadrut, he said, the already severe social gap may deepen on one hand while unemployment increases on the other. Meshel therefore suggested four central courses of action: significant investment in development in order to promote comprehensive and productive employment; broad-scale professional development for workers that would significantly reduce the amount of unskilled laborers; bonuses relative to increased productivity along with a uniform costof-living allowance; and moderate wage gaps strictly according to professional expertise. He warned against adopting the Soviet model of “classes within the working public” and ruled out the 1:50 gap between a laborer’s wage and a senior white-collar worker in the Soviet-Union, “although differentiation can be a positive thing” (Davar Feb. 9, 1956b; also Davar Jan. 13, 1956a). Meshel’s principled and pragmatic reasoning made him a prominent and efficient Histadrut spokesperson vis-á-vis white-collar workers and senior executives. Ben-Gurion’s statements at the previous Histadrut Small Council meeting were Meshel’s tailwind as he promoted a social-democratic agenda to inhibit rampant inequality due to mass immigration in the 1950s. Fighting

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against intensifying inequality within the immigrant society by inhibiting the middle class and supporting production workers, became the defining element of MAPAI policy in the first decade of Israeli statehood. Restricting white-collar workers’ wages was addressed by additional attendees of the meeting. Yosef Almogi, secretary of the Haifa Workers’ Council and one of MAPAI’s key political operators, stated that in light of the arms-deal it was now necessary to “sacrifice some of the higher earners in order to buttress the lower earners a bit” (Davar Feb. 9, 1956c). Chairman of the Knesset’s Labor Committee Akiva Govrin was even more zealous as he spoke of the ‘higher earners,’ grouping them with private business owners—adversaries of the Histadrut and Labor Party. He stated that the Israeli middle class and its press, as well as several leaders of the working intelligentsia “… now strive to bring down the wall” of the government and Histadrut who work to prevent the inflation that impending war and pay raises might cause (Davar Feb. 9, 1956d). The Histadrut considered itself the manual workers’ and low ranking clerks’ representative more so than white-collar professional workers and senior executives’ representative, which motivated its agenda to restrict class differences. Moshe Bitan, another representative of the ‘proletarian agenda,’ which was a dominant aspect of the discussion, described these priorities as a longstanding policy. He advocated for the adoption of Meshel’s “moderate increase of workers’ wages and reduction of the previously approved wage increase for the intelligentsia,” stating “we do not intend to approve such an immense wage gap” between laborers and white-collar workers. By positioning whitecollar workers as opponents of laborers’ interests, Bitan mirrored the position of Histadrut circles that promoted egalitarian policy, and therefore wished to obstruct white-collar workers’ demand to gain superior social status. They saw the white-collar workers’ wage-gap agenda as a threat to the concept of mutual social responsibility.14 It was this socialist principle that let the Histadrut’s first conference to prohibit wage-gaps based on professional qualification or trade in its institutions; later, in 1924, the egalitarian family-status pay scale was instated, replaced only in 1954 by a professional pay scale.15 14  On the egalitarian ideology at the foundation of the Histadrut see Kolat in: Gorny, Bareli, and Greenberg 2000, 5–27. 15  Since 1924, wages were based on an obligation to provide basic livelihood with added pay according to family size, two factors unrelated to professional skill or education. Additionally, a maximum wage was set, and it was decided that professional factors would not be considered in wage allocation. This method was difficult to implement, and the Histadrut institutions bypassed it with loans and advances. A 1945 reform implemented education-based bonuses, professional development opportunities, and added pay for

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Bitan proudly declared that “Those who accuse the Histadrut of [egalitarian] utopianism are indeed correct.” Short of achieving this ultimate aspiration, however, Bitan stated that he would settle for the strictest wage-gap restriction possible, and disapproved of those who “… preach the sanctity of the gap.” According to Bitan, the real question was whether working intelligentsia wages provided sufficient livelihood, and since they did, workers must withdraw their demands. The issue of incentive-pay to accelerate production was not merely applicable to white-collar workers, but to all trades. Contrary to the speakers that preceded him, Bitan made no mention of the arms-deal as cause for decreasing the wages promised to white-collar workers. Instead, he vehemently asserted that Israeli society was now comprised of many cultures, and the wages white-collar workers demanded therefore jeopardized it. “As a first priority, and for social reasons, the [people] of the working intelligentsia must prove they are worthy of being leaders and forerunners of public opinion, and contribute to the education of our nascent state’s disadvantaged sectors. They must not make egotistical-egocentric demands” (Davar Feb. 9, 1956e). Yehuda Sha’ari of the Ha’oved Ha’tzioni organization, a small faction of the Progressive Party within the Histadrut, represented the white-collar workers and senior executives in the discussion. He stated that Meshel’s proposal meant MAPAI leaders would retract their previous acknowledgement that expanding wage gaps between pay scales and different trades was necessary. Sha’ari challenged the adherence to the cost-of-living allowance method, which prevented wage differentiation; and believed the wage-gap issues did not only affect the intelligentsia, but also the cultivation of professionalism, education, and expertise in all divisions of national economy. “In terms of differentiation, however, the working intelligentsia has been deprived far more than other workers,” he said, adding: “The Histadrut has not sufficiently protected the interests of those in the liberal professions, and whether laborers’ quality of life has improved or not—and I believe it has—the liberal professions have not progressed at the same pace.” Sha’ari presented data on the gap between British laborers and physicians and concluded it comes to either 1:9 or 1:10. He claimed the minimum wage of a British laborer was 260 pounds a year in 1951, while a private physicians’ yearly wage was 670 pounds; the annual maximum for physicians was 2,500 pounds with an added bonus of 1,000 pounds; and engineers’ could earn up to 2,000 pounds a year. He believed the gaps implemented in Britain exemplified the proper method of repairing imbalanced workers under special circumstances. This reform did not manage to prevent circumvention of the aforementioned wage method, and in 1954, it was decided the family-based differentiation would cease. See Greenberg 1988; Zussman 1974.

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wage-allocation for the liberal professions in Israel. Sha’ari suggested allocating half of the increase approved in September of 1955, with commitment to distribute the remainder within one or two years via long-term liabilities or securities (Davar Feb. 9, 1956f). Finance Minister Eshkol remained cognizant of maintaining public funds. In an article published February 9 1956 in Davar he proclaimed that the basic wage freeze in the public sector should be adhered to, ruled out a comprehensive wage increase, and avoided direct comment on the dispute with whitecollar workers and senior executives. In the internal discussion we address in the following chapter, Eshkol’s vehement, negative opinion concerning their demand for superiority in the public sector wage system will be made evident. Eshkol underscored the severe lack in foreign currency, as money designated to purchase industrial machinery had been redirected to increase new immigrants’ pay. “Public works employees were compensated with state funds of course,” he said, “or in other words: dollars sent specifically to absorb the upsurge of immigration [into ‘development factories’] were converted into Israeli lira.” Eshkol was opposed to raising the basic wage, as he feared inflation and a further dwindling of government funds that should be channeled into development. This was behind his objection to significant pay raises for public works employees, immigrants, and expert construction workers. Publicly, Eshkol stayed mum on the issue of state-employed white-collar workers and senior executives’ wages. He only expressed his general resistance to a wage increase that is not anchored in accelerated productivity—as production and its expansion alone could lead the way to ‘financial independence,’ i.e. increased export and foreign currency surplus (Davar Feb. 9, 1956g). In the context of MAPAI’s public discourse on the wage issue and governmental defense budget, development, and immigration absorption, Eshkol represented the economists in the Ministry of Finance and young Bank of Israel headed by David Horowitz. Three different positions now characterized the developing confrontation between MAPAI government and the whitecollar workers and senior executives in the public sector. Ben-Gurion and Histadrut leaders such as Meshel underscored the importance of development and immigration absorption; Ben-Gurion and his cohort also asserted the need to increase government spending on defense in light of the Czech arms-deal; and Eshkol, Horowitz, senior governmental economists, and their MAPAI supporters, sought to prevent the inflation likely to result from expanded defense, development, and immigration budgets. Interwoven as they might seem, distinctions can still be noted between the three agendas. Ben-Gurion had acknowledged the need to prevent inflation and deterioration of the government’s balance of payments. This need

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motivated his support of the restrictive economic policy at the end of 1951 and beginning of 1952, after he had insisted on expansionary fiscal practices in the first years of statehood for the sake of immigration absorption. However, in the first decade of statehood two conflicting agendas characterized Israeli leadership: expanding immigration absorption and development, advocated by Ben-Gurion with the Histadrut’s support; and restricting immigration absorption and development in order to prevent fiscal collapse. The restriction agenda was advocated by Finance Minister Eshkol and his predecessor Eliezer Kaplan, as well as Finance Ministry Director General and later head of the Bank of Israel, Horowitz. Horowitz found Ben-Gurion’s expansionary and dynamic approach “surreal and irrational,” “rooted in the distant past [the yishuv? The pre-modern era?],” which is “evident in the desire to overpower facts” (Horowitz 1975, 125).16 The approach Horowitz advanced, along with academic economists under Dan Patinkin and senior Finance Ministry executives, positioned financial independence in contrast to the expansionary absorption and development fiscal policy heralded by Ben-Gurion.17 Nevertheless, these two prominent and opposing schools of thought within Israeli leadership came together as allies in confronting white-collar workers and senior executives. As we will see in the next chapter, in his opposition to white-collar workers’ demands and especially in his political praxis, Eshkol became the ‘link’ that facilitated this political alliance to thwart implementation of the Guri recommendations. To complete the picture, it is also important to note that Sharett, the prime minister during the first eighteen months of MAPAI and white-collar workers’ confrontation, had an anti-inflation approach to these issues. His stance coincided with that of Finance Ministry and Bank of Israel officials rather than with Ben-Gurion’s approach. As indicated in chapter 3, he had a much more sympathetic approach than Ben-Gurion regarding the white-collar workers’ demand for superiority in the public sector wage system.18 16  Horowitz wrote that he resigned as Finance Ministry director after the 1952 fiscal program was adopted and Finance Minister Kaplan resigned due to illness (Horowitz 1975, 125– 126). This could be interpreted to mean that his resignation was partly due to the fact that despite adopting the 1952 fiscal program, MAPAI government had not fully relinquished the expansionary fiscal approach and did not adopt Horowitz’s approach. Horowitz’s appointment as founding head of the Bank of Israel had also failed to shift the fundamental stance of then Prime Minister, but can still be seen as an expression of the relative institutional strength Horowitz’s approach had gained. 17  On the term ‘economic independence’ and its role in Israel’s economy-centered discourse during the first decade see (Halevi 2006, 7–11; Krampf 2008, 1–34). 18  See, for instance, Sharett’s comments during a June 1955 Knesset debate, toward the end of his term as Prime Minister Divrei Ha’knesset 18, 1986–1990.

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The Dispute over the Government and Histadrut’s Position

The pre-state Jewish society in Eretz Yisrael was characterized by a relative plentitude of academic professionals, most of which had immigrated in the 1930s and 1940s. This changed dramatically upon the State’s establishment, as absorption demands propelled by mass immigration only increased the need for academically educated professionals. While immigrants in the liberal professions were able to provide services for themselves as well as veteran residents during the mandate period, post-statehood circumstances reversed: the veteran public now provided for itself as well as the new immigrants (Meyuzam with Hanoch and Klinov-Malul 1958, 1). Moreover, the lack of human resources in the liberal professions would be a long-term issue due to the extensive training such fields require (3–8 years, and the final two years of high-school). This state-of-affairs, which characterized the 1950s labor market, gave white-collar workers powerful leverage in confronting the government and Histadrut. These authorities depended on white-collar workers to fulfill national objectives, including immigration absorption, industrial and agricultural development, and military reinforcement. Therefore, white-collar workers’ pull was not merely the byproduct of MAPAI’s political incentive to gain their support. They carried socio-economic weight when challenging the government and Histadrut on wage issues. The crucial economic role and dominant status they had earned—under the wing of Histadrut and the government19— influenced political discourse within MAPAI itself. As aforementioned, MAPAI press sounded tones of support for white-collar workers and senior executives. From the perspective of white-collar workers and senior executives, the decision made by the Histadrut Small Council was no less than a slap in the face. Firstly it meant cutting the basic-wage increase, which was intended to compensate for three years of wage-gap erosion, in half. Secondly, the Histadrut’s program would prevent even this partial increase from elevating their status over professional manual laborers such as construction workers, as the Histadrut advocated that they receive a similar increase. Third, income tax on the reduced increase would further shrink it by an approximate 15% (Davar Jan. 13, 1956b). Lastly, to white-collar workers’ dismay, the government and Histadrut would maintain their primary gap-restriction apparatuses: the 19  During the 1950s, the government promoted the increase of higher-education graduates in Israel with significant contributions to the higher education institutions. This included funding the establishment of law, medicine, and agriculture faculties and the schools for the humanities, dental medicine, and pharmacology in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. See Cohen 2006, 171–200; also Rosenfeld & Carmi 1979, 43–84.

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bonus method, additional pay relative to family size, and uniform cost-ofliving allowance. Additionally, there was the government’s extensive development budget, designed to prevent unemployment and increase productivity,20 and the military reinforcement budget. As aforementioned, Ben-Gurion referred to wageincrease for the ‘upper classes’ as a contradiction to the development and defense agendas; a concept that obstructed their path to wage increases in the future as well. Over the course of those weeks, it gradually became clear that MAPAI was instigating hostility in the public sphere by contrasting development and security needs, with the fulfillment of its promise to expand wage gaps after years-long erosion. A warning in the Davar editorial that followed the wage policy arbitration echoed this confrontational tactic: “If the physicians protest and the government and Histadrut surrender to them—we will have to confront a rebellious working intelligentsia for all its levels and divisions” (Davar Jan. 15, 1956a). Davar was committed to relaying Ben-Gurion and the Histadrut’s agenda, and defending the retraction of the promises made to white-collar workers and senior executives. Accordingly, on the same page that displayed BenGurion’s abovementioned speech, the newspaper printed two direct attacks on white-collar workers. “Will a physician be found for Tzfat?” inquired one reporter in the popular short-form articles column ‘Beshulei Dvarim’ [‘on the margins’]. The Galilean immigrant town had only two physicians for 6,000 residents, and the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) had not managed to recruit any additional physicians for the location. The journalist compared this failure to the voluntary efforts of the Labor-movement settlement residents to aid immigrant settlements. Another article in the same column assailed the working intelligentsia, “the executives and workers in the liberal professions,” for their demand to set a wage-gap between themselves and other workers (Davar Jan. 12, 1956b; Davar Jan. 12, 1956c). At the national council of military industry workers, an address by BenGurion’s confidant and right-hand man, Ministry of Defense Director General Shim’on Peres, echoed the Prime Minister’s approach. Peres stated that for the first time since 1948 the Arab states believe their ploy to destroy Israel is feasible, due to arms reinforcement from the Soviet-Union and Britain. He therefore asserted that increased arms production had precedence over payraises, and assailed the upper classes in the public sphere—stating that ‘the

20  The development budget grew from 67.4 million IL in 1/1950 to 260 million IL in 5/1954 (Luach Ha’aretz Yearbook 1954, 259).

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middle classes are too slow to contribute to the ‘Magen Fund’’ (Al Ha’mishmar Jan. 12, 1956b). On January 15, 1956, following deliberations in the MAPAI and Histadrut Small council, the wage issue reached the ultimate arbitrator, the government. As aforementioned, Progressive Party leader and then Justice Minister Rosen, threatened his Party’s withdrawal from the government if it did not fulfill previous commitments to increase wages. His stance won the support of Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi and Ha’mizrachi ministers, the two religious parties about to join forces as the ‘National Religious Party’ (NRP, MAFDAL) (Davar Jan. 15, 1956b). The government’s deliberations on a suggested retreat form the Guri recommendations will be elaborated upon in the next chapter. On January 15, the Coordination Committee of the white-collar trade unions announced that while MAPAI decided to instate ‘a general wage increase,’ for them this meant an effective pay-cut, as their position on the pay scale would continue to suffer, as well as the degree of differentiation between them and other workers. To white-collar workers and senior executives, restricted differentiation meant reduced pay. They saw this decision as “a danger to the foundations of national economy” and dismissed Ben-Gurion’s claim that a targeted pay raise would interfere with national security. The Coordination Committee resolved to convene assemblies in preparation for strike (Davar Jan. 16, 1956). The members of MAPAI were well aware of the difficult struggle ahead. This was a key factor behind their choice to publicize guidelines delineated by a special state-of-emergency MAPAI committee, most of which directly imposed on the conditions and status of white-collar workers and senior executives. Former defense minister Pinchas Lavon was chair of the committee, which consisted of senior party members.21 The committee recommended promptly recruiting 1,000–1,500 men between the ages of 35–40 for a year of national service under the Defense Service Law, dividing them into crews of 6–10, and stationing them in new immigrant settlements. This would address the severe lack of nurses, physicians, teachers, and kindergarten teachers—the very population headed toward confrontation with MAPAI government. It further recommended that 12th grade matriculation exams be held earlier in the year, in order to draft students for six months of service in peripheral immigrant settlements. The committee made additional recommendations targeting white-collar workers and senior executives: revoking personal-vehicle privileges for senior management and executives; prolonging the work week for state-employed 21  Committee members were P. Lavon (chairman), B. Idelson, Y. Almogi, A. Assaf, L. Eshkol, A. Bahir, A. Govrin, G. Yoseftal, M. Namir, P. Naphtali, and P. Sapir.

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clerks and teachers; prohibiting strikes and applying compulsory arbitration in national and vital public service divisions; strict supervision of travel permits for residents under the Defense Service Law and even their complete retraction; reducing the amount of State and public emissaries abroad; discontinuing the importation of large American and British vehicles to public institutions and the private market, and replacing it with importation of small European vehicles. The Lavon committee also recommended instating a ‘defense tax’ [‘magen’ tax] as well as taxing apartments that exceed 80 m2. These taxes would fund military acquisitions, fortification, civic defense, and emergency inventory, and aid immigrant settlements and the periphery, which was largely populated with 1954 immigrants (Davar Jan. 18, 1956).22 Additionally, the committee recommended cutting back 8–10% of human resources in state institutions such as the Jewish Agency, municipalities, and various Histadrut divisions. Their claim was that these included thousands of unnecessary employees who cost millions and disrupt efficient and proper work processes with their very presence (Davar Jan. 17, 1956). The taxation and layoff recommendations were also, among other things, an affront to white-collar workers and senior executives. In an interview with Yoel Marcus, Committee Chair Lavon explained that nearly all clauses of the emergency program were applicable to calm periods as well. He had therefore revealed that the socio-economic policy prompting MAPAI to confront white-collar workers and senior executives was in no way contingent on the state-of-emergency, although it utilized it (Davar Jan. 18, 1956a). MAPAI’s Ministerial Committee on National Security Affairs and its Knesset faction adopted the recommendations proposed by Lavon and his colleagues (Davar Jan. 19, 1956a). On January 18, the Engineers, Architects, Agronomists, and Chemists’ Association, which heeded the authority of the Histadrut, decided that in light of the emergency it would accept the Histadrut Small Council’s decision and agree to a yearlong delay in implementing a new pay scale for the engineers (Davar Jan. 19, 1956b). Contrary to this instance of consent, stateemployed judicial workers announced they would declare a general strike if the Guri recommendations were not implemented within a month. Their assembly included eighty attorneys, legal consultants, and other legal workers 22  The report about population distribution by the Housing Division of the Labor Ministry headed by Meyerson stated that settlements had absorbed half of the 48,986 immigrants arriving from North Africa between July 1954 and the end of December 1955, with 37% living in development areas, and only 10% in cities or their surrounding regions. 5% lived in transit camps.

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nationwide. They elected a committee to coordinate their activity with other state-employed white-collar workers (Davar Jan. 19, 1956c). Even though the ruling party and Histadrut had already announced their wage policy and revoked implementation of the Guri recommendations, MAPAI’s political discourse still included some supporters of wage-gap expansion. For instance, Yehuda Horin, among the leaders of the Histadrut’s economic enterprises, general secretary of its agricultural center and head of the ‘Yachin-Chakal’ company,23 referenced wage inequality in the Soviet-Union to substantiate his objection to egalitarian wage practices. Israel is absorbing masses of unprofessional, underprivileged immigrants, he stated, and is therefore obligated to initiating employment opportunities, professional training, housing, and development. As a result, the majority of Israelis, both veteran residents and immigrants, earn their income directly from agencies that are reliant on public funds. This state of affairs renders governmental wage policy crucial. Horin disapproved of the adopted policy, and believed it might prompt the “severe failure of the entire labor system.” Instead of implementing a basicwage method designed to ensure proper quality of life for workers with no regard for output, he recommended increasing wage gaps between the different trades and within the trades themselves, as well as increasing the impact of incentive pay on wages. Contrary to his approach, Israeli salaries were set according to the middle stratum, which included most salary earners—clerks, tenured employees, and professional industrial workers—with others workers earning slightly more or slightly less than this average wage. Therefore, in addition to the small inter-professional gap there was almost full equality in pay scales within the respective trades. As a counter to this state-of-affairs, Horin advanced an approach he claimed was prevalent in the Soviet-Union, which regarded wage equality as a hindrance to enhanced productivity (Davar Jan. 20, 1956). As expressed in Meshel’s analysis quoted above, Histadrut leadership supported and implemented a different method of productivity encouragement. It utilized incentive pay, which enabled reducing wage inequality between the different trades while maintaining a fixed gap within the trades themselves. Horin was definitely in a small minority among the ranks of Histadrut leaders and officials. The government adopted MAPAI’s wage policy by majority vote and resolved to reduce the increase promised to white-collar workers and senior executives 23  A company for processing agricultural output established by the Histadrut in 1952 as a joint effort of ‘Yachin’, the Histadrut’s citrus-growing plant (since 1927), and ‘Chakal’, a company shared by the Histadrut and the Jewish Agency for contracting agricultural workers (since 1942). Horin managed ‘Yachin’ since its establishment.

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by half. In the next chapter, we will examine the details of the political process that led to this decision, thereby illuminating the social and ethnic orientation of the different political parties represented in the government. The government spokesperson announced that the State’s budget would reflect this decision, and it is not yet known when the second half of the increase will be allocated. In light of this, Justice Minister and Progressive Party leader Rosen reiterated his threat of withdrawal. The government appointed the State Services Commissioner to conduct negotiations with white-collar workers and senior executives, and Commissioner David Rosolio presented the main principles of the governmental wage policy to them. Rosolio claimed the wage gap between different echelons of governmental service stands at 1:2.4, the smallest in the world—with the gap in Britain at 1:25 and 1:55 in the Soviet-Union. He added that 40% of the 30,872 state-employed workers were new immigrants (Davar Jan. 24, 1956a). Government and Histadrut representatives tried to dissuade white-collar workers’ representatives, the physicians especially,24 as well as Progressive Party members, who believed the government was implementing Histadrut policy rather than its own (Davar Jan. 24, 1956b; Davar Jan. 25, 1956b; Davar Jan. 26, 1956; Davar Jan. 29, 1956). These attempts were unsuccessful. The Council of the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) and salaried physicians’ associations (state-employed physicians and physicians working in Hadassah, the Tel-Aviv Municipality, ‘Malben’, and the Histadrut’s Kupat Holim) announced they would declare strike on February 7 if they did not receive the pay raise they were promised (Davar Jan. 23, 1956; Davar Jan. 27, 1956). The senior executives announced they would cooperate with the white-collar workers’ coordination committee in protest of the government’s decision (Davar Jan. 25, 1956c). On the trade union front, MAPAI attempted to mobilize white-collar associations that heeded the Histadrut’s authority, such as the engineers, architects, agronomists, and Chemists’ Association (Davar Feb. 3, 1956a). The national faction of MAPAI-affiliated physicians publicly objected the position of the IMA and the Kupat Holim Physicians’ Association regarding physicians’ decision to 24  Kupat Holim physicians demanded that discussion of their wages be isolated from that of other workers. They claimed that the government’s failure to fulfill its commitment to them was habitual, asserting that a public committee headed by Minister Z. Aran unanimously recommended a new pay scale for Kupat Holim physicians. Based on this scale they were given 200 IL as a payment on account and promised that each physician would later receive a monthly raise of 80 IL, such that wages would increase to 540–600 IL. Aside from the first payment, however, the physicians had received nothing, and therefore threatened to strike. See Davar Jan. 25, 1956a; Davar Jan. 26, 1956; Davar Feb. 1, 1956a.

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strike. It asserted that “there is no moral and public justification for shutting down public medical services nationwide” (Davar Feb. 3, 1956b). On January 29, two competing national assemblies were held by the State’s engineers. One, conducted by representatives of the Engineers’ Association affiliated with the Histadrut (including engineers, architects, agronomists, and chemists), had already announced its consent to the new wage policy. The other—a national assembly of committees of engineers, architects, agronomists, and chemists who were employed by government, municipal, public, and private institutions—had resolved to encourage engineers to strike, leave the Histadrut, and establish a new engineers’ trade union (Davar Jan. 30, 1956).25 The physicians began practical preparation for strike and publicized emergency protocol for re-operating the hospitals. They decided to close all clinics, to only provide Kupat Holim members medical care in exchange for cash, and that all communication between physicians and management of the medical institutions will cease (Davar Jan. 31, 1956a). As the strike drew closer, the government and the Histadrut tried to isolate the respective associations and negotiate with them separately. They were unwilling to recognize the Coordination Committee of the white-collar trade unions, which now included senior executives as well. This reflected their aversion to legitimizing professional middle class umbrella organizations (like the IMA) that impinged on Histadrut authority. Meanwhile, the Coordination Committee decided that as of February 7, all employees of the associations it represents would launch a comprehensive strike. Attempts to prevent the impending strike were also evident on the political front, especially vis-á-vis the Progressive Party. President Yitzhak BenZvi joined in efforts to prevent coalitional chaos, and met with Justice Minister Rosen to discuss the matter. Labor Minister Golda Meyerson (Meir) suggested convening a meeting on the wage issue with the Justice Minister and representative ministers from each faction. A meeting between the Progressives and MAPAI representatives was scheduled, in which the finance, and trade and industry ministers Eshkol and Sapir would all take part (Davar Feb. 1, 1956a). However, these political efforts proved fruitless, as did negotiation attempts with the different associations (Davar Feb. 2, 1956). The white-collar workers and senior executives continued preparing for strike. The National Committee of Kupat Holim Physicians Association discussed the Histadrut Small Council’s proposed compromise, and unanimously decided to reject them (Davar Feb. 3, 1956b). Ha’aretz newspaper, owned by Progressive Party Knesset member Gershom Schocken, printed 25  For more on engineers in support of the Histadrut see Dever Feb. 3, 1956c.

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an announcement on behalf of the IMA’s primary executive committee prior to the strike. It stated that the government’s decisions effectively deduct physicians’ wages, and subsequently, they no longer trust it would indeed raise wages come January 1957. Therefore, on February 7, 1956, a general strike will be declared, to persist until the government implements the September 1955 decisions. The strike will include every hospital and clinic in every Kupat Holim. The physicians’ announcement concluded with a declaration that, Scare tactics and the threat of sanctions will not deter physicians from fighting to secure their rights. The physicians will object to any disregard for their personal dignity, the dignity of the medical profession, and their social standing, and will stand strong and unified in their joint struggle. It is inconceivable that a democratic government, which relies on public trust, would fail to honor its obligations. The government is therefore solely responsible for the severe shock to the medical service system. Ha’aretz Feb. 6, 1956a

Days before the strike, the Histadrut’s Davar newspaper published letters from readers who objected to it.26 Hanan Rubin, a high-school teacher, academic, and member of the Progressive Party, opposed his party’s demand for “higher wages for the working intelligentsia” and described an “economic as well as spiritual” rift between them and “physical laborers” (Davar Jan. 31, 1956b). Dr. Morgenstern extended a spirited call to white-collar workers “lest they join an unofficial strike at this urgent hour that might destroy the economy and nation as a whole.” While sympathetic to their cause, he asked that potential strikers heed institutional authority for the sake of loyalty to the State and Histadrut (Davar Feb. 1, 1956b). Yaccov Kremer targeted his critique at Progressive Party leadership, claiming the Party gave private, class-centered incentives precedence over national incentives. He believed its willingness to support the upper professional echelons and white-collar workers professed indifference to the plight of thousands of unemployed citizens and their families. “Thousands of families are, to our dismay, still living in impoverished neighborhoods, transit camps, and shacks,” he stated. Mockingly, Kremer added: “I have no doubt this situation shakes the hearts of Progressives as well.” The working intelligentsia’s conditions may not be ideal, but they enjoy a satisfactory quality of life, “and

26  As aforementioned, Davar published articles supportive of wage-gaps, but not supportive readers’ letters, which reflects the newspaper’s ethos, which was then largely influenced by the heads of Histadrut.

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I therefore struggle to understand the combative vehemence for defending these workers specifically” (Davar Feb. 1, 1956c). The voice of the oriental proletariat immigrant groups from Muslim countries in Asia and Africa was absent from the public debate in MAPAI press.27 Those who voiced contempt toward white-collar workers and senior executives and resisted class distinction via wage policy were letter-writers such as the above-mentioned as well as MAPAI political operators and public activists; both had come from Europe. For instance, the ‘Gush’, an informal association of MAPAI operators in Tel-Aviv,28 became a source of such harsh criticism on the wage-gap demands. One member, Secretary of the Tel-Aviv Workers’ Council Eliezer Shechter, asked that white-collar workers willingly concede to abdicating higher wages in light of emergency, to avoid “a chasm between themselves and other workers […]”. The working public will not accept that while most workers’ demands are restrained, one particular group will make no sacrifices and come to full satisfaction, he stated. The Histadrut and ‘Gush’ circles—for which Shecther was a typical spokesman—demanded restriction not only of ‘strong’ workers’ wages, but also of private business owners’ income. They also wished to “fight the destructive phenomena of cartels, excessive profits, and easily-acquired wealth, to the bitter end” (Davar Feb. 1, 1956d). This combative spirit also characterized the Histadrut’s leadership. The Histadrut Steering Committee unanimously decided to hold a special meeting and warn Histadrut members that strikes and threats of a strike undermine the Histadrut’s position and violate its constitution (Davar Feb. 5 and 6, 1956).29 The socio-economic rationale driving the State’s political leadership on the evening of the strike was repeatedly affirmed—targeted restriction of the social gap formed by the massive immigration wave that had washed over the State. MAPAI’s political operators were therefore ready for battle, much like its leadership, as we will see in the next chapter.

…

27  For a discussion on this phenomenon see Bareli 2009, 54–58; Bareli 2014. 28  The main leaders of the ‘Gush’ at the time were S. Netzer, Y. Rabinowitz (later to become Tel-Aviv mayor and finance minister), D. Netzer, E. Shechter, Z. Weiner, M. Zilberman, U. Alpert, and Y. Kazantzei. This group was tightly linked to MAPAI leaders, especially Ben-Gurion, Meyerson, Aran and Namir, a well as Eshkol, and for a certain period Lavon. See Bareli 2014; Netzer 1979. 29  The Histadrut Steering Committee’s decision was not merely declarative. After the previous Kupat Holim physicians’ warning strike in 1955, the Association members were tried by the Histadrut and suspended, but the suspension ended when the dispute took a temporary hiatus.

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In the months leading up to confrontation with white-collar workers on February 1956, a dominant left-wing socio-economic approach had developed in MAPAI’s public discourse. It perceived the State and Histadrut as an autonomous body tasked with restricting wage-gaps between the oriental proletariat and middle class Ashkenazi professionals. This activist approach opposed the ethnic stratification that developed in the 1950s and clashed with middle class professionals’ agenda to deepen wage-gaps. MAPAI members held that government apparatuses and the Histadrut should not be regarded as the implementers or ‘executive committee’ of veteran citizens and the upper classes more so than new immigrants. According to Moshe Lissak and Dan Horowitz, MAPAI’s political rivals feared that the Party would try to achieve a utopic, egalitarian workers society, which it had failed to create pre-statehood (Horowitz and Lissak 2000, 567). The social reality of 1950s Israel ruled-out this possibility. Acute inequality between the veteran citizens and immigrants characterized employment, income, housing, and education circumstances, and it was feared that this phenomenon would become permanent, expand, and be replicated by the following generations. Furthermore, there was the issue of new immigrants’ political inefficacy alongside a political sphere that was barricaded to them.30 Due to the threat of perpetual inequality spurred by the scope and pace of 1950s mass immigration and its social and educational composition, the Ben-Gurion-led core of MAPAI decided that the ruling party would represent the economic interests of immigrant workers, and adhere to restricting inequality in the wage system. This activist, republicanist-social approach, combined with party interests, drove MAPAI to take the oriental proletariat under its patronage. This approach was adopted despite internal criticism within MAPAI on the Party’s economic and political rationale. MAPAI leadership and the majority of its representatives were willing to pay a political price and clash with party supporters from the professional middle class, despite the blow they had suffered in the elections of summer 1955. During the second half of 1955, Israel endured a severe security crisis due to the Egyptian-Czech arms deal. This might have forced the ruling party to mend internal disputes in the labor market and foster a consensus, even if only while 30  For a discussion of the political capacity of immigrants from Asia and Africa and the political system’s inaccessibility to them, see Bareli 2009, 8–54. In political discourse that followed the 1977 political upheaval, many Labor Movement intellectuals such as D. Horowitz, Y. Arieli, M. Brinker, Z. Sternhell, and Y. Yuval, claimed that the political and cultural capacity of oriental immigrants worked against the Labor movement and was advantageous to the right-wing. See Cohen and Orkibi 2008, 149–188.

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undergoing the national crisis. MAPAI, however, went a different route. BenGurion, Eshkol, Meyerson, Lavon, Namir, and heads of the Trade Union Becker and Meshel, provoked confrontation with the white-collar workers even at the price of a strike across the public sector’s professional middle class. Social structure considerations relating to renewed immigration absorption in 1954, its settlement in border towns, and the continued evacuation of the transit camps, combined with the social and security incentive to foster societal unity, led MAPAI to confront the white-collar workers. In the next chapter, we will discuss the inner deliberations of Israel’s political leadership prior to the crisis. For now, it suffices to conclude that our discussion on MAPAI’s public discourse on the eve of the crisis demonstrates that the wage-gap restriction policy at the expense of the professional middle class was perceived as a long-term policy in wide circles of MAPAI. In 1960, five years following these events, Histadrut Secretary Lavon proudly announced that MAPAI had managed to restrict inter-class wage gaps in the public sector. He asserted that at the outset of the 1960s, the gap between laborers and junior clerks and the white-collar workers and senior clerks was even smaller than in the 1940s and stabilized at a ratio of 1:3 and a net ratio of 1:2.5 post-income tax. “These are facts. I knew our country thirty years ago, and twenty years ago, and I privilege myself with saying that today the gap is smaller than it has ever been in the history of the yishuv,” i.e. smaller than the pre-state period.31 31  The example Lavon presented to his colleagues was a specialist physicians’ pay at the peak of his seniority—after accumulating at least twenty years of training and experience—and a director of a central department in a large hospital. This physician earned a gross 920–930 IL (10,600–10,720 NIS in December 2010), while the wage of an average industry worker was 300 IL (3,460 NIS in December 2010). According to Lavon, only 20–30 physicians in the State earn a similar wage to that of the aforementioned specialist, but the vast majority of physicians do not earn this amount nor receive any additional income, although some senior physicians do have additional employment outside of their public-sector work. See Lavon 1968, 191–192.

chapter 5

“If they Strike—So be it!” The Socialist Pact to Thwart the Guri Committee Recommendations After considerable delay, the new government under Ben-Gurion was finally established on November 3, 1955, more than three months post-elections. The shift in prime ministers brought on a shift in the public sector wage issue. Former Prime Minister Moshe Sharett had been agreeable to wage-gap expansion, although his government was by no means enthusiastic about implementing the Guri recommendations. Ben-Gurion on the other hand, opposed wage-gap expansion due to priorities that included national unity in the context of mass immigration, development-related budgetary needs to accommodate said immigration, and national security.1 Therefore, under the leadership of Ben-Gurion and Finance Minister Levi Eshkol, the government took a progressively combative approach to white-collar workers’ demands. Another change was the withdrawal of the right wing General Zionists from the government (toward the end of the Sharett government term) and the addition of MAPAM and Achdut Ha’avoda to the coalition. Their primary strongholds were the Ha’kibbutz Ha’artzi movement (MAPAM) and Ha’kibbutz Ha’meuchad movement (Achdut Ha’avoda). In 1948, the two attempted unifying into one party, but the effort that had produced the name ‘MAPAM’ proved unsuccessful. Six years later, in 1954, they once again disjoined (Ha’shomer Ha’tzair members kept the name MAPAM), not long before entering the MAPAI government separately. For the first time since the War of Independence, the government included all Zionist labor movement parties; Ha’oved Ha’tzioni (in the Progressive Party) and Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi maintained their government positions.

1  Of course, there was also conflict between the immigration and development budget and the security budget. At the beginning of his first term as Prime Minister, Ben-Gurion prioritized mass immigration and development and reduced the military budget, a decision that led to the resignation of Commander in Chief Yiga’el Yadin. The impending Egyptian threat that paralleled accelerated immigration from Morocco, however, was a shift: the security budget had to be extended while funding for immigration and development continued.

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Eshkol’s Strategy in Its Initial Stages

Five days after its establishment, the new government assembled and was addressed by Eshkol and Bank of Israel Governor David Horowitz. Both generally rebuked the prospect of pay raises for high-ranking civil servants with the help of the old-new Prime Minister. As we indicated in our chapter on the Sharett government and as we will later show, this was part of Eshkol’s plan to restrict white-collar workers’ and senior executives’ wages with the help of an alliance he formed with the Histadrut. At the time, this seemed like a lost battle, as the Sharett government had ruled in favor of implementing the Guri recommendations, and the demands of MAPAI members in the Histadrut to increase workers’ wages had only intensified since. Eshkol’s statements therefore implied a certain degree of despair. Nonetheless, Eshkol began laying the groundwork in the government. Several days following the government assembly, the Finance Minister would approach the Histadrut with the intentions of inhibiting the escalating demands of the trade unions and striking an alliance against full implementation of the Guri recommendations. This alliance was bolstered by the intensified Egyptian threat following the Czech arms-deal, which became a central concern of Ben-Gurion’s new government (See, e.g., SA Oct. 3, 1955) and demanded significant budget expansion. At the government meeting, Eshkol described the status quo in his characteristically piquant fashion. When the 1955–1956 fiscal year budget was presented to the Knesset, he said, there was relative stability in terms of prices and financial status, achieved after acute inflation in 1950–1952. However, Eshkol stated that, “new troubles are brewing and coming upon us,” as “we have been jolted by both the joy of Yaacov [the Moroccan immigration] and the fury of Esau [Nasser]” (SA Nov. 8, 1955). The government must now face both the threat of inflation and the deterioration of State funds, said the Finance Minister, due to its simultaneous obligation to enable Jewish Moroccan immigration following Morocco’s independence from France, and to prepare for a military confrontation with Egypt. Eshkol was concerned about circumstances in the present that could impair the State’s capacity to withstand developments in the future. Production, employment, and consumption had grown significantly while exportation had not. The real wages of industrial and construction workers had grown by 5% while civil servant’s wages had grown by 8%. The real wage had increased over the past year despite the wage freeze due to promotions and incentive premiums. In the near future, said Eshkol, implementation of the Guri recommendations would increase basic wages across the public sector due to the

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escalating demands of lower ranking workers, and eventually raise wages nationwide. He stated that there had been a significant increase in the public’s circulating media: 5% in 1952, 13% in 1953, and 16% in 1954, and escalations in consumption have far surpassed production (SA Nov. 8, 1955). Eshkol’s statements were anchored in three assumptions: First, that elevated investment in development, wages, and private consumption would spur inflation; second, that pay raises will increase exportation costs and therefore damage the State’s balance of payments; and third, that the combination of escalating inflation and an impaired balance of payments would lead to a financial crisis. The plan to absorb 45,000 Moroccan immigrants over the course of a year is estimated to cost 70–78 million IL, continued Eshkol, one third of which is “on us” and two-thirds “on the Jewish people.” From the time this decision was made, 20,000 Moroccan Jews have already immigrated to Israel. In light of the security threat, the government has decided to add 1 million IL and 1 ½ million dollars to the security budget, but in actuality 5 million dollars have been added, which still has not sufficed, and the budget must grow in IL by the end of March 1956. The primary expenses include accelerated production in the military industry, renovating airports, and accommodating drafted soldiers. Ben-Gurion interjected, and said that should the situation remain calm, draftees will be released the following week, to which Eshkol answered, “If [the French] sell us [the arms] they have promised, we are talking about serious tens of millions of dollars.” The projected security budget for the following year would therefore be entirely different (SA Nov. 8, 1955). These matters are “like frontlets between my eyes,”2 he said. Later in the meeting, Ben-Gurion stated that the arms acquisition from France would cost 10 million dollars. With these factors as his point of departure, Eshkol launched his attack on prospective implementation of the Guri recommendations. What the physicians and engineers will receive according to the recommendations, all salaried employees will receive. The funds made available to them will grow by 150 million IL, which is 20% of the basic wages of all salaried employees and 20% of their overall wages. Of this sum, 20 million IL has already been allocated to the upper ranks of the public sector workforce in accordance with the Guri recommendations. Under pressure, it was agreed upon that wages would be raised in all ranks, though in smaller amounts in the lower ranks. The outcome was a 6% increase in the wages of civil servants. In one rank, the increase reached up to 60%. If we broaden our perspective to include all salaried employees affected by the Guri recommendations, including the public non-government sector, we are looking at 35 million IL. Thus far, only advance 2  A quote from the Jewish Shacharit (morning) prayer.

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payments have been distributed, reported Eshkol to the government, and there are still disputes with the teachers, nurses, and other professional groups. Eshkol worried that if this accurately reflected the increase rate of public sector wages, suppliers will eventually raise product prices. He evaluated that every three months a cost of living wage adjustment would be distributed at a rate of 15%, with one adjustment leading to the next. “Thus, the wheel will turn,” and the inflationary whirlwind will force the reinstatement of a rationing system and the discontinuation of immigrant-housing construction. At best, said Eshkol, we would just barely manage to finish houses already under construction. Production has grown but exportation has not, and the development budget has eroded—“we cannot build an economy this way,” asserted Eshkol. He objected to the idea that the profits of increased production be invested in pay raises, and dismissed suggestions to tax the wealthy rather than push wages further down. Increasing taxation would decrease tax collection, and would not be an efficient counter-inflation mechanism. Meaning, taxation cannot replace wage restriction. Eshkol therefore determined that the security emergency demands limited pay raises: “I am not certain we can invoke this belief in everyone, but the workers will understand,” he said, although “this increase [in wages] is necessary to them,” as “conditions among the workers … are arduous” (SA Nov. 8, 1955). This final statement implied Eshkol’s budding alliance with the Histadrut. Bank of Israel Governor David Horowitz corroborated Eshkol’s statements on the dangers of inflation. He told the ministers that a State subsisting on the labor of its citizens can indeed withstand inflation, which redistributes national income. However, he claimed, the State of Israel relies on subsidies netting 220 million dollars—the American grant, the reparations from Germany, and the loans and fundraising of American Jewry—which cover the industrial deficit. “We are in dispute over the distribution of subsidies,” he stated, unlike the disputes in England and France over distribution of production revenue. If we spend tens of millions on security purposes while increasing wages, “we will face what we endured until 1952,” he said. He claimed that from 1952 onward they were nearing “financial independence” (a term he had forcefully inserted into socio-economic discourse): until 1951, exportation covered only 12% of importation, while in 1954 it covered 30% of importation. In 1955, he said, they were experiencing a slight regression. Like Eshkol, Horowitz rebuked the claim that production increase could support pay raises. This type of expansion entails monetary expansion, he said, otherwise an unemployment crisis will erupt that no government can accept, especially not a government in which three labor parties are so prominently represented. Horowitz was referring to the addition of MAPAM and Achdut

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Ha’avoda to the MAPAI-led government in place of the General Zionists who had withdrawn from the Sharett government prior to the 1955 elections. The three labor parties will force the Bank of Israel to print money and prevent unemployment, he said, posing a difficult dilemma: “restricting funds” or “an even more severe restriction of products” than they endured under the austerity policy. By “restricting funds,” he was referring to government funds, meaning a balanced budget, which immense security expenses ruled out completely; restricting public funds, which meant freezing wages; and restricting market funds, which meant restricting any credit beyond that which production increase necessitates. If we wish to avoid acute consumption restriction, said Horowitz, and cannot balance the national budget due to the Egyptian threat, it is inevitable that wages and credit be restricted. “Otherwise,” he stated, “we enter a cycle of price escalations that can lead to an economic collapse.” Horowitz warned that in the case of an inflationary crisis, Bank of America would cease lending money to the Finance Ministry, meaning, it would no longer supply the loans that produce a dollar surplus in the state budget at the Bank of Israel. “The erosion of foreign currency reserves has already begun,” Horowitz warned the ministers, “we previously had 55 million dollars, while tomorrow’s budget will reflect less than 49 million dollars…. Whomever increases wages must neglect, or innately neglect investment in development and security.” Moreover, Horowitz claimed that pay raises were bound to impair exportation: “The moment we raise production expenses—we are thrown out of the market.” Higher prices in Israel along with pay raises will make production for the local market more profitable. In turn, this will require decreased currency value to protect exportation, which, according to Horowitz, would play to Nasser’s hope of surrendering Israel via financial pressure. Thus, Horowitz concluded his assessment regarding the outcomes of prospective wage increase: importation expansion, exportation decrease, danger of unemployment or preventative printing of currency at the cost of inflation, erosion of foreign currency surplus, decreased investment in development, and insufficient funds for security purposes. “I believe this is too heavy a price for the sake of increasing wages by 10%,” he said (SA Nov. 8, 1955). In light of these assessments, Ben-Gurion proposed that the ministerial committee for financial affairs make a pragmatic proposal to the government with the following objectives: to balance the budget; increase production; increase exportation; settle immigrants; and increase security-related acquisition. The new Minister of Development Mordechai Bentov, one of the heads of MAPAM and a member of kibbutz Mishmar-Ha’emek, suggested that advancing equality and the austerity policy be added to the list of objectives. However, as we will later see, MAPAM ministers actually supported the structural expansion

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of wage-gaps. Leader of the Progressives and Justice Minister Pinchas Rosen was quick to object to Ben-Gurion’s suggestion, “If it means accepting the implied proposal of the Finance Minister to revoke pay raises for higher ranking executives.” Ben-Gurion replied, “I have heard from different white-collar workers that they are prepared for this [narrowing inter-rank wage gaps], although they cannot speak for white-collar workers at large. Some believe the gap should be narrowed at this time of emergency, not expanded.” Pinchas Rosen responded with a General Zionists slogan: “Let people live in this State,” and Ben-Gurion answered that the General Zionists are the ones demanding a war against Egypt. This interaction foreshadowed the confrontation to follow, during which the Progressives Party, along with the General Zionists, Herut and as we will later see, MAPAM and the communist party (MAKI), decided to support the white-collar workers.

The Eshkol-Histadrut Alliance

Two weeks later, Levi Eshkol intensified his attempts to restrict white-collar workers’ wages. As stand-in for the Prime Minister who had fallen ill, the Finance Minister convened an unlikely team for a discussion at the Prime Minister’s office: “Histadrut members in the government,” meaning MAPAI,3 MAPAM4 and Achdut Ha’avoda5 ministers who were members of the ministerial committee for financial affairs along with the Histadrut Steering Committee,6 and various invited ‘guests,’ including leaders such as Ya’akov Hazan (Ha’kibbutz Ha’artzi and MAPAM) and Yitzhak Tabenkin (Ha’kibbutz Ha’meuchad and Achdut

3  Finance Minister Levi Eshkol, Labor Ministr Golda Meyerson, Minister of Trade and Industry Pinchas Sapir, Minister of Education Zalman Aran, and Agriculture Minister Kadish Luz (among the heads of Ichud Ha’kvutzot Ve’hakibbutzim and member of Kvutzat Degania Bet). 4  Development Minister Mordechai Bentov and Minister of Helath Yisrael Barzilai (member of Kibbutz Negba). 5  Minister of Interior Yisrael Bar-Yehuda (member of Kibbutz Yagur) and Transportation Minister Moshe Carmel. 6  Histadrut General Secretary Mordechai Namir, MAPAI; Head of the Histadrut Trade Unions Division Aharon Becker, MAPAI; Histadrut Treasurer Yitzhak Haskin, MAPAI; Head of the Histadrut Administration Division Reuven Barkat, MAPAI; Baruch Linn, MAPAM and Ha’kibbutz Ha’artzi; Berl Repetor, Achdut Ha’avoda and Ha’kibbutz Ha’meuchad; Yehuda Sha’ari, Ha’oved Ha’tzioni.

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Ha’avoda), and executives such as Bank of Israel Governor David Horowitz.7 This was an unusual gathering of more than 30 Zionist labor movement executives, who convened to discuss the wage policy being established by the ministerial committee for financial issues, and its alignment with the policies of the Histadrut and the three labor parties in the government (LMA Nov. 20, 1955). Eshkol and Horowitz repeated their statements from the previous government meeting and focused on objecting to the implementation of the Guri recommendations and demanding that the Histadrut mitigate the wage demands of its trade associations. As MAPAM and Achdut Ha’avoda had previously been in the opposition to MAPAI government, Eshkol opened by noting past accomplishments that were now being jeopardized by the wage issue: relative price stability, improved agricultural and industrial production and exportation, and a higher foreign currency surplus following enhanced ability to receive loans. He repeated, however, the same analysis he had voiced at the government meeting regarding the sensitive status of the economy at present. In light of these circumstances and the Guri recommendations, stated Eshkol, the Histadrut Small Council8 must discuss the prospect of increasing wages. He strove to mitigate wage demands and form an alliance against the whitecollar workers. Eshkol attacked the Guri Committee for having supported the “horrendous ideology of the immense gap, that there are excellent people, simple people, and very simple people, and there ought to be a large [wage] distinction between them, a gap.” He believed the government was forced to adopt the Guri recommendations. It was no wonder, he thought, that the Histadrut was to discuss an approximate 10% wage increase after the relative wage freeze of the previous year. This meant an influx of 159 million IL that the Israeli market could not withstand, and “a very short path to the economic collapse of the State.” Eshkol wished to propose that the government distribute one third of the Guri recommendations’ value to the upper ranks without increasing the basic wage of other salaried employees. Bank of Israel Governor David Horowitz 7   Additional attendees: Secretary of the Haifa workers’ Council Yosef Almogi, MAPAI General Secretaries Rafael Bash and Yona Kesse, Head of Finance Ministry Budget Division Ya’akov Arnon (Finance Ministry Director General as of 1956), Government Secretary and the Supervisor of State revenue Ze’ev Sherf, Government Economic Advisor Prof. Abba Ptachya Lerner, Haya Dornait of Achdut Ha’avoda members in the Histadrut Small Council, A. Tenenbaum, A. Cohen (Ha’oved Ha’tzioni), MK Hannah Lamdan (MAPAI), Y. Eilam (the Histadrut economic enterprises), Eliezer Preminger (MAPAM), Ze’ev Tzur (Ha’kibbutz Ha’meuchad and Achdut Ha’avoda). 8  In Hebrew: Ha’va’ad Ha’poel.

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concurred, and named four potential victims of higher wages: development, security, the new immigrants, and the lower classes and workers. The income of the average worker would lose value and his quality of life would drop. Development would be unable to catch up to the public’s circulating media and subsequently, prices will surge, employer profits will grow, and pay raises would calibrate accordingly. Impeding development, he claimed, means impeding immigrants who have yet to find employment outside of state-funded low-income jobs. Minister of Development and MAPAM member Mordechai Bentov contested Eshkol and Horowitz’s claims and repeated the position his party held during its years in opposition to the ‘wage freeze.’ The alleged wage freeze had been a polemic between MAPAI and the two small labor parties several years prior. At the following meeting, Head of the Histadrut Trade Unions Division Aharon Becker and State Revenues Supervisor and Government Secretary Ze’ev Sherf presented data disproving claims regarding the wage freeze.9 Bentov stated that inflation was not the result of wage increase, which had not occurred in recent years, but of imbalance in the State budget related to neither wages nor immigration absorption, but to increased investment in development. Bentov adressed Eshkol and Horowitz’s claim about inability to match the public’s circulating media with merchandise growth due to a deficit in foreign currency. He suggested that the importation of luxury goods be replaced with basic necessities that workers would purchase with their now higher salaries. Additionally, Bentov suggested raising taxes for the wealthy in order to compensate for the wage increase—claiming this would not increase public’s circulating media, but change their internal distribution via taxation and pay raises. In a fashion characteristic of his and his party’s approach, Bentov completely disregarded the issue of inter-rank wage gaps and the shift the wage system would endure following recommendations to expand them. He ignored the matter and demanded a general wage increase, but his demand was based on pay raises designed to expand the gap between the ranks of civil service in accordance with the Guri recommendations. Minister of Trade and Industry and MAPAI member Pinchas Sapir on the other hand, objected to the “the gap 9  Sherf presented tax collection data that proved wages of skilled workers in various ranks had risen rather than frozen as Achdut Ha’avoda and MAPAM claimed. Between 1953 and 1955 taxable income had grown by 22%, of which 5% is owed to population growth, 5% to tax collection efficiency and the discovery of new taxpayers, but according to Sherf 10 % of the growth was due to wage increase during these years. He called the wage freeze a ‘consensual lie,’ unless it referred to what he termed ‘low wages’ for those who were not organized under the Histadrut. LMA Steering Committee, Nov. 29, 1955.

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expansion ideology.” He claimed that “in a State where preaching for wage-gap reduction and going to the Negev has been heard for seventy years, one cannot demand wage-gap expansion and going to the Negev [authors’ emphasis]” (LMA Nov. 20, 1955). Minister of Transportation and Achdut Ha’avoda member Moshe Carmel also supported “partly postponing the Guri Committee recommendations for the upper ranks,” much like Eshkol and Sapir, and went even further. He demanded that inter-rank gaps narrow, contrary to the Guri recommendations, and suggested increasing wages among lower income earners and production workers exclusively, without raising the pay of high income earners and service providers or workers. Eshkol commented that raising wages for lower income workers was possible from a budgetary point of view, but asked Carmel how he would implement this without agitating the upper ranks. Carmel responded that the wage increase he proposed should be regulated by policy reforms: changing the production-services proportions; urging citizens into the periphery with aggressive housing and employment policies that differed from those currently implemented; enforcing a luxury tax on the wealthy; and increasing tax collection. In support of his claims, he stated that the structural foundation of inflation was not pay raises, but consistent population growth and the need to develop an economy from the ground up by investing in long-term goals that strain the state budget in the present. Carmel therefore dismissed the suggestion made by the Finance Ministry and the Bank of Israel to completely withhold the profits of growth in workers’ productivity. He believed this was unjust, as it burdened workers more than others, and didnot help to resolve the justified concerns of the Finance Ministry and the Bank of Israel (LMA Nov. 20, 1955). Ya’akov Hazan, Meir Ya’ari’s colleague in MAPAM leadership, directly attacked Eshkol on the wage issue, but much like his party’s minister Bentov, said nothing for or against the wage gap expansion addressed by the Guri recommendations. If matters are indeed so dire, claimed Hazan, it is a sign that the government has not functioned properly, as we have received one and a half billion dollars from abroad and an enormous amount of abandoned property, land and homes left behind by Arab refugees. He claimed that there was inflation prior to wage increases and claimed, “You have assembled us in order to scare us,” so that “we would consent to a wage freeze.” According to Hazan, wages had not been frozen but lowered, as the cost of living wage adjustment did not fully compensate for the increase in prices. Hazan warned that, “the right hates this government to death,” and if it freezes wages it might lose the workers’ support and be in a tenuous position. We have increased the wages of “the established classes,” he declared without taking a stance on

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the matter, and “now we are going to offer the workers a wage freeze?” Eshkol said to him in retort, “My suggestion is to revoke the increase,” to which Hazan replied: “You will not succeed.” As we will later see, Hazan and his party MAPAM were not neutral on the matter and demanded that the wage increase for highranking officials and white-collar workers be maintained. Hazan concluded by voicing general criticism of Eshkol’s economic policy, focusing on the credit restriction that was burdening the Kibbutzim. He said that if this economic policy does not change, he will consider MAPAM’s entry into the government a “blessing in vain.” Eshkol replied, “It would behoove you to speak after gaining more thorough knowledge of the circumstances,” to which Hazan responded, “The results are right in front of us. The State and its economy are flailing…. It was in your hands [members of MAPAI] … for seven years you have tried to walk a certain path, and look where it has brought us. Let us take a different path.” His statements led to a tense discussion. MAPAI secretary MK Yona Kesse said to Hazan, “You are attempting to put out fire with gasoline.” Hazan responded by demanding that importation be nationalized, that imported luxuries be forbidden, and that the cartels be eliminated (though not ‘Solel Boneh’ as Herut party demanded.) Eshkol asserted that Hazan’s statements were “hardly relevant” to the issue of economic crisis in light of deteriorated security and accelerated immigration, while kibbutzim representative Hazan repeated that the wage freeze would only agitate the workers and bring the government to surrender (LMA Nov. 20, 1955). MAPAI ministers “closed ranks” in the discussion. Labor Minister Golda Meyerson was among the left-wing voices in MAPAI leadership, but she now fully supported Eshkol and believed a wage freeze was necessary. Her main reason was not the fear of inflation, like Eshkol and Horowitz. She pointed instead to the immense growth of financial demands following the security deterioration with Egypt, and the parallel need to rescue Moroccan Jews from the dangers induced by independence from France. These were urgent matters additional to basic, vital needs such as funding housing, settlement, and development. If we increase wages, she said, “We will find ourselves unable to save Jews.” Under present circumstances, stated Meyerson, “if there are resources … they must be spent without restriction” on security and the rescue of Jews. She added that increasing wages at this time meant “less building and less settlement and less water, less of everything, and eventually less employment and a long line of unemployed individuals, followed perhaps by more low-income public works jobs and more unproductive expenses.” Meyerson addressed Carmel’s claim that the current housing policy did not adequately push toward the periphery: tents can only be erected around

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Tel-Aviv and Haifa, she said, not in the periphery, and “we are facing a sure risk that the new immigration will be housed in transit camps near the cities upon arrival.” Eshkol added, “If there will be tents,” and Meyerson continued: “I would like to hear someone suggest erecting tents in the Negev near the border.” She promised Minister Carmel ‘an award’ if he manages to implement his proposal to increase wages among the lower ranks and freeze wages in the upper ranks at the Transportation Ministry, the train company, and the ports. She objected to implementing the Guri recommendations under present circumstances: “You cannot approve a 100 IL increase for physicians, and then give an economics lecture [on budget limitations] when it is time to approve some small raise for public sector workers” (LMA Nov. 20, 1955). Unlike Hazan, leader of Ha’kibbutz Ha’meuchad movement and Achdut Ha’avoda Yitzhak Tabenkin directly objected to the Guri recommendations along with the heads of MAPAI. Contrary to Eshkol, however, he did not propose revoking the wage increase for white-collar workers and senior executives, but rather neutralizing the gap expansion with substantial pay raises for all workers. “Had they not approved increases [for the upper ranks],” said Tabenkin, “… I do not know if I would suggest increasing wages now.” However, the gap that has expanded between the upper and lower ranks must again be narrowed, he demanded, adding that he does not believe the wage increase for the upper ranks can be retracted as Eshkol suggested. The solution was therefore to raise workers’ wages. Tabenkin admitted being affected by Eshkol’s statements: debts amounting to 1 ½ billion dollars “are a horror.” However, how can we not add 10–12% for workers who are earning 200 IL, he said, “while office managers have received three or four times that amount for the sake of the gap? What is a gap? Suddenly certain people have begun preaching about a gap, a gap. We have been taught by Berl Katzenelson and [Aharon David] Gordon about kibbutzim and Moshavim, about equality, about equality in sacrifice and equality in status.” Tabenkin dismissed Meyerson’s claims: absorption, settlement, and development will not be funded by “the same twenty lira that must now be added to salaries amounting to 200 IL a month. That is not the source. We cannot say this after the expansive and expanding gap has already been approved.” Additionally, he did not see prospective inflation as a decisive rationale: “murder and danger [for Moroccan Jews] … are worse than inflation.” In response to Meyerson jab, Tabenkin announced that member of his movement Transportation Minister Moshe Carmel, would indeed agree to increasing the wages of drivers and sailors by “10–12%, 15% at most,” and slightly decreasing the wages of sea captains. Tabenkin claimed this would be funded by laying off “an already known amount of civil servants” who “earn high salaries.”

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With regard to the scale of layoffs, “the trade union must be consulted.” The first to be laid off should be single employees and those lacking seniority. He claimed that the new government coalition, which includes the three labor parties, would allow the necessary layoffs. Their leaders would then address the production workers and present the cutbacks that were made in clerkship at the Histadrut, the Jewish Agency, and the government in order to raise the production workers’ wages. Tabenkin’s utopian tendencies were reflected in his demands not to retreat from any fronts, and his refusal to arbitrate between budgetary needs. He supported the growth of consumption among people of basic needs, claiming that such consumption does not increase inflation, unlike a different, harmful kind of growth in consumption. The consumer needs of working families create production opportunities, he claimed, such as “A Yemenite, Iraqi, or Moroccan growing and selling vegetables.” He agreed that prices were rising due to cartels that refuse to sell merchandise when its prices are low. He demanded that Histadrut enterprises avoid such activity (meaning, he acknowledged they are not exempt from it). He further suggested that the government replace private importers in order to abate price increase. Tabenkin concluded by objecting to the fact that new female immigrants were being directed to ‘wash floors,’ meaning take on service jobs, rather than perform production work in the settlements. “They say it [production work in the periphery] went well in the days of Tabenkin, Shkolnik [Eshkol], and the second immigration wave,” he said, while “now we have an unideological immigration and these are different Jews. [But] they were born Jews, like us, and not in order to be clerks in the cities and wait for urban housing only.” No decision was reached at the meeting, and as it concluded, Eshkol announced that the discussion would continue “this week” as “I see this as a matter so tragic, that I do not care if Mr. Hazan and others go so far as to ‘hit’ me” (LMA Nov. 20, 1955). The labor movement leaders continued discussing the wage issue nine days later, this time with the participation of David Ben-Gurion and MAPAM leader Meir Ya’ari, who joined his colleague Hazan, and additional Achdut Ha’avoda leaders, MKs Yig’al Alon (party secretary), Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, and Yisrael Galili.10 Almost the entire labor movement leadership attended the meeting.

10  The meeting was also attended by minister without portfolio Peretz Naphtali (MAPAI); MK Akiva Govrin (MAPAI, formerly head of the Histadrut Trade Unions Division), MK Michael Hazani (Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi, a member of the Guri committee), and member of the Histadrut Small Council on behalf of MAPAM Yehuda Yudin (LMA Nov. 29, 1955).

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Agriculture Minister Kadish Luz of Degania Bet supported Eshkol along with other MAPAI ministers in objecting to significant pay raises and wagegap expansion. He believed the role of a labor government was not to increase wages, as Hazan suggested, but to develop the State rather than inflict financial calamity on it. In response to the prospect of higher taxes for the “capitalist classes,” Luz stated that taxation is not unlimited, as too high a tax would deter private investors and damage the “capitalist, productive economic sector,” meaning, the private sector. Mass immigration, development, and security are certainly budgetary structural catalysts for inflation, he said, but this was precisely why its exacerbation should be avoided. Additionally, Luz fiercely objected to the idea that the inter-rank gap must be expanded, attributing this objective not only to right-wing parties but also to MAPAM members and even middle-class supporters within MAPAI. Also responsible for cultivating the gap idea was “… this public [the labor movement], in which certain factions, for different reasons and objectives, have consistently encouraged demands for a gap for months,” which has effectively provoked strikes and sanctions of ­physicians. Luz called for this erroneous pattern to stop, and certainly to be prevented from intensifying. He was followed by his partner in the discussion, the economic adviser to the government and Bank of Israel, reputable Jewish-American economist Prof. Abba Ptachya Lerner. Lerner opened with a fierce attack on MAPAM members without mentioning them by name: “A friend of the workers would not advise them to demand a general wage increase under such circumstances,” he said. “Unless they [say it out of] habit under different circumstances, or believe the workers will not understand the consequences and think that said speaker wishes to help them while someone else is raising costs.” Lerner asserted that under present circumstances, the budgetary need for lower quality of life has three apparent remedies, mentioned in previous discussions, which he now wishes to refute: abating the need for a lower quality of life with efficiency; enhancing workers’ share in national income through taxes; and fighting for cartels and monopolies to reduce prices relative to workers’ wages. Lerner stated that these actions cannot balance the damage of a wage increase, as the inflationary whirlwind it incites will impair them, meaning disrupt efficiency, tax reforms, and fighting the monopolies and cartels. Higher prices benefit buyers and distributers even if they are not efficient; the same is true for redistribution of national income via taxation, which cannot be properly done during an inflation, as it is more conducive to monetary profit than wages which can never catch up to prices that rise every hour. Abba Lerner therefore asserted that, “It is better to tell workers the whole truth …—that real wages must be lowered” (LMA Nov. 29, 1955).

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Many speakers at the meeting vehemently objected to this position, and it was clear that it would not be adopted as it had no support from MAPAI. The real issue at hand was how much workers’ wages will be raised in light of Eshkol’s alliance with the Histadrut against white-collar workers and senior executives. With regard to the Guri recommendations, it seemed MAPAI and Achdut Ha’avoda were leaning toward reduction, while MAPAM chose not to disclose its stance on the matter. The Party’s position would be revealed in internal government debates, during which MAPAM ministers were less careful about exposing it. During the relatively open debates on the matter, Yehuda Sha’ari, member of the Steering Committee on behalf of the Ha’oved Ha’tzioni within the Progressive Party, was the only one who supported full implementation of the Guri recommendations. He believed they were justified, and would repair the unjust wage-gap erosion achieved by the uniform cost of living wage adjustment. This was not a pay raise for higher earners as Tabenkin claimed, but compensation for what had been taken from “the group most vital to economic development”—not only those in the liberal professions, but skilled workers as well. Similar compensation should therefore be distributed to skilled production workers, albeit at a lower scale, as they were “in a lower rank compared to civil servants,” meaning senior executives and white-collar workers. He believed the idea of equal pay for unequal work was completely unfounded. Work that is unequal in terms of quantity or quality (academic) should compensate its workers accordingly. The utility of an engineer and skilled worker far surpasses that of the unskilled worker, and should be incentivized. An ideological incentive does not suffice. Sha’ari warned against impaired public trust in the government should the Guri recommendations be revoked as Eshkol intended (LMA Nov. 29, 1955). Sha’ari’s position, however, was singular within the Histadrut. The position of Histadrut leadership on the wage issue was accurately represented by Aharon Becker, Head of the Trade Unions Division in the Histadrut and member of its Steering Committee on behalf of MAPAI.11 His statements also alluded to the developing alliance between the Histadrut and Eshkol. Becker vehemently denied an allegation made earlier by Achdut Ha’avoda minister Bar-Yehuda—that the demand to expand inter-rank wage gaps had originated in the Histadrut Small Council. He suggested checking the press to see “who had waged the war against the gap … is it not merely a small group of the Poeli Eretz Yisrael party?” (meaning, not all of MAPAI membership). This “war” was 11  His statements were later repeated in brief by Histadrut General Secretary Mordechai Namir.

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in fact the foundation of the Histadrut-Eshkol alliance. Becker also refuted claims that the gap had been frozen until that point in time: “Do you not believe that the worker has also benefitted considerably from production having increased by 11.9% [in 1954]?” New immigrants absorbed into manual labor who have gotten out of the transit camps have experienced improvement in their standard of living, claimed Becker. He also claimed that the standard of living among veteran workers and executives had improved significantly since 1948. However, Becker stated that since the first half of 1955 “the wage policy has been destabilized and impaired,” due to the effects of “the gap ideology” that only MAPAI members have resisted, unlike MAPAM and Achdut Ha’avoda. Becker distinguished between desirable pay scale differentiation and the principle of significant gaps that must separate senior executives and whitecollar workers from the rest of the working public. As workers in the liberal professions received considerable pay raises, said Becker, “we are now unable to efficiently resist” the demands of production workers, although the Histadrut’s wage policy has ensured a steady improvement in their standard of living. Thus, continued Becker, a month or two ago MAPAI members in the Histadrut, the Histadrut Small Council, the Workers’ Councils, and the trade associations, decided to propose a wage increase for all construction and industrial workers at a rate of 5–15%. In fact, this was the decision that jolted the Finance Ministry and Bank of Israel leadership into an alliance with opponents of the gap in the Histadrut and MAPAI. However, once they became aware of the Czech arms-deal and were approached by Eshkol with a severe warning, they decided to reconsider their position, said Becker. Eshkol interjected, announcing that the teachers were willing to forgo a pay raise in light of present circumstances so long as all public sector groups follow suit. Director of the Jewish Agency Absorption Department Giora Yoseftal had relayed to him that Jewish Agency employees were willing to do the same, and Eshkol believed the engineers were likely to have a similar approach. His intention was to isolate the physicians. Becker on the other hand, reported that the Construction Workers’ Association had decided to demand a wage increase, and the National Metal Workers’ Association was about to do the same. However, these matters had yet to be decided upon at the Histadrut Trade Unions Division he headed (the authority over the trade associations). He said to Eshkol that at the beginning of 1955, the Trade Unions Division supported the previous wage policy—which he believed gradually improved workers’ standard of living. “But [in 1955] we became unhappy with the unjust distribution of the load between the general public and the working public.” He believed this imbalance was revealed in ‘Sefer Ha’Nishomim’ [income tax register], and was “one of the biggest national scandals.” It was inconceivable that striking physicians and engineers will

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receive pay raises while workers who are loyal to the Histadrut suffer a wage freeze. Ben-Gurion’s part in fostering the Histadrut-Eshkol alliance against the white-collar workers was reflected in his response to the Histadrut-government tension that Becker described. “Next summer, summer of 1956, we will know whether our fate is to be or not be,” he said. “Perhaps it will happen sooner, but certainly by then.” He compared the present circumstances to the War of Independence prior to the first temporary truce: “In the first month [postinvasion] we were a step away from destruction … [as] we did not have the means,” he said. “No heroism would help us” against MIGs, submarines, and tanks. He cited a long list of budgetary and logistical needs, including fortification of the military industry. As he concluded, he asked that, “a moratorium be imposed on anything that might impede efforts [preparation for war] in the coming year, as it will be a fateful year, during which we will either be or cease to be.” Ben-Gurion had in fact laid the groundwork for Eshkol’s proposal to the attendees: that the government take courage and decide, “… to suspend and postpone [raising wages] even for those who we planned to compensate according to the Guri recommendations…. We cannot say no to the workers if we give to their superiors.” Ben-Gurion replied to Eshkol’s proposal, “How can the government go back on its word?” to which Eshkol said, “That question surprises me.” At this stage, Eshkol had yet to convince Ben-Gurion to outwardly retract the decisions made by the Sharett government. Eshkol proposed allocating only a third of the increase to physicians, and postponing the rest entirely for three months, a postponement that could easily be extended should the security crisis persist. The meeting attendees resolved to let the parties discuss the matter amongst themselves, and conduct an additional meeting to discuss the Finance Minister’s proposal “to postpone resolution on wage demands for three months and develop a detailed emergency plan in the meantime regarding the economy” (LMA Nov. 29, 1955). The next meeting was convened a month later, on December 23, 1955, in order for Aharon Becker to announce his proposal. Eshkol was simultaneously working in the public opinion sphere and had gathered a press conference three days prior. He expressed overt objection to an overall wage increase, citing the same rationale he voiced in closed meetings with ministers and labor movement leaders. The ‘sting’ in his statements was public, direct criticism of the Guri recommendations—which, as aforementioned, were adopted by the Sharett government under which he had served—and his demand that they be reexamined. Eshkol’s agenda to form an alliance with the Histadrut was also perceptible in his public statements on redistributing national revenue. This should be done not with a general wage increase, he said, but by taxing

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the private sector and raising the pay of low-income employees such as the fruit pickers, at the expense of the private farmers. An inflation induced by higher wages would ultimately benefit private business owners, he said, as they would be able to raise prices faster than workers could raise their salaries (Davar Nov. 26, 1955, front-page; also Ma’ariv Nov. 26, 1955, 1). Predictably, Eshkol’s announcement that the Guri recommendations must be reevaluated sparked a government debate, which foreshadowed the inter-governmental confrontation that developed as Eshkol’s strategy to counter the recommendations progressed. In light of Ben-Gurion’s illness, Eshkol facilitated the meeting. Progressive Party leader and Justice Minister Pinchas Rosen fiercely criticized the Finance Minister’s public dismissal of the government’s decision and the coalition agreement between government parties. He pointed to the propaganda campaign launched by Eshkol and the new Trade and Industry Minister Pinchas Sapir against implementing the government decision to adopt the Guri recommendations. Postal Services Minister and Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi member Yosef Burg, also attacked Eshkol’s questioning of the “abbreviated Guri recommendations”—“if he wishes to appeal, the appeal must be made here.” Development Minister and MAPAM member Mordechai Bentov joined in objecting to the Finance Minister’s announcement on the government wage policy. Eshkol voiced his opinion two weeks prior, said Bentov, “and I cordially remarked on it,” and now he intends to stir up public support before a decision is made in the three Histadrut parties, the ministerial committee for financial affairs, and the government plenum. He asserted that “this matter [the wage policy] is not the domain of the government [just so!],”12 but that of 12  His statements accorded with MAPAM’s limited version of republicanism (mamlachti’yut) that heralded restricting government authority on economic matters. In contrast, Minister without Portfolio Peretz Naphtali later presented the expansive repulicanist approach of MAPAI: the government could not oversee economic policy without a wage policy, and allow it to be determined in negotiations between the Histadrut and the employers (mostly the government as employer). “This means forgoing an economic policy,” he stated. Later, Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi leader Minister of Welfare and Religious Affairs Moshe Shapira, objected to the separatism of private discussion among Histadrut parties. He believed it was an affront to republicanist ethics: “… this is my eighth year in the government—this kind of affront to the government is unparalleled, as the government is being deprived of the option to debate, or several government members at any rate.” Minister Carmel advocated for the right of representatives of certain publics and certain ideologies to “receive some directive [instruction]”—“advice” replied Shapira, not instruction, meaning it was not acceptable for ministers to be instructed by extragovernment bodies, as this would weaken the government’s proper superior status.

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the Histadrut. The Histadrut had yet to decide what it will demand from the government, and the government had yet to decide how it will respond, said Bentov. Eshkol circumvented matters of conduct as he responded to his critics, stating that he cannot remain mum on the issue: “I shudder 24 hours a day when I think of what this [the wage increase] will bring.” He asserted that all were aware of his opposition to adopting the Guri recommendations, even in their abbreviated version—“… perhaps it was a mistake, but I take it upon myself” (SA Nov. 27, 1955). Thus, Eshkol ended the discussion. Two days later, it seemed Eshkol’s strategy was up against a significant obstacle: the demands of the teachers, supported by Histadrut. The teachers felt underserved by the Guri recommendations. Minister of Education and Culture Zalman Aran, a prominent MAPAI member and chairman of the ‘Aran Committee’ responsible for the modified Guri recommendations, presented their demands: to increase the wages of certified and academically educated teachers and scale it to double at 21 years of professional experience; to match the supervisors’ and school principals’ wages with those of the top government positions; to determine the wages of elementary school teachers according to those of the two thousand academically educated teachers; to rule that high school teachers without a high school diploma (such as physical exercise or art teachers) receive equal pay to academic teachers with an MA degree (the Histadrut did not support this demand); to raise the wages of veteran teachers without conditioning the increase on professional training. The cost of the demands: 5,400,000 IL, 3,700,000 of which would come directly out of the government budget. Minister Aran believed the demands should be met but did not expand on his position. In turn, the government adopted them and appointed a ministerial committee to complete negotiations, comprised of Aran, Sapir, Burg, Meyerson and Bar-Yehuda (SA Nov. 29, 1955). Eshkol, however, remained unwavering, and toward the end of December 1955, his contacts with Histadrut leadership bore fruit. The Histadrut Steering Committee assembled to approve moderate wage increase in return for suspension of the core Guri recommendations—a forced compromise on both sides (LMA Dec. 23, 1955). Labor movement leadership also attended the meeting: ministers, MKs, economists, party leaders and chairmen, as well as key figures in the Histadrut.13 These participants returned to the unusual arena after discussing the wage issue within their respective parties. 13  Finance Minister Eshkol and Minister of Interior Bar-Yehuda; MK Moshe Kol, leader of Ha’oved Ha’tzioni and Chairman of Progressive Party; MK Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, Achdut Ha’avoda and Ha’kibbutz Ha’meuchad; MK Akiva Govrin, MAPAI; MAPAI Secretary Generals MK Yona Kesse and Rafael Bash; MK Michael Hazani, Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi;

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Head of the Histadrut Trade Unions Division Aharon Becker announced to the attendees that nearly all members of MAPAI Center believed the Guri recommendations should be suspended as part of an overall wage freeze. Eshkol proposed that only half of the Guri recommendations be suspended, and that the wages of remaining workers be frozen. Other MAPAI members on the other hand, believed that if half of the recommendations applicable to white-collar workers and senior executives are implemented, then half of the 10–15% increase promised to workers before the security crisis should be allocated as well, meaning, a 5% increase. This was Becker’s counter to Eshkol’s suggestion. Becker understood the Finance Ministry and Bank of Israel’s concern that a wage increase would raise prices, and made a new proposal regarding the cost of living wage adjustment: to freeze all new pay scales by July 1955—including those recommended to white-collar workers and senior executives by the Guri Committee, and those of industrial and construction workers. By that date, he proposed reforming the cost of living wage adjustment and reinstating the wage-erosion method that had originally agitated white-collar workers and senior executives as it was equal across all trades and ranks. Based on this proposal, the maximum basic wages for which the cost of living wage allowance would be allocated would once again drop from 125 IL to 80 IL (after they had been raised from 80 IL to 125 IL in October 1953). Therefore, 230,000 low-income earners would be compensated fully for the price increase, but the upper ranks would not be compensated beyond 80 IL. Becker believed the advantage of his proposal was decreasing the influx of funds into the economy (to “several tens of millions of IL”) while maintaining the net salaries of lower rank workers. This proposal contradicted the interests of white-collar workers and senior executives and was another blow on top of cutting their wage increase—effectively, it meant reinstating the system that had eroded the gap between them and the other workers (LMA Dec. 23, 1955). Eshkol expressed his willingness to consider the Histadrut’s proposal: “As with any offer, it is important that I know how much it will to cost me” in wage

Government and Bank of Israel Economic Advisor Prof. Abba Ptachya Lerner; Economic Advisor of the Histadrut and Coordinator of the Histadrut Economic and Social Research Institute Dr. Gershon Tzidrovich; representative of the tze’irim (younger generation of MAPAI leadership) in MAPAI, economist and senior executive in government service Moshe Gilboa; Eliezer Preminger, MAPAM; Yeruham Meshel, MAPAI, Secretary of the Industrial Workers’ Association; Haya Dornait, Achdut Ha’avoda, Histadrut Small Committee; Z. Carmi, Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi; Y. Go’elman, Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi; Yehuda Yudin, MAPAM, Histadrut Small Committee; Uri Shapira.

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increases or tax exemption, and how it will affect market prices. “The disaster of the Guri recommendations is already unfolding,” he said, and will entail a budgetary expense of 20 million IL. He noted that his proposal to reduce them by 12 million IL might pass, in which case they would be able to “swallow this down,” but for the time being, the Histadrut’s suggestion could increase government expenses. Nevertheless, he said, “I need to get my pencil and sit with [Prof.] Lerner [his financial advisor] to check what the Becker proposal entails. If it benefits the salaried worker in some way, I will be as happy as anyone about it. Perhaps I can prevent a price increase this way. Perhaps I can cover it with some subsidies, some of the regular budget, funds that come in in dollars. This might be the least harmful option at this time. [Because] if we only give to the ‘Guri people’—I worry this will combust…. They have put this shackle of a gap [in favor of the upper ranks] between our feet and we find ourselves entangled” (LMA Dec. 23, 1955). Yeruham Meshel, Chairman of the Industrial Workers’ Association, was supportive of MAPAI’s apparent position. He claimed that the workers were concerned about the future of the economy, and therefore, do not demand an immediate pay raise. Meshel shared that a delegation of the Engineers Association had expressed willingness to forgo the wage increase, so long as this applied to workers at large. Party representatives explained the positions established at their party centers leading up to the final arbitration at the Histadrut Small Council. Moshe Kol, leader of Ha’oved Ha’tzioni and Chairman of the Progressive Party directorate, complained of “the cold war” Eshkol was conducting against the principle of consistent wage gaps between the high and low ranks. Yehuda Sha’ari, Ha’oved Ha’tzioni representative in the Steering Committee, reported that the Progressive Party now demands the full increase recommended by the Guri Committee and for the workers’ increase to be suspended. They believed the inter-rank wage gap established by the Guri Committee should expand and be applied to the upper and lower ranks of manual production workers as well, although at half the cost of pay raises for white-collar workers and senior executives. To compensate for the cutback, a cost of living wage adjustment should be allocated every six months. MAPAM representative in the Histadrut Steering Committee Baruch Linn, demanded on behalf of his party that a general wage increase of 10–15% be allocated. MAPAM representative in the Histadrut Small Council Yehuda Yudin, believed Becker’s proposal overlooks workers with a basic wage lower than 80 IL, and demanded that a substantial increase be allocated to the medium ranks as well. Neither Linn nor Yudin addressed the matter of the gap and white-collar workers’ and senior executives’ pay directly, in line with the chief leaders of their party Hazan and Bentov.

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MK Yitzhak Ben-Aharon of Achdut Ha’avoda expressed willingness to “recommend any restriction on the workers, as long as it is based on equal burden to some degree … on some responsibility for price stability.” He supported lowering the standard of living, under the conditions that price stability is achieved, that subsidies for jurists’ professional training is eliminated, profiteers are restricted, and youngsters forced to perform development and settlement jobs. Ben-Aharon demanded discrimination to the advantage of the periphery and its settlements at the expense of agents, brokers, profiteers, and service providers, and freezing the wages of MKs and ministers. As the meeting concluded, it was agreed that members of the Histadrut Trade Unions Division and Finance Ministry evaluate Aharon Becker’s proposal (LMA Dec. 23, 1955).

The Inter-governmental Confrontation between MAPAI, the Progressive Party and MAPAM

As the Egyptian threat escalated, Ben-Gurion joined the Eshkol-Histadrut alliance. The Prime Minister was ideologically akin to the Histadrut, particularly in his resistance to wage-gap expansion, but he was also concerned about a financial crisis due to immigration absorption and security demands. He overcame his hesitation about retracting the Sharett government’s decision while the Histadrut and Eshkol managed to compromise on a small wage increase for workers, in order to strengthen their alliance in inhibiting white-collar workers and senior executives. This powerful ‘triple alliance’ became quite apparent at the government meeting in the beginning of January. Ben-Gurion relayed to the ministers the main points of a speech he planned to conduct in light of the security crisis. The State of Israel was facing the danger of war, he stated, although “the war is not an inevitable verdict” (SA Jan. 1, 1956). It might be even more harrowing and severe than the War of Independence, he said, due to the massive arms supply the Egyptians procured from the Soviet-Union, as well as the cooperation and military coordination among Arab countries. This coordination under Egypt’s leadership was implemented in terrorist attacks launched by Egypt from the borders of other Arab countries. Egypt has not responded to Israel’s announcement that the IDF was holding its fire, he reported—it has made no parallel announcement and initiates violent border confrontations daily. These threatening developments have been reflected by aggressive rhetoric such as that of Abdel Nasser, who announces he will meet the Syrian army upon the “ruins of the Israeli land.” These were not empty threats, said Ben-Gurion, as the Soviets had in fact equipped Egypt with arms that Israel could not withstand. The Israeli

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air force, for instance, did not yet have the means to face the fighter aircrafts and bombers that the Egyptian army now possessed. Therefore, Ben-Gurion asserted that the only way to prevent war was to rapidly reinforce Israel’s arms supply. “There is danger ahead, and we must instruct the public to prepare,” he said, and lead “a regime of civic volunteerism.” This would entail volunteering five million IL to fund new arms for the IDF, most of which would come from direct taxes enforced on the established classes, and an additional year of national service before mandatory IDF service. One of the primary purposes of the volunteerism regime was to develop and fortify immigrant settlements, not only with shelters, posts, and ditches, but also with pre-school teachers, teachers, physicians, nurses, and teams of instructors (SA Jan. 1, 1956). Essentially, Ben-Gurion demanded that veterans take responsibility and help shoulder security-related and social needs in peripheral immigrant settlements. He saw these settlements as a weak link, which is why he planned to send volunteers for a year of national service in these locations. Ben-Gurion also suggested establishing settlements in strategic locations from which the Egyptian army might attack Israel. In light of these factors, Ben-Gurion had reached a decisive conclusion that price and wage increases must be prevented: [I will speak on] inhibiting improvement in veterans’ standard of living. As much as we can increase [the standard of living, we should] improve conditions in the immigrant settlements. I am strictly referring to residents of the immigrant settlements. Immigrants residing in Tel-Aviv are akin to the veterans. The danger to security is in the immigrant settlements, particularly those in the south. This is a terrible danger, an invasion or bombing might induce fleeing, which could mark the beginning of the collapse of the State. SA JAN. 1, 1956

Therefore, “this demands freezing prices, and if possible—lowering them. Preventing any superfluous increases [to wages] that are not necessary at this time …” Thus, Ben-Gurion directly linked the precarious security situation with the need to freeze prices and wages. Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett recommended that Ben-Gurion avoid a confident declaration that war was ahead, as it might spark suspicions that the speaker himself was plotting a war. He further recommended that Ben-Gurion avoid publicly referring to building ditches and shelters, as a pre-war atmosphere of emergency can impair construction, development, and investments. Ben-Gurion replied, “The moment he [Nasser] will feel he has enough and can use all of his arms—he will attack us.” He added, “… the Arabs have been talking about it for

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seven years,” and therefore, “I am thinking about saying it. If I am forbidden to—I will not say it as a Prime Minister…. As a citizen, no one can silence me.—we must alert to the situation without inflicting terror” (SA Jan. 1, 1956). Health Minister Yisrael Barzilai of MAPAM, a member of Kibbutz Negba, objected to Ben-Gurion’s proposal to limit veterans’ standard of living from another perspective quite relevant to our discussion. He asserted that the veteran yishuv too, includes thousands who are unemployed and earn a low-income. Education and Culture Minister Zalman Aran of MAPAI thought Barzilai’s statements evinced resistance to calling for public responsibility, or in his words, ‘vigilance.’ In response, Ben-Gurion intensified his demand for said ‘vigilance,’ meaning, alertness and preparation for threat. He explained that by ‘volunteerism regime’ he means, “enforced volunteering,” such that volunteering to aid southern immigrant settlements will be enforced by law if necessary (SA Jan. 1, 1956). Representative of the second small labor party, Minister of Interior Yisrael Bar-Yehuda of Achdut Ha’avoda from Kibbutz Yagur, also asked that the Prime Minister avoid distinguishing between the veteran yishuv, meaning the Ashkenazis, and the new yishuv, meaning the oriental immigrants: “I do not believe it will help, but rather feed into tendencies that we find unnecessary.” Development Minister Mordechai Bentov of MAPAM supported this reservation, while Transportation Minister Moshe Carmel of Achdut Ha’avoda said the following in reference to the southern immigrant settlements: “The majority of the yishuv was not raised into pioneering volunteerism, and we have not been able to achieve it for seven years…. The fact is that in recent years the spirit of volunteerism has begun disintegrating….” Both MAPAM and Achdut Ha’avoda opposed Ben-Gurion’s approach to the relationship between the new and veteran immigrants and the Ashkenazis and orientals in the context of the security crisis, and were not apt to reduce the gap in the standard of living between the two groups. From another perspective, two ministers of Ben-Gurion’s party, Aran and Minister of Police Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit, asserted that Ben-Gurion must not reveal his concern that settlements populated by oriental immigrants will destruct upon the outbreak of war with Egypt. Sheetrit therefore recommended that Ben-Gurion discuss “… their integration, incorporation, whatever he wishes, anything but them fleeing …” (SA Jan. 1, 1956). This was an optimal time for MAPAI to halt implementation of the Guri recommendations, which required a ruling by the Histadrut Small Council and the government. On January 12, the Histadrut Small Council assembled and approved the strategy proposed by Eshkol and Histadrut leadership. We ex­­ panded on this discussion in the previous chapter, and will now focus on the

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details necessary to understanding the political process led by heads of the Histadrut, Eshkol, and Ben-Gurion. Yeruham Meshel, Secretary of the Industrial Workers’ Association, presented the proposal of the Trade Unions Division to the Histadrut Small Council: “a unique, scaled, and partial increase to basic wages will be allocated at a minimum of 5% up to a certain maximum.” Meshel added that, “this decision is indeed designed to reduce the approved wage increase for the liberal professions,” but asked that they understand “present needs.” He noted that a cost of living wage allowance would not apply to this increase, and estimated that it will be taxed by no more than 25%, a lower tax for the lower ranks, and no tax for the lowest. Meshel concluded by stating that professionalism and talent must be developed and encouraged. However, he said, we must not “form a class structure within the working public that is based on fixed regulations and gaps between one trade and the next” (LMA Jan. 12, 1956). Throughout the discussion, MAPAM and Achdut Ha’avoda representatives consistently avoided addressing restricted pay raises for white-collar workers and senior executives. Histadrut General Secretary Mordechai Namir, who facilitated the meeting, directly asked for their opinion on the matter. According to the meeting protocol, MAPAM representative Yehuda Yudin did not respond. His party’s position became evident only during proposals of a final decision—in favor of a wage increase for the white-collar workers and executives. Achdut Ha’avoda representative Berl Repetor said that the acute gap formed by the Guri recommendations should be abated by increasing wages in the lower ranks rather than by reducing the recommended raises. At this stage, Achdut Ha’avoda members did not yet support retracting the wage increase for white-collar workers and executives, a position they would develop later in the dispute. MAPAM on the other hand, remained supportive of wage-gap expansion throughout the duration of the strike. Finance Minister Eshkol participated in the discussion as well, and his displeasure with Meshel’s proposal was quite apparent: “If I am proven wrong— that would be wonderful, excellent, and the workers will receive some sort of advance payments. If, God forbid, I am not mistaken—we will all hit a wall. Then, we will once again search for a way to resolve this. At this point I must accept it: I have no choice.” These statements accurately represented Eshkol’s position in his alliance with the Histadrut. He would later present this proposal, which he had to accept, at the government meeting—and fight for its implementation. The Histadrut Small Council eventually approved the proposal to suspend the recommended increases for the white-collar workers and senior executives

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by a majority of 32 MAPAI votes. By the same majority, it also approved suspending the increase for the other workers and manual laborers, which were agreed upon in the trade associations but had yet to be approved by the Histadrut Small Council. Instead, it was decided upon “a unique, scaled [meaning not uniform across ranks], limited [within a range] increase applicable to all trades in various degrees: the liberal professions, construction workers, industrial workers, agriculture workers, craftsmen, clerks, service providers, and the like.” The Trade Unions Division was tasked with processing the details of the decision (LMA Jan. 12, 1956). MAPAM’s suggestion to approve the full increase for white-collar workers and senior executives was rejected, as well as its suggestion to approve the decisions that have been or will be made by the trade associations (7 supporters). Finally, the Achdut Ha’avoda proposal to approve a wage increase of 15% for the metal and construction workers and 10% for the remaining trades (8 supporters), was rejected as well (LMA Jan. 12, 1956). The government was now the sole arena in which a ruling could be made prior to confronting the white-collar workers and executives. At the government meeting, Ben-Gurion presented twelve proposals for withstanding the security emergency. He opened by stating directly: “I am completely certain— unless there is an unexpected event, as history always includes unexpected events—that the Egyptian government aims to destroy Israel with force. I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt, due to numerous conversations with people who arrived from Egypt, Englishmen and Americans.” From among the proposals he suggested, he emphasized the following: a national assembly to raise 50 million IL in donations; enlisting physicians, nurses, and agriculture and defense instructors to aid immigrant settlements by force or as volunteers; conducting matriculation exams six months earlier and sending graduates to perform six months of national service at the immigrant settlements; and assembling a committee to identify unnecessary human resources in government ministries and other spheres of the public sector (SA Jan. 15, 1956). This was the context in which the discussion on civil servants’ wages was held. Finance Minister Eshkol proposed that the government adopt the Histadrut Small Council’s decision and reduce all increases by half. Undoubtedly, his suggestion had been coordinated with Ben-Gurion. The increases proposed by the Guri Committee to the upper ranks and white-collar workers were higher than those offered to the lower ranks. The Histadrut therefore agreed that only half be allocated, including half of the small increases for the lower ranks, said Eshkol to the ministers. This was the compromise that had been proposed. He announced that Trade and Industry Minister Pinchas Sapir of MAPAI and himself plan to work administratively to freeze costs and profits in cooperation with the Industrialists’ Association. Thereby, they hoped to inhibit an inflation

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following wage increases: “this way high income earners can hope for real value from the half they do receive, which is also true for the lower income earners” who were to receive extremely modest increases (SA Jan. 15, 1956). Justice Minister and Progressive Party leader Pinchas Rosen vehemently objected: since the end of 1954, Eshkol has opposed to increasing the wages of senior executives and “had no need for the Czech arms-deal.” His reasoning then and now is the inflationary whirlpool it would spur and the demands this increase would incite among workers in the lower ranks and private sector. Contrary to Eshkol’s position and despite his rationale, said Rosen, it was decided that an increase would be given to those who deserve it, and not given to those who did not, meaning workers in the lower ranks. He claimed that, “the workers’ standard of living here without a wage increase is not inferior to that of workers in France or Italy.” “Higher,” interjected Sharett, “much higher” continued Rosen, and mentioned Bureau of Statistics data quoted in the Guri Committee report, which indicates that the real wages of workers have increased while those of senior executives have significantly decreased. He objected to the Histadrut’s suggestion that a reduced increase be allocated to all civil servants. Rosen noted that the matter was also discussed in the Knesset in October of 1955, after the “Czech deal” was announced to the public in September of 1955. The coalition agreement that was signed upon the BenGurion government’s establishment, reminded the Progressive Party leader, include a clause that guarantees, “… the government will ensure that the pay scales of civil servants are not affected by a higher cost of living.” This meant that the inter-rank gap would not be eroded. The Progressive Party would not have joined the government unless it was certain that the Sharett government decision to raise white-collar workers’ and senior executives’ wages, without raising them for all civil servants, would remain unaltered. Senior executives are already receiving mere advance payments at two thirds of the Guri recommendations’ value. A promise was made to the Progressive Party, said Rosen, and, “you cannot say: now you must be sympathetic to the deterioration of the situation. I do not think matters have deteriorated since November 2nd.”14 The leading MAPAI ministers were coordinated ahead of the meeting and stood behind Eshkol. His status had improved exponentially since the previous discussion on wages under the Sharett government, during which Prime Minister Sharett himself leaned toward the interests of white-collar workers and senior executives. At the time, his only overt supporters were Golda 14  The Ben-Gurion government was officially established on November 3, 1955, and it is possible that this is in reference to the date of signature on the coalition agreement (SA Government Meeting, Jan. 15, 1956).

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Meyerson and Peretz Naphtali. Now on the other hand, he was supported by Aran, who had been an active partner in establishing the Sharett government position, his longtime aid and colleague the new minister Sapir, and last but hardly least—Prime Minister Ben-Gurion, whose position fundamentally differed from Sharett’s. Education and Culture Minister Zalman Aran (MAPAI) reminded the attendees that he had supported the compromise approved by the Sharett government to adopt the Guri recommendations and distribute advance payments for two thirds of their monetary value. He then attacked Rosen: “You are barricaded … you shut your eyes … Is this MAPAI’s concern, the Histadrut’s? Is it not your concern?” Like Eshkol, Aran called to support the Histadrut’s decision and change the previous government’s strategy. BenGurion responded to Rosen’s statements as well, denying that a special promise was made to the Progressive Party in any agreement outside the coalition agreement. He read from clause 16 of the agreement: “In determining the wages of civil servants the government will ensure A. A just minimum wage for each employee; B. Appropriate remuneration, enhanced and scaled for academically educated, skilled, and administrative workers for diligence, expertise, extensive responsibility, and service in developing areas and the periphery; C. A balanced budget (SA Jan. 15, 1956). Like Eshkol, the new Minister of Trade and Industry Pinchas Sapir of MAPAI cited emergency: “What we decide today [regarding wages] could be just as critical as that which we fear most [a war with Egypt].” Eshkol and Sapir managed to instill in MAPAI’s top leaders that while the military and economic dangers may differ in origin, the two combined could be deadly. In this spirit, Sapir asserted that he objected to appointing the Guri Committee even before the severity of the Egyptian threat surfaced. He objected not only because the white-collar workers’ and senior executives’ demands were excessive, but mainly because he worried about a general ‘breaking of the dams’ in the wage system. However, Sapir went further than attacking the general wage increase stemming from the Guri recommendations, although they themselves presumably applied to the upper ranks alone. In line with the Histadrut Trade Unions Division members, now his and Eshkol’s allies, Sapir also attacked the practical and ideological pretext of an exclusive wage increase for white-collar workers and senior executives. His statements disclosed a principle objection to the spread of inequality: … For seventy or eighty years there has been talk in Eretz Yisrael about [the need for more] equality … Even if some craftsmen in the Negev will earn 12 IL a day … the difference between this and expanding the gap, as they are calling it nowadays, cannot be bridged. The youth can figure that

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by receiving a 150 IL premium they will earn a monthly salary of 530 IL … and some earn this kind of salary and have additional jobs as well. SA Jan. 15, 1956

Sapir correlated his vehement statements on the expanding social inequality with the need to strengthen the periphery, and his concern for economic stability with his concern for social unity—conceptual links that characterized his party across most of its divisions. In order to substantiate his fundamental objection to expanding social inequality, Sapir criticized the calculative assumption of statistician Prof. Roberto Bachi, who was quoted in the Guri report and mentioned by Rosen. Bachi corroborated the erosion of white-collar workers’ and senior executives’ wages by citing wages under the mandate government and in the Jewish Agency as of 1939. He concluded they had been mistreated compared to the lower-ranking clerks or manual laborers. According to Sapir, however, during the mandate period only few executives earned a high income, which drew criticism and led the Zionist Congress to lower their wages. He therefore believed that the erosion of their wages relative to the 1940s was justified, and that executives’ current income should not be compared to the excessive salaries of the time. When focusing on the 1950s, however, which he believed was the relevant option, it appears that standards of living had actually improved: “Aside from the unemployed, I do not know a single sector of the yishuv that has not experienced improvement in standard of living, and this is corroborated by both optimistic and pessimistic economists … standard of living has risen each year by 4–6%.” Ben-Gurion helpfully interjected: “The cinema is our witness—we have some of the highest cinema attendance records,” to which Rosen responded with his own interjection: “The middle class that I know has to think about whether it can afford summer vacations; this was never a question in 1939.” Sapir asserted that in light of the Czech arms-deal a wage freeze was clearly necessary. Eshkol had forgotten about previous debt netting 20 million dollars when he mentioned the additional 160 million IL needed for security, he said. He believed senior executives should have proposed a wage freeze themselves, and Eshkol commented that they would have done so, “if no one here would have demanded otherwise.” Without a wage freeze on the other hand, Sapir claimed: The Histadrut, [i.e.] those who must perform the task [meaning the heads of the Trade Unions Division], state that if the intelligentsia does receive [an increase], and we cite the security emergency as cause for the worker receiving nothing for the fourth year in a row—the Histadrut claims it cannot do this. Not only colleagues of [Minister Yisrael] Barzilai,

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[i.e. MAPAM representatives in the Histadrut Trade Unions Division, are saying this], but decision makers tasked with [leading the workers] say they cannot face them if others receive and they do not. SA Jan. 15, 1956

These statements by Sapir articulated the crux of the compromise between Eshkol and the Histadrut at the expense of the white-collar workers. Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi leader, Minister of Welfare and Religious Affairs Moshe Shapira, believed that a government which includes all of the labor parties can make difficult vital decisions even “against the workers,” and complained that it refuses to do so. He recalled that due to Eshkol’s warnings, he supported cutting half of the increase recommended by the Guri Committee, even though “they were basically just demands, though perhaps exaggerated by 10 or 20 IL.” Shapira believed that claiming executives should not be able to receive what other workers do not receive, was a poor rationale for cutting the additional half of increases. Thus, Shapira supported a general wage freeze that would be imposed on the public by a “labor government,” while the whitecollar workers and senior executives are forced to accept “a 50% freeze of what the intelligentsia was meant to receive.” This was an uncomfortable stance for the leader of a party with the term ‘worker’ still in its title, Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi (the MAFDAL or NRP was established later, in 1956). Shapira therefore tried to deflect by pointing the finger at the labor parties: MAPAI, Achdut Ha’avoda, and MAPAM, claiming that their unwillingness to freeze workers’ wages while increasing the income of the intelligentsia was due to internal competition between them. Shapira also warned of a government crisis surrounding the issue, implicitly referring to Progressive Party leader Rosen (SA Jan. 15, 1956). Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett, who, compared to MAPAI ministers, had represented the right-wing side of these discussions as prime minister, now supported Eshkol’s position. He opened with a frank admission, stating, “I had a part in the failed process we have endured thus far.” He attempted to defend his government’s decisions, but declared a force majeure, meaning that an unusual event or circumstances beyond the government’s control entitled it to revoke its obligation. He asked that Rosen accept the verdict and avoid inciting a government crisis. Progressive Party leader and Justice Minister Pinchas Rosen asked that the current wages of the Hebrew University and Weizmann Institute lecturers be “noted in the protocol:” 490 IL for a full professor, 415 IL for an associate professor, 375 IL for a lecturer, 330 IL for an instructor, and 265 IL for an assistant. It appears he considered these salaries too low, and certainly no justification for increasing the wages of unskilled workers: “If anyone believes

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that when a full professor earns 490 IL and gets an increase we are then obligated to do the same for the unskilled worker, know that in Russia at any rate, they consider this kind of approach counter-revolutionary.” For some reason, Rosen referred to Russia as a supposedly egalitarian paragon, suggesting that even there academic faculty is nurtured, although Russia was in fact plagued by extreme inequality at the time. Rosen believed the Sharett government had erred by approving wage increases for workers below ranks 1–6. He supported the critical statements of Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi leader Shapira regarding the Histadrut demands. According to Rosen, the Histadrut’s decision that the Gurirecommended increases must be frozen did not mean suspending them, but effectively revoking them. Interior Minister Yisrael Bar-Yehuda of Achdut Ha’avoda stated that he and his party do not support egalitarianism without pay scales and are in favor of professional ranking, but not an “excessive gap,” “to the point of significant distinctions in standard of living.” As the leader of a party that was gradually disconnecting from Soviet influence at the time, he announced that when it came to wage-gaps “they were in the wrong” (SA Jan. 15, 1956). Considering the dangers of Rosen’s resignation, the Progressive Party’s withdrawal from the government, and impaired government stability, the ministers resolved to postpone voting on Eshkol’s proposal. In light of this postponement, Ben-Gurion decided to make a statement he wished to avoid, and directly announced his support of the Histadrut and Eshkol. The Prime Minister stated that the government had failed thus far—it had not managed to enlist the public represented by the ministers. Voting on financial resources for necessary actions was imperative, as “we cannot bring immigrants from North Africa here to starve” and “fortifying the yishuv in preparation for war” cannot be done without funding. Allocating the increases recommended by the Guri Committee would burden the Histadrut taxpayers, he said, who will be paying for the wage increase allocated to kupat Holim physicians. Meaning, citizens would effectively fund the wage increase for white-collar workers and senior executives in the public sector. “Do you truly believe, Rosen, that there is anyone [among Histadrut and MAPAI leaders] who can give an order to the masses?” Ben-Gurion himself was unable to demand that physicians accept his proposed compromise toward the end of the Sharett government term. He stated that, “… this applies to production and construction workers as well … they are not obligated to follow what they are told by [Head of the Histadrut Trade Unions Division] Becker.” Ben-Gurion told Rosen that if the Progressive Party withdraws from the government following the adoption of MAPAI’s proposal, the wage-gap it vehemently defended would not be maintained. Rosen and his colleagues will

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find themselves joining the right-wing parties General Zionists and Herut, who urge for “a war as soon as possible.” He made a similar call to Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi leader Shapira, and told members of MAPAM and Achdut Ha’avoda to carefully consider the cost of their suggestions before presenting them. BenGurion stated that the Histadrut decision may not be good, but he does not believe there is a better one. He called for members of the government to support the decision, meaning, support Eshkol rather than Rosen’s proposal to allocate a portion of the Guri-recommended increases to the upper ranks (SA Jan. 15, 1956). One week later, the government voted in favor of the MAPAI proposal as presented by Eshkol and heads of the Histadrut Trade Unions Division. The ministers decided to indefinitely suspend, but not officially revoke, the Guri recommendations and wage increase for white-collar workers and senior executives. They therefore reversed their approval under the Sharett government—an approval that had entitled workers to 90% of the increases in the form of advance payments over recent months. Instead, the government decided that only half of the increases approved in fall of 1955 be allocated. Rosen announced his intention to resign from the government, which would be followed by his party’s withdrawal from the government coalition (Davar Jan. 23, 1956, front-page). Four days later, the Progressive Party gave the government one week to retreat its decision, or else—they withdraw from the coalition (Davar Feb. 1, 1956a). The following day the physicians declared a general strike as of February 7, 1956 (Davar Jan. 27, 1956). On January 31, the Coordination Committee of White-collar Workers and Executives announced the general strike of the professionals it represented on the same date (Davar Feb. 1, 1956a). The Histadrut Steering Committee, assembled in light of strike declarations, decided unanimously along with MAPAM and Ha’oved Ha’tzioni representatives, To warn all Histadrut members that strikes and threats of strike declared in recent days by certain professions relating to wage issues in 1956, go against the Histadrut’s position and violate its constitution, and therefore are subject to [disciplinary] conclusions…. Non-Histadrut and anti-Histadrut bodies, driven by their personal considerations, which are completely unrelated to workers’ true interests, are attempting to take advantage of these difficult circumstances. The Histadrut Steering Committee therefore wishes to warn all of its members with regards to these events. LMA Feb. 3, 1956

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Following the declarations of strike, the government appointed a ministerial committee to negotiate with the white-collar workers: Finance Minister Eshkol, Labor Minister Meyerson (MAPAI), and Health Minister Barzilai (MAPAM). Barzilai, who opposed the government decision and a confrontation with the white-collar workers, announced he would not participate in the committee (SA Feb. 5, 1956). The following evening, the eve of the strike, the government assembled for an urgent discussion. Finance Minister Levi Eshkol opened by reporting on the activity of the ministerial committee in charge of negotiations. All of the salaried physicians’ associations had been summoned, he said, along with representatives of the IMA, and “the Prime Minister made a lengthy speech.” In the afternoon, four delegates of the IMA arrived: IMA General Secretary Dr. Druyan, Dr. Sinai of Hadassah, Dr. Fleisher of kupat Holim, and Dr. Garjebin of the State Physicians’ Association who served as director of the Haifa hospital. Eshkol relayed that the government’s proposal to the physicians “can only be one that allows each [of them] their increase and subsequently withholds an increase from all employees and workers.” On this basis, he offered them 60% of the Guri recommendations, “and in several years [Eshkol explained that he did not say how many] we will discuss the gap issue,” without committing to allocating the remaining 40%. This meant 100% of the value of the recommendations will be allocated for 1955 and as of 1957. “I think there was a very wide opening for them to end the matter respectfully, if any of them have a bit of God in their heart and want to avoid putting the Israeli population in grave danger,” said Eshkol, however, “we spoke for hours about this proposal and they said it was nothing at all.” Their demand was 90% now with commitment to allocate the remaining 10% next year (SA Feb. 6, 1956). Health Minister Yisrael Barzilai of MAPAM stated that the government should not delude itself that physicians will accept Eshkol’s proposal, and that a strike would be held the next day. He worried that the government would be defeated, as “physicians have unlimited capacity to strike,” and the problem will not be solved by forcing them to work. “They have a case,” said Barzilai, and recommended offering physicians 75% of the Guri recommendations and the additional commitments proposed by Eshkol. Barzilai was the primary supporter of the strikers during government debates throughout the strike, and strove to approve the bulk of their demands. Labor Minister Golda Meyerson (MAPAI) reported that representatives of the Engineers Association met with “three of us” in the Knesset and explained that the center and council of the Engineers Association have unanimously decided not to strike. They had resolved to accept the decision of the Histadrut

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Small Council as long as they do not suffer more of a wage reduction than others. Development Minister Mordechai Bentov of MAPAM asked which association this was, as he knows of two, but Meyerson responded there was only one under the Histadrut, and “an assembled executive committee.” Meyerson believed the engineers’ condition foreshadowed what would transpire if physicians received a higher increase as Barzilai suggested. She turned to Barzilai and asked what MAPAM representatives in the Trade Unions Division would say if his proposal was adopted. Without an answer, the government cannot decide on the matter. She advised that the government would not surrender to the strike (SA Feb. 6, 1956). Prime Minister Ben-Gurion shared that he told the strikers’ representatives about one case of death due to the strike, of which he learned from a credible source. He suggested telling the strikers that Eshkol’s proposal was the final word, as the government could not commit to more in light of the impending war. “If they strike—so be it!” Those who lack conscience, said the Prime Minister, should have their medical license revoked. He read from a note he received: The IMA has decided to declare strike as of tomorrow, February 7, “until the Aran Committee decisions are implemented in full,” meaning, the Sharett government decisions. Ben-Gurion proposed ceasing negotiations and announcing that, “they are required to resume work under the payment terms that have been decided upon.” He was confident that, “physicians in Israel will not allow the sick to die.” He mentioned an article that had been published in Ma’ariv newspaper—”a hateful article toward the government and workers: workers deserve nothing, only them [white-collar workers].” This must have affected the physicians’ persistence. Barzilai warned that the strike would have severe consequences that will be difficult to withstand, and that unlike Ben-Gurion hoped, withholding pay would not deter physicians as they can compensate for this with private practice. Additionally, Barzilai warned of a surge in white-collar strikers. Like Barzilai of MAPAM, the leader of Ha’poel Ha’mirzachi Minister of Welfare and Religious Affairs Moshe Shapira was also among the ministers who strove to appease the strikers. He expressed concern that the strike would end with extensive government compromise, and asked the labor parties’ ministers whether the workers would forgo their demands if the government gave in to the physicians. Ben-Gurion replied that if physicians do not abide by their own code of ethics, what would be the moral impetus of appealing to the workers? Or to those who earn a third of the physicians’ income? Golda Meyerson suggested that Shapira check “how many workers are exempt from income tax” due to the scarcity of their wages.

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Immediately following the proletarian statements of Ben-Gurion and Meyerson Development Minister Mordechai Bentov of MAPAM took the opposite approach. Bentov suggested raising the government proposal to 70% of the recommended increase, and allocating the rest in government savings bonds that could be redeemed in five years’ time. Bentov reasoned that the physicians’ demands were justified but could only be fulfilled gradually, and estimated that the physicians will gain power if there is a head-on confrontation during the strike. Ben-Gurion responded that if Bentov was correct, “we must leave this table,” and asked what he proposes in case the physicians reject his solution as well. Bentov answered that a government compromise would put strike leaders in a difficult position vis-à-vis physicians and the wider public. He also noted that it was clear the Progressive Party leader Justice Minister Pinchas Rosen, who sat through the meeting in silence, will resign (SA Feb. 6, 1956). Ben-Gurion told the ministers that the government has decided to reduce increases by no more than half (and now proposed a 40% reduction). The Histadrut therefore agreed that its workers only receive a 5% increase, while according to Eshkol it had originally asked for 15–20%. Eshkol explained that the Histadrut would not have agreed to a mere 5% increase had the government allocated the full Guri-recommended raises to the upper ranks. He told Bentov that his proposal essentially meant allocating the full Guri Committee recommendations, as a government bond was equivalent to money. “I said we would decide in three years,” said Eshkol, and “you want me to give a bond today.” The rest of the white-collar workers will demand similar compensation, said the Finance Minister, and if we allocate it, then the workers will ask for this type of increase as well. Bentov’s proposal means allocating the full value of the Guri recommendations and a 10–20% increase for workers, he stated, with all of the implications. Bentov replied that, “the workers will not make this demand.” A debate began between the two chief MAPAI ministers Eshkol and BenGurion and the two MAPAM ministers Barzilai and Bentov. The MAPAM ministers did not trust that the government could withstand the strike and wished to accommodate the physicians, even by agreeing to a fixed wage gap via “significant wage reform for the intelligentsia,” in Bentov’s words. This exchange brought Ben-Gurion to express his wonderment at the link between MAPAM members and the “enemies of the workers” (SA Feb. 6, 1956). Eshkol transitioned from confronting MAPAM to confronting Progressive Party leader Rosen, asking that he announce to physicians that his proposal meant the government was extending its hand to them. Rosen replied that

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Eshkol’s proposal was unacceptable, and it was clear he would resign from the government the following day and the Progressive Party would withdraw from the coalition. Pinchas Rosen explained his position on the eve of his resignation: … with all of my devotion to the Histadrut, which I have supported my entire life in every possible way as it struggled to improve workers’ standard of living … I cannot accept that the government will approve a certain decision only … [because] it will enable the Histadrut to manage proposing a 5% increase to the workers. SA FEB. 6, 1956

Rosen could not accept the deal Eshkol had made with the Histadrut—reducing the modest increase for workers in return for cutting back raises for white-collar workers and senior executives in civil service. Eshkol articulated the matter to his government colleagues as follows: “We offered them 60% of the increase this year. We negotiated over the [remaining] 40%. I said: in a few years’ time, they did not ask how many, the government will discuss it…. I thought Rosen could agree to this, but he says he cannot” (SA Feb. 6, 1956). Minister of Trade and Industry Pinchas Sapir believed that the strikers were motivated by a “seething hatred,” and therefore, Bentov’s proposal (70% that year) would not be of help—a 10% difference is only a few IL. He was determined to prevent any sustainable achievement on the strikers’ part, and insisted on maintaining the government’s decision. Minister of Interior Yisrael Bar-Yehuda of Achdut Ha’avoda commented that the strike was political, and leaders of the striking engineers were encouraged by members of Herut and the General Zionists who aim to destroy the government. Sapir concurred, stating, “… this is a political strike against the government and Histadrut.” He proposed clarifying this to the strikers, many of whom were MAPAI supporters. From this moment on, Achdut Ha’avoda became MAPAI’s supporter in government and Histadrut discussions, as well as in public discourse vis-à-vis the white-collar workers. The dispute is over a wage gap, stated Labor Minister Golda Meyerson, “and perhaps we will publicly discuss the matter at some point,” as, “if some are deserving, then all are deserving.” However, at this time she did not wish to focus on her principle objection to expanding social inequality, but rather on the strike going against the government and against the Histadrut’s unity and its ability to organize the entire spectrum of workers: “engineers, administrators, physicians, and other professions all coming together—this is an unparalleled attack on the Histadrut, worse than Revisionist activity in the past.” BenGurion emphasized her position, noting that, “articles on the matter overflow

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with hatred toward the government and the workers.” Meyerson believed that the physicians’ persistence stemmed from their sense of having public support. Her statements were clearly aimed at ministers who sympathized with the strikers in various ways—Bentov and Barzilai of MAPAM, Shapira of Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi and Progressive Party leader Rosen. She turned to Rosen and reiterated her former request—to assemble a meeting between some of MAPAI’s leaders and his colleagues. “I am tired,” he replied (SA Feb. 6, 1956). The meeting concluded with a decision to reject Health Minister Yisrael Barzilai’s suggestion to offer strikers an increase at 70–75% of the Guri recommendations. They resolved to persist with Eshkol’s proposal: “The wages approved in September of 1955 will be distributed in full through the end of 1955 and again as of January 1, 1957. During 1956, 60% of the increase will be allocated and after some time the government will discuss the difference.” Additionally, they resolved to ask that physicians postpone their strike in order to continue negotiations on the government proposal. The government suggested that the IMA facilitate three physicians’ assemblies in the cities or one national assembly for the purposes of “a meeting between government members and the physicians.” As the meeting came to an end, Eshkol asked that, “government members belonging to parties with newspapers, be weary of what is printed tomorrow”—“I think that Al Ha’mishmar [MAPAM’s newspaper] will encourage the strikers,” commented Ben-Gurion, while Bentov stated he believes so as well (SA Feb. 6, 1956; LMA Feb. 6, 1956). Two days following the meeting, in the midst of strike and after Rosen’s resignation, the government assembled for an additional, unofficial meeting based on the decision of “several members,” in Ben-Gurion’s words. The Prime Minister reported that he had met with the Progressive Party Knesset faction the previous evening, in the absence of Rosen who had resigned, along with Ha’oved Ha’tzioni leader Moshe Kol, the physician Dr. Abeles who had been part of the Guri Committee, and Dr. Granot. Moshe Kol suggested that the government offer strikers 66% and settle the dispute. For the sake of protocol, Eshkol explained why the meeting was assembled. He stated that it is “known internally,” from conversations with the strikers’ coordination committee, that several groups of strikers saw his suggestion on the eve of the strike as basis for negotiations. Among them were the engineers and academically educated civil servants and senior executives, save the physicians. He further reported on several proposed compromises that won support from the Progressive Party faction, but the IMA General Secretary Dr. Druyan was only willing to postpone 10% of the allocations. Eshkol believed the strike was several days from coming to an end (SA Feb. 8, 1956).

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Ben-Gurion attacked “our friends in MAPAM:” their support of strikers does not only challenge the Histadrut, but the government as well. They are not being asked to retract their support of strikers, “but this is no regular strike. This is an international shock to the State, and they cannot encourage the strikers to persist,” he said. Ben-Gurion announced that, “we are not looking for them to break, we are not interested in humiliating them.” This is why BenGurion believed the strike must end as quickly as possible, and without the sense that it was broken, on the basis of Eshkol’s proposal along with certain clarifications regarding several unresolved matters. Apparently, Eshkol left several matters to be addressed at the end, as is typically done in negotiations, in order to wield them as compromises. Golda Meyerson also joined her party members in vehemently attacking MAPAM and its newspaper for taking an anti-Histadrut and pro-whitecollar workers and senior executives position, all while feigning loyalty to the Histadrut. Health Minister Yisrael Barzilai of MAPAM defended himself against BenGurion and Meyerson’s attacks by claiming that he and his colleagues supported the government’s decision and never deviated from it in any discussion. Sapir called out, “only in your newspaper” and commented that MAPAM’s publication Al Ha’mishmar unequivocally supports and encourages the strike. Aran too, asked, “How many MAPAMs are there?” Barzilai responded that MAPAM representation in the Histadrut was entitled to its own position regarding the white-collar workers, as his party “sees itself as the physicians’ representative.” He even expressed frustration at the prospect that the Progressive Party would be perceived as the physicians’ supporter rather than MAPAM. Ben-Gurion replied to Barzilai, stating that he cannot ignore his responsibility for MAPAM’s newspaper Al Ha’mishmar as he is MAPAM’s representative and Al Ha’mishmar his party’s vehicle. The strikers enjoy support from the right-wing parties and the center Progressive Party, support that stems from a political agenda against the Histadrut and the government, which MAPAM reinforces. At the conclusion of the meeting, the government authorized the ministers negotiating on its behalf to announce that any difference in increases that is not distributed during 1956 will be discussed in the government on a date agreed upon with the strikers (SA Feb. 8, 1956). MAPAI members noted MAPAM’s support of the strikers and their demands for a gap with fierce criticism and wonderment during Histadrut discussions at the height of the strike as well. The atmosphere at the Histadrut Steering Committee meeting was militant. Histadrut Treasurer Yitzhak Haskin went as far as to demand cutting ties with the physicians, dismantling the kupat Holim Physicians’ Association (which had joined the strike) under the Histadrut, and announcing to kupat Holim strikers that they will be considered to have

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resigned as of Sunday. Histadrut General Secretary Mordechai Namir turned to his colleague in the Histadrut Steering Committee Baruch Linn of MAPAM, and asked, MAPAI members are under the pressure of masses upon masses. They suspect the Histadrut Steering Committee will sell this matter for cheap. How has this sentiment escaped you, Linn? Who is pressuring [you] to support the strikers? The salaried workers [from among your supporters]—no! There is a great storm [among the workers]…. So who is pressuring MAPAM? The kibbutzim?!—Asking it to take a counter-position to the Histadrut? LMA FEB. 8, 1956

Linn did not respond as the whether the kibbutzim were pressuring MAPAM to support the physicians. He settled for stating that it was pointless to insist on a mere 60% of the Guri recommendations. Linn suggested adopting the Ha’oved Ha’tzioni proposal to distribute promissory notes for the remaining 40% and suggesting this to physicians, and if they refuse—MAPAM will oppose them as well. The MAPAM representative warned that if the intelligentsia is broken—it will not stand with the labor movement and Histadrut. In response, the Achdut Ha’avoda representative at the meeting Berl Repetor, accused Linn of suggesting to adopt the IMA’s proposal, “which aims to break the Histadrut and the labor government” (LMA Feb. 8, 1956). The government meetings on February 12, 1956 and one day prior to the end of the strike on February 19, informed the negotiations Eshkol conducted on its behalf. He reported to the ministers on his contacts with physicians. They demanded a guarantee for the 40%, which he had rejected. He also reported on discussions with the Hebrew University lecturers, one of which, Prof. Natan Rotenstreich, contacted him in a letter following the meeting. “I will not share my impression of them in the government,” said Eshkol, “we have not made progress.” He stated that the engineers and senior executives looked favorably on his proposal, and “are willing to close,” which he believes is not coming to fruition, “because they are all linked to the physicians.” He estimated that the engineers and senior executives would soon end their strike, but refused to reveal his sources. Ben-Gurion supported Eshkol’s refusal to give the physicians guarantees, a suggestion he saw as an insult. “As far as I am concerned this is the final decision, the government will not shift from it [cutting 40% of the increase].” The white-collar workers’ fight to maintain a gap between themselves and the workers was absurd according to Ben-Gurion, and he could not understand what business it was of theirs whether workers received an increase or not. Bentov on the other hand, was skeptical that engineers were about to end

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their strike. The situation in Haifa is severe, he said, 20 thousand IL is lost each day, and engineers at the electrical company are beginning to join the strike (SA Feb. 12, 1956). On February 19, 1956, the government approved the details of the established agreement. The strikers had proposed 70%, and then two thirds, while government representatives insisted on 60%. Eshkol explained why they insisted on 60% rather than 66%, which was the strikers’ final demand: “we have dragged the Histadrut into this wage policy, and we cannot say [that we will go from 60% to 66%] and [leave it for the Histadrut] to manage.” Prior to this, he explained the context of the matter to the ministers: By applying incredible influence and pressure on the Histadrut, we have laid the wage issue in some type of bed, not to say a ‘bed of Sodom….’ All national trade association asked for a minimum of 15%, some 20–25%…. The physicians were to receive 100% of the Guri recommendations, and the workers 10–15% or 25%. It was all settled. The Histadrut had endured a near freeze [prior to this] for two-three years…. But it was unwilling to do so for a fourth year…. And then we, [the Finance Ministry and Bank of Israel] claimed this will destroy the economy, particularly this year. Then, it was said that under such circumstances no one would receive what they had been promised. It was suggested [during MAPAI discussions in the government and Histadrut] that we should not allocate anything at all…. And there is an enormous gap nonetheless—some will receive 70 or 80 IL [the physicians, white-collar workers, and senior executives], and some 4 or 5 IL [the workers]…. It was an extremely trying process until we reached the 60% decision—we prolonged the matter to the brink of implosion. SA Feb. 19, 1956

Strike supporters in the government, ministers Barzilai and Bentov of MAPAM and Shapira of Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi, complained that the physicians had been humiliated. They believed Eshkol should have accepted the 66% proposal. “They essentially made the 66% compromise in defeat,” said Barzilai. A discussion was held on the subject, ultimately concerning whether to publicly announce the physicians’ submission. A vote was held, and the majority were in favor of a vaguely worded decision: “The ministerial committee … will contact all relevant parties in order to quickly conclude the strike of physicians and other civil servants” (SA Feb. 19, 1956). An agreement was signed the following day and the physicians ‘surrender,’ in Barzilai’s words, was indeed anchored in their acceptance of a one-third reduction of their wage increase in 1956 (Davar Feb. 21, 1956, 1–2; also SA Feb. 26, 1956).

chapter 6

A Class-Inclusive Strike The beginning of February 1956 saw the outbreak of a comprehensive strike among white-collar workers in Israel’s public sector. The strike was a significant crossroads amid the gradual polarization between middle-class professionals, and the MAPAI government and Histadrut. The white-collar workers’ trade unions and their supporters in the political center and right wing—the Progressive Party, General Zionists and Herut— heavily criticized both the government and the Histadrut for the ongoing wage restrictions. These restrictions were inflicted upon professional white-collar workers rather than the skilled and un-skilled manual laborers, due to the egalitarian wage policy and taxation practices of the time. As previously indicated, MAPAM shared this criticism. The government and Histadrut claimed governmental involvement was necessary for mitigating the deepening cleavages between immigrants and veteran citizens. However, the white-collar workers and their advocates in the political center, right, and left wings believed this was merely egalitarian rhetoric underscoring an unjust wage policy. According to those parties, MAPAI’s wage policy was meant to veil the ruling party’s selfserving objective to maintain its dominance among the trade unions and voters of the oriental proletariat. This type of criticism, which characterized professional middle-class representatives and right, center and left wing parties, is also reflected in additional research literature on the subject (See, e.g. Shapira 1996; Ben-Porat 1993). This contention, targeting labor-market policy, was weaved into general criticism of the sectorial policy inhibiting those who promoted social and national modernization. Critics claimed the government and Histadrut inflicted unjust constraints on liberal professionals, entrepreneurs, and private business owners: A policy that favored Histadrut factories by allocating generous credit, permits, and large-scale tenders, turning them into an overshadowing, powerful entity that minimized the private sector in early statehood; restrictions on business owners such as increased credit and labor costs, and overbearing regulation; or threats to employ government sanctions if white-collar workers and senior executives continue to protest the wage gap reduction policy.1 The white-collar trade associations, however, were not helpless against the government and Histadrut during the first years of statehood. The government 1  On these contentions among right wing government critics see Kalman 2016, 349–351.

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and its many organizations relied on close collaboration with educated workers in the liberal professions, and therefore worked hard to expand and promote the higher-education institutions responsible for their training (Cohen 2006, 171–200). This cooperation was vital to the accelerated development and modernization processes of the time.2 Development and modernization were in fact a primary focus of the government’s socialist-republican policy. Its core objective was social and national up building, and developing solidarity via industrialization, new settlements, and a breadth of educational opportunities. Injunctions that restricted the ever-growing class distinction between veteran citizens and new immigrants, and the Ashkenzai and oriental ethnic groups, were perceived as necessary conditions toward this enterprise. The February 1956 strike was the climax of an ongoing labor dispute that began in 1954. The white-collar workers contended that during the first years of statehood, MAPAI government utilized its wage and tax policies to erode their wages in relation to those of skilled and unskilled workers, with a uniform, limited, low ceiling cost of living allowance as sole compensation. The first ‘class-inclusive’ coordination committee of white-collar trade associations was established in January of 1955, one year before the strike, positioning the unions on an intensifying collision course with the Histadrut. This escalated into an ongoing, systemic labor dispute with significant political implications, as white-collar workers also enjoyed the support of coalition parties, the General Zionists and Progressive Party, and both right and left wing opposition parties.3 The ruling Party had its incentives for appeasing the white-collar workers leading up to the June 26 1955 elections, but the Sharett government decision to accept a limited version of the Guri recommendations was insufficient in this regard. The electoral price was clear to Ben-Gurion for one, who named the “fury of the working intelligentsia” as one

2  For more on the government and Histadrut’s dominance during the first decade and their relationship to the middle-class see Aharoni 1991; Gross 1999; Halevi and Klinov-Malul, 1968; Horowitz 1954; Rosenfeld and Carmi 1979, 43–84; Shalev 1992; Sharshevski 1986; Shalev 1992. 3  On MAPAM’s support, see the previous chapter. On Herut’s distinct support of the ‘working intelligentsia’s’ wage gap demands see internal discussions in: Jabotinsky Institute Archives, Jan. 27, 1956, 4/2–1. The white-collar workers’ associations had good cause for being confident in the support of the two right wing parties, Herut and the General Zionists, from the outset of the struggle. The Progressives were their primary coalition supporters after the resignation of General Zionists ministers from the government in summer of 1955. See two of many additional examples: Massuah Archives March 10, 1955, AR-14-010-06, 10 6 Mem; Ha’oved Ha’tzioni, 7–8, May-June 1954, 12–14.

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reason for Herut’s growing strength in the general elections of summer 1955 (BGA July 30, 1955). Under Ben-Gurion, the heads of MAPAI settled the February 1956 strike obstinately with an outright ruling against the strikers. As early as the two final months of 1955, it seemed the new Ben-Gurion government established on November 3, would revoke even the partial compliance of the Guri Committee recommendations. The incoming Prime Minister concluded the demands of Kupat Holim physicians in his diary after receiving a report from head of the Trade-Unions Division Aharon Becker: “Kupat Holim physicians want three things: 1) To work little, 2) To enjoy a private practice, 3) To receive an excessive salary” (BGA Sept. 9, 1955). To physicians and fellow white-collar workers, the Guri Committee recommendations were already a measly revision of the basic-wage freeze and drastic wage gap reduction policies in the public sector. Now, it seemed that Ben-Gurion’s government would retreat even from this miniscule revision. In the midst of forming the new government’s coalition, Defense Minister BenGurion summoned IMA Chairman Dr. Zalman Avigdori to a meeting. BenGurion informed him that Israel was facing escalating security issues, and the new government intended to obstruct any wage increase (BGA Nov. 6, 1955). In the beginning of January 1956, after the prolonged internal debate discussed in the previous chapter, the MAPAI government ministers and heads of the Histadrut decided to retract their promise to implement the Guri Committee recommendations.4 The white-collar public sector workers responded with a comprehensive strike. The climactic outbreak of the socio-economic dispute in the beginning of 1956 cannot be fully understood without considering the national and security-related crisis discussed in Chapter 4. After Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that Czechoslovakia would be supplying Egypt with Soviet weapons in September of 1955, it became clear that the balance of power would be altered to Israel’s detriment. The emergency preparation following Nasser’s troubling announcement required an expanded government budget for arms, fortification, and inventory stock. MAPAI leaders’ decision 4  See MAPAI’s finance committee discussions in LMA Nov. 21, 1955, and the limited committee discussions regarding wage policy on Oct. 25, 1954. The Party’s position eventually determined the government’s position. For more on this see BGA, Ben-Gurion’s Diary, Dec. 13, 1955; SA, government meetings in the afternoon of Jan. 15, 1956 and Feb. 6, 1956; Al Ha’mishmar Jan. 5, 1956; Davar Jan. 9, 1956. Note that despite the latter article’s title, ‘MAPAI has resolved to raise wages,” the decision was a significant retreat from the pay raises that were previously promised, Al Ha’mishmar Jan. 9, 1956.

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to revoke their commitment to the Guri recommendations was driven by a combination of the now urgent circumstances, and the socio-economic conditions prompted by the immigration wave that ended in 1952 and resumed in 1954. Upon re-entering his post as prime minister, Ben-Gurion clarified that answering to immigration-related needs was even more pressing in light of the security emergency, which demanded social solidarity.5 Finance Minister Levi Eshkol feared an inflation outbreak during the national security crisis if the budget expanded to support military and immigration needs, as well as the Guri recommendations. This was the core issue of MAPAI’s prolonged dispute with the white-collar workers, and the impetus for its decision following the destabilizing arms deal announcement at the close of 1955, to retract its obligation to the Guri Committee recommendations. The following chapter will discuss the political-cultural discourse among the white-collar workers’ representatives and right and center-right political factions during the 1956 strike, and analyze their critique of MAPAI’s sociopolitical policies. Examining the different attitudes and positions revealed during the strike, uncovers new divisions within the political arena. The small communist party (Maki) for instance, clearly supported the strikers. MAPAM, the coalition party (for the first time since 1949) of Ha’shomer Ha’tzair and Ha’kibbutz Ha’artzi took a seemingly intermediate position. In fact, however, as we saw in the previous chapter, MAPAM supported the strikers in government deliberations, which were naturally closed to the public, while attempting to conceal their support during Histadrut discussions. MAPAI stood alone opposite the strikers, along with the small coalition party Achdut Ha’avoda of Ha’kibbutz Ha’meuchad (also in the coalition for the first time since 1949). Even the national religious coalition parties Hamizrachi and Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi soon to unite and form the National Religious Party (Mafdal or NRP), leaned toward supporting the demands of the strikers. Strikers were also supported by the small Progressive Party at the center of the political map, headed by Justice Minister Pinchas Rosen, which was usually linked to MAPAI. This party fully identified with strikers’ demands for socio-economic superiority. The highly influential Ha’aretz newspaper owned by Gershom Schocken a Progressive Party Knesset member who also edited the newspaper, set a tone of enthusiastic ideological support for the strikers and their objectives. The two right-wing

5  In the previous chapter, we discussed the direct connection between external military threat and the need for social solidarity, which is evident in the following article: Davar Jan. 12, 1956a.

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opposition parties,6 Herut and the General Zionists, whose social and ideological kinship was illuminated by the dispute, vehemently supported the strikers due to distinct ideological and class-related interests. Therefore, as we will later see, the strike unexpectedly positioned the Progressives and Ha’aretz newspaper alongside Herut and the General Zionists and their respective publications, Herut and Ha’boker. The current chapter primarily addresses the white-collar workers’ strike from the perspective of those who opposed MAPAI’s policies and socialist republican strategies. An analysis of the related political-cultural discourse will reveal the professional middle-class ideology of the time as a form of ‘institutionalized opposition.’ It was both ‘institutionalized’ and crtical of MAPAI’s socio-economic order. Its critical approach was expressed in its ideological kinship to the right wing General Zionists and Herut, which represented the main alternative to the socio-economic status quo. However, it was also ‘institutionalized,’ as white-collar workers and senior executives had a key role in MAPAI’s socialist-republican development strategies. Many of them belonged to MAPAI, Labor Movement factions, and Histadrut organizations such as Kupat Holim or Histadrut industries (engineers). Their prominent supporter, the Progressive Party, was MAPAI’s longtime close ally. The current chapter will begin by describing the strike at its inception. The following two sections will analyze the zealous right wing political discourse that underscored the strike, and the polemic between MAPAI and the strikers. We will close this chapter with a discussion of the strike’s eventual resolution and an analysis of its political and ideological significance.

The Outset of the Strike

8,000 physicians, engineers, jurists, academic faculty from the Hebrew University and the Technion, pharmacists, clinical psychologists, archaeologists, geologists, microbiologists, economists, and statisticians employed in State and public institutions, joined in a comprehensive strike on Tuesday, February 7 (Ha’aretz Feb. 7, 1956a). The Hebrew University faculty asked the institution’s administration to set a separate paygrade for them, in order to “Fight for the University’s independence pertaining to its academic employees’ wages” (Davar Feb. 7, 1956a). A national engineers’ assembly decided to declare a 6  On June 29, 1955, the General Zionists Party withdrew from the coalition in which it had participated since 1952, after its members abstainted from a no-confidence vote in the government following the Kastner Affair.

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strike, contrary to the Engineers’ Association, which was affiliated with the Histadrut (Ha’aretz Feb. 7, 1956b). The two sides did make last-minute efforts and a meeting was held with Prime Minister and Defense Minister David Ben-Gurion. He gave a detailed rundown of the State’s security status to the physicians’ representatives, suggesting they should draw the obvious conclusions and forgo the strike. His partners in conversation remained unconvinced. They announced their intention to strike, to which Ben-Gurion responded in a letter, expressing “A deep sorrow—not only for the severe damage inflicted on the State. I see a decline in physicians’ stature, as I know many among them are devoted to the State and its people” (BGA Jan. 16, 1956). Ha’aretz newspaper even reported in one of its headlines that Ben-Gurion allegedly threatened physicians with emergency measures to overpower the strike (Ha’aretz Jan. 27, 1956), the same way the seamen’s strike was forcibly ended.7 However, the newspaper had to revoke these statements several days later (Ha’aretz Jan. 29, 1956a), as they had no concrete corroboration for them.8 It was either fear or false intimidation. Public sector white-collar workers were vital to the government’s development strategy, far more than the seamen ever were. Forcing an end to their strike the way the Haifa Workers Council ended the 1951 seamen strike was out of the question. MAPAI government had too much to lose in a zero-sum game with the white-collar strikers. In another meeting with physicians’ representatives, the government suggested that over the course of 1956, it would allocate 60% of the wages recommended by Aran’s committee, and promised to discuss the remaining 40% in subsequent years SA Feb. 6, 1956; BGA, Ben-Gurion Diary Feb. 2, 1956; Ha’aretz Feb. 2, 1956; Davar Feb. 7, 1956b). The physicians rejected this offer, and the IMA Council decided to strike (Ha’aretz Jan. 27, 1956). Several days later, the coordination committee of white-collar workers and senior executives in State and public institutions decided to launch a consecutive,

7  On the break-down of this strike see: Eshel 1994; Hanin and Filc 1998, 89–98; Kafkafi 1994, 221–247; Lissak et al. 1991; Ne’emaney Kinus Hayama’im’ [Trustees of the Seamen Assembly], ‘Al Ken Sa’ar Hayam’ [Heb. ‘and thus, the sea stormed’] no date or publisher; Tokatli 1979, 98–102. 8  For the daily’s ardent support for the wage-gap demand see more: an editorial published one week prior to the strike, Ha’artez Jan. 29, 1956c, and the editorial published one day prior to the strike (Ha’aretz Feb. 6, 1956c). The ‘letters to the editor’ column also overflowed with letters of support for the strikers. See for instance: Ha’aretz Jan. 31, 1956; Ha’artez, Feb. 6, 1956b.

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comprehensive strike as of February 7. The executives’ representatives decided to hold a one-day warning strike leading up to the general strike.9 The IMA, the strike’s leading institution and strongest association, announced via the country’s mainstream newspapers that over the past year, the government breached an explicit agreement. It had revoked its 1955 decision to implement the Guri Committee’s recommendations to Sharett’s provisional government, a decision that former and newly re-elected Prime Minister BenGurion approved again on January 9, 1956. However, the physicians avoided mentioning the Guri Committee conclusions submitted several months before the strike. According to them, the commitment was made following sound discussions that took security and economic circumstances into consideration. The government had agreed, despite these circumstances, to raise workers’ wages by a net of approximately 50 million IL, with physicians’ new wages totaling roughly 3 million IL. They claimed the governments’ new proposal would “lower wages that have already been approved and implemented.” As aforementioned, the approved wage increase was already far from satisfactory compared to their original demands, and had aggravated the strikers. They announced that, “The physicians will not accept this disrespect of their dignity and social position, and will stand united and steadfast in their struggle” (Ha’aretz Feb. 6, 1956a). The outbreak of the strike roused the harsh criticism of the government and Histadrut toward the white-collar workers and senior executives. The front-page headline of the Davar daily newspaper, the Histadrut and MAPAI’s mouthpiece, announced that, “The white-collar workers’ strike targets the State and Histadrut—not for professional reasons, but in order to damage the working public and its unity (Davar Feb. 7, 1956c).” MAPAI Center announced its demand for compliance with the Histadrut Small Council’s instructions among workers, “… and not … with the damaging strike that physicians and engineers have decided to inflict upon the State” (Davar Feb. 7, 1956d). The heads of the Histadrut determined that the strike’s only purpose was to destroy the organization’s status and authority, and that they must unite in order to thwart the rebellion. The Achdut Ha’avoda party, MAPAI’s small coalition partner in the government and Histadrut, believed in preventing wage gap ideology and its expansion, and therefore objected the strike. The Party claimed that the government 9  The coordination committee meeting included representatives of physicians, jurists, academic faculty of Hebrew University and the Technion, executives, pharmacists, clinical psychologists, social workers, engineers, archaeologists, geologists, and microbiologists (Ha’aretz Feb. 1, 1956).

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had been accommodating to white-collar workers and senior executives and there was no justification for retaliating with a strike under present circumstances (Lamerhav Feb. 2, 1956; Lamerhav Feb. 21, 1956; also Yizhar 2005, 25). The electrical company’s National Workers’ Secretariat advertised its support of the Histadrut’s objection to the engineers’ strike, as it was declared by an organization that the Histadrut did not recognize. It claimed that the strike was “… illegal, anti-Histadrut, and contradictory to the ethos of the Histadrut and its institutions.” The Workers’ Secretariat at the national electrical company requested that its engineers maintain their routine work schedule at the factory, and threatened those planning to join the strike: “Participation in the strike will be viewed as consensual resignation. These workers will only return to their post following respective evaluation and pending the approval of authorized Histadrut institutions” (Davar Feb. 7, 1956e). The State Workers’ Association, the Histadrut Physicians Association’s Council, and the Engineers’ Association’s Central Committee, made similar declarations against the strike and in support of the Histadrut’s authority (Davar Feb. 7, 1956f; Davar Feb. 7, 1956g; Davar Feb. 7, 1956h; Davar Feb. 2, 1956e; Ha’aretz Feb. 3, 1956). The Histadrut’s Small Council publicly called out to ‘the workers of Israel,’ proclaiming that: “This strike is fundamentally opposed to the State and the Histadrut, causes multitudes of civilians to suffer, and damages the State and its economy.” It warned that the strike was ultimately driven by “A political incentive to damage the workers’ and the Histadrut’s unity, coordinated operation, and authority. This goes against the republican (mamlachti) ethos and the Histadrut, and is bound to inflict shame, altercations, damage, and turbulence on the nation at this time of urgency and worry” (Davar Feb. 7, 1956i). The workers’ coalition party Achdut Ha’avoda—Poalei Tzion, believed that, “Factions hostile to the Histadrut and the workers, looking to use the strike against the Histadrut and low-earning workers” were behind the strikers. They pointed to right wing factions and employers as the strike’s primary political supporters. Achdut Ha’avoda therefore asked white-collar workers to cease striking immediately, as this serves the workers’ opponents (Lamerhav August 2, 1956). MAPAM on the other hand, the second small workers’ party in MAPAI’s new coalition, publicly supported the strikers’ demands (Ha’aretz Feb. 9, 1956a).10 During a MAPAM meeting, Yaacov Riftin, among the heads of what was then considered MAPAM’s ‘left’, asserted that, “The physicians should not be

10  For more on MAPAM’s tendency to support white-collar workers see for instance: YY Jan. 8, 1956, Jan. 18, 1956, (6) 62.90, and our discussion in the previous chapter.

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confronted under any circumstances” (YY Jan. 6, 1956, 90 Kaf, bin 6, file 5). On election night, in summer of 1955, one of MAPAM’s Knesset representatives Dr. Hanan Rubin, announced that, “These were the just demands of academically educated workers, workers of a different echelon … ” (Divrei Ha’knesset June 22, 1955, vol. 18, 1983). The communist Maki Party was also supportive of white-collar workers’ demands to set wage gaps and prevent tax-enabled wage-erosion.11 Maki’s Knesset member Esther Vilenska even said the following during a Knesset discussion on February 6 1956, the eve of the strike: “The workers as a whole are encouraged by the struggle, by the unity and maturity exhibited by physicians, engineers, and working intelligentsia … ” (Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 6, 1956). MAPAI, therefore, stood virtually alone in opposition to the white-collar workers and senior executives’ demands for wage gaps. Its closest coalition ally, the Progressive Party, showed unwavering support for the strikers and threatened to withdraw from the coalition if their demands were not met.12 Gershom Schocken a Progressive Party Knesset member and Ha’aretz newspaper owner and editor, was vehemently supportive of the strike during the February 6 Knesset debate. His address discussed the erosion of senior executives and white-collar workers’ wages, as opposed to the ongoing increase of other public sector wages and workers’ wages at large. Choosing not to set wage gaps between white-collar and non-academic public sector workers, he stated, would greatly jeopardize the quality of executives in the technical and scientific domains, and that of national services as well. Despite his party’s principle opposition to a strike during employee-employer negotiations, it supports this particular strike due to the retraction of outright commitments made to whitecollar workers and senior executives (Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 6, 1956). This position on the matter eventually drove head of the Party Pinchas Rosen to resign from the government (Ha’aretz Feb. 8, 1956a). Finance Minister Levi Eshkol announced the government’s official position at the same February 6, 1956 Knesset plenary session. He claimed the wage issue affects national security. Fulfilling the obligation to white-collar workers 11  See for instance comments by Esther Vilenska at the June 22, 1955 Knesset debate (Divrei Ha’knesset June 22 1955, vol. 18 1984–1985), and the MAKI Party MK’ speech during a Knesset debate on the strike (Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 6, 1956, vol. 19, 967). This was the general stance expressed in Maki’s daily newspaper, Kol Ha’am, throughout the white-collar workers and government’s crisis. 12  Party leader and Justice Minister Pinchas Rosen, reported to the Progressives’ leadership on January 25, 1956 that a letter with a threat of resignation was sent to Ben-Gurion that day (Massuah Archives, ARM-009-06, section Mem, file 6, bin 9).

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and senior executives, stated Eshkol, would damage national economic stability at a time of emergency, which requires funds for military and civic defense reinforcement, stockpiling resources, and securing water and electrical supply. The Finance Minister emphasized that the government accepted the Guri recommendations in principle, thereby fundamentally agreeing to wage gaps between common workers and academically educated workers (Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 6, 1956). “The government fully acknowledges the crucial function of scientists and the working intelligentsia in the nation-building process…. And if it has concluded there is no choice but to offer only partial fulfillment of its previous decision, it is not for lack of acknowledgement, but for the sake of the economy at large” (Davar Feb. 7, 1956j). It is important to recall that the wage gaps adopted and now revoked by the government were already a leap from white-collar workers’ demands. Finance Minister Eshkol claimed the previously approved wage demands required the allocation of 120 million IL among 400,000 workers. Fulfilling this commitment, he said, would spur inflation, which is why the working public has moderated its demands despite enduring a three-year long basic-wage freeze. Eshkol asked the low-earning workers on the other side of wage gaps be kept in mind. More than 180 thousand workers with ‘frozen’ wages earn a basic-wage under 80 IL per month, said Ehskol, adding, “Can it be said with the utmost confidence and nonchalance that ‘come what may, this specific type of worker may not get a pay raise?’” (Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 6, 1956). While workers of another kind enjoy pay raises, these workers should be restricted from making demands? He reminded that the wage increase offered to white-collar workers and executives will set a gap of 1:13 between the low paygrade increase and the high paygrade increase (Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 6, 1956; Davar Feb. 7, 1956j). He compared the physicians’ strike to the regular army officers’ strike that broke out during a security emergency, and asked to refer strike discussions to the Knesset’s Finance Committee. Fifty-two Knesset members from MAPAI, Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi, Achdut Ha’avoda, MAPAM, and Poalei Agudat Yisrael supported his request, while 25 Knesset members belonging to Maki, Herut, the General Zionists, and the Progressive Party were in favor of a Knesset plenary session (Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 6, 1956, 972). The financial deliberations driving Eshkol’s resistance to white-collar workers’ wage demands were clearly articulated in his February 14, 1956 budget proposal made to the Knesset during the strike. Eshkol claimed that the government was working to fortify the security system, persist with immigration absorption, continue intensive development, and boost production. According to Eshkol, it was impossible to fulfil these needs while raising the public’s quality of life (Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 14, 1956, 1063; also Ha’aretz Feb. 14, 1956a). He

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expressed an aversion to significant wage gaps, along with trepidations of escalating inflation due to the wage demands in the public sector, which would add to significant government spending on security and the renewed immigration of 1954. According to the strikers’ coordination committee, participation in the strike exceeded expectations considering the intense pressure inflicted on workers by the Histadrut and MAPAI. The physicians shut down every public medical facility across the nation. The coordination committee claimed that aside from a few individuals, all physicians, jurists, statisticians, and the Hebrew University faculty members participated in the strike. The committee reported that they were joined by the majority of senior executives and economists, aside from those in offices run by MAPAI ministers (Ha’aretz Feb. 8, 1956b). Conversely, Davar newspaper reported that the strike, meant to destabilize the Histadrut’s authority, was neither comprehensive nor impactful aside from impeding medical care facilities: “The Histadrut and heads of State announcement that this urgent hour is not the time for strikes has taken effect: most workers tended to their jobs in government offices nationwide, where work continued as usual and services were offered to the public” (Davar Feb. 8, 1956a).13 It was announced that the vast majority of engineers in Jewish Agency and Histadrut institutions (Solel Boneh, Hamat, Herut, Shikun, Ha’mashbir, Tnuva, and technical departments in the Kibbutzim), arrived at their jobs. Management at the industrial Histadrut concern ‘Kur’ threatened that striking engineers who refuse to resume work immediately will have effectively resigned. Kur’s Workers’ Association seconded this threat, stating via personal correspondence that it will not defend striking engineers. The National Secretariat of the Jewish Agency Workers’ Council openly announced its support of Histadrut authority in Davar, and asked that employees maintain their routine work schedule. All workers who “Wrongly decided or were wrongly led to join illegal strikes and breach Histadrut authority are required to resume their work immediately” (Davar Feb. 8, 1956b). Threats circulated that ‘any necessary measure’ will be taken against employees who were absent for reasons other than illness or vacation, and against anyone who attempts to disturb routine operation in Jewish Agency institutions or offices. In contrast with the partial abatement of the strike, mostly successful among engineers, Ha’aretz reported that agitation was notable among 25,000 schoolteachers. They wished to join the strike despite the Teachers’ Association, and on February 10 1956, teachers held the aforementioned one-day strike in 13  For more on the engineers’ participation in the strike see: Ha’aretz Feb. 9, 1956a.

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Tel-Aviv high schools (Ha’aretz Feb. 9, 1956c; Ha’aretz Feb. 10, 1956a; Ha’aretz Feb. 12, 1956a). Two days after the outbreak of the strike, the white-collar workers and executives’ Coordination Committee decided to treat the government’s proposed compromise as a basis for negotiation, contrary to physicians’ representatives. As aforementioned, on February 8 the government suggested allocating the full wage increase in July-December of 1955, and only 60% in 1956. It promised to pay the difference within two years, and the full increase in the form of a loan as of 1957 and over the course of 1958 (SA Feb. 8, 1956). The physicians, however, were the driving and decisive force of the strike. In separate negotiations held with Prime Minister Ben-Gurion, Finance Minister Levi Eshkol, and Minister of Welfare and Religious Affairs Moshe Shapira (Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi leader and soon to be head of the NRP), the physicians rejected this compromise and demanded that over 60% be allocated in 1956, and the difference distributed in the current year. A Ha’aretz reporter calculated the difference to be 8–30 IL for paygrades 2–6 (Ha’aretz Feb. 10, 1956b),14 and claimed the government’s offer led the Histadrut to demand similar conditions for common workers (Ha’aretz Feb. 12, 1956b). The physicians resisted their partners’ tendency to negotiate and in a letter to BenGurion, wrote that their strike was no threat to national security and economy (BGA, Correpondence Feb. 12, 1956a). In response, Ben-Gurion wrote to IMA Chairman Dr. Zalman Avigdori that the strike “… is causing severe damage to the State during one of the hardest times in its existence, and you cannot know (and I say this to your advantage) the extent of the national and security damage it has already inflicted” (BGA Feb. 12, 1956b). As aforementioned, Justice Minister and head of the Progressive Party Pinchas Rosen resigned from the government, his party withdrawn from the coalition, after the commitment to white-collar workers was revoked. Davar newspaper criticized the resignation. In its ‘letters to the editor’ section, Avraham Haft of Kibbutz Dgania Bet asked the resigning minister if he would have done the same had the government broken its promise to workers of the train, food, metal, or military industries? Would he have resigned if the government retreated from its prior commitment to agricultural settlements? … And had the government projected a budget to replace the sheds and tents of the transit camps and later retreated, would he resign then? Finally, how does the Justice Minister explain his simultaneous demand for enhanced security 14  On the government’s decision to allocate the remaining increase in 1958 see Ha’aretz Feb. 14, 1956b; Ha’aretz Feb. 15, 1956.

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and resignation? (Davar Feb. 15, 1956a). Dr. B. Cohen of Tel-Aviv lashed out at the white-collar workers for lacking patriotism and impairing national security, and suggested they listen to the smug reports on the strike aired by Cairo’s radio, coupled with claims of Israeli society’s escalating instability: “Is this matter of no significance to our physicians, engineers, etc.?” (Davar Feb. 15, 1956b). Letters of this nature persisted throughout the strike. They depicted strikers as knowingly dangerous to the public: At this ominous hour in which our enemies plot to attack us, physicians and other white-collar workers have decided time is ripe for a comprehensive strike. Strikers ignore the fact that we, citizens of the State, are in the same precarious boat and that any hazardous action might jeopardize the lives of all aboard. The people of Israel worldwide expect every citizen of our State to fulfill their national duty at this time. These strikes might encourage our enemies. Now is not the time to strike! Davar Feb. 13, 1956

Meanwhile, the proposed government compromise polarized the strikers’ coordination committee. Senior executives were the weakest link among strikers. They were more prone to the influence of the Histadrut Trade-Union leaders, and pressure from the MAPAI ministers who supervised them directly. As aforementioned, they conducted a one-day warning strike Despite announcing they would join the white-collar workers’ strike one week from its outset (Ha’aretz Feb. 13, 1956), their representatives decided to forgo the general strike and even withdrew from the strikers’ Coordination Committee (Ha’aretz Feb. 15, 1956). The following day, senior executives announced they will accept the proposed compromise, and revoked their threat to join the white-collar workers’ strike in the public sector (Ha’aretz Feb. 16, 1956).

…

The general white-collar workers’ strike in the public sector was the prominent political event at the dawn of 1956, along with the escalating threat of Egypt’s military forces. The press, political discourse, and impassioned ideological essays that underscore the strike portray a systemic political event with multiple implications, rather than a mere socio-economic dispute limited to its direct purview. We will later revisit the strike’s progression and conclusion, and will now change course to discuss the right-wing discourse that accompanied it, and imbued it with far-reaching significance.

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The Position of Ha’aretz Newspaper

As aforementioned, Ha’aretz was an important source of support for the strikers and their demand for a higher socio-economic status. The strike even gave Ha’aretz writers the opportunity to severely criticize the principle socialistrepublican agendas heralded by Ben-Gurion, MAPAI, and the Histadrut. Its close kinship to MAPAI’s ally the Progressive Party, sheds light on an important characteristic of the white-collar workers’ strike and its political-ideological significance: the strike was a declaration of defiance against socialist republicanism, which was in no small measure an internal defiance, from within the establishment itself. The strike incited public discussion on the status of the Histadrut, whose unique historical role and success was acknowledged even by some of its toughest critics. In the midst of the dispute, Amos Eilon, one of Ha’aretz’ most prominent journalists, wrote that the Histadrut had become the strongest, most expansive, wealthiest, and largest trade union in the West. By the end of 1955, it included almost 800 thousand members that constituted half of the State’s Jewish citizens. According to Eilon, no other organization in the Western world had managed to organize 90% of workers under its wing. 146 thousand earners were employed strictly by Histadrut industry, he asserted, adding that the Histadrut’s turnover was on the verge of exceeding one billion IL, and that more than a million citizens receive health benefits from the Histadrut’s Kupat Holim. “The Histadrut provides working conditions unparalleled by any European trade union, as well as social benefits that accumulate to a world record of at least 30% of wages,” wrote Eilon (Ha’aretz Feb. 17, 1956a). This seemingly flattering description, however, actually became the basis of a vehement attack on the accomplished organization, whose obvious impetus was the Histadrut’s attempt to thwart strikers. Eilon even dared to call the Histadrut an “… organization reminiscent of Mussolini-era corporations.” He claimed that the Histadrut regulates Israel’s labor relations by using a fascist formula that prohibits strikes and shut-downs, “… just like the Histadrut factories do,” and imposes the compulsory arbitration of the Histadrut’s Trade Unions Division. Eilon’s article also stated that the Histadrut includes “… workers and proprietors, industry-giants, oil tycoons, and financiers … both paltry farmers and feudal lords …” Thus, in the heat of the class-centered polemic between Ha’aretz and the Histadrut during the strike, one of the newspaper’s most prominent writers

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assigned both fascism and feudalism to the organization, alongside the more common accusation of its quasi-Bolshevik tendencies.15 The more practical crux of his assertions regarded the Histadrut’s centralized and bureaucratic structure: “Workers are organized into trade unions all over the world. These unions are then organized into an often weak federation. In Israel, the situation is reversed. The umbrella organization is all-powerful, while the trade unions, compared to those of other nations, are more or less dead entities. In most cases, they are merely the umbrella-organization’s operators” (Ha’aretz Feb. 17, 1956a). The white-collar workers’ strike can therefore be seen as the revolt of a relatively powerful trade union against this balance of power. Beyond the struggle’s organizational aspect, however, was its ideological and class-related significance for both parties involved. Dr. Shlomo Gross, one of the heads of Ha’aretz and a senior journalist at the newspaper (penname: ‘Poless’), published an article titled ‘Tafkid Manhigei Ha’poalim’ (the role of the workers’ leaders) that expressed strike supporters’ ideological and class-centered elitist approach. The strike’s impetus is wage gaps, wrote Poless in his substantive, trenchant article, but its fundamental cause is the executive and academic elite’s struggle for status in national leadership. Poless stated that the pre-independence period was characterized by a surplus of administrative and academically educated workers, which he believed allowed relative wage-equality within the small public sector of pre-independence Jewish society. Now, with the added responsibility of statehood, the demand for civil servants in the liberal professions significantly increased, while their percentage in the new immigrant population was negligible. Poless pointed to the needs generated by the nation-building process and the mass absorption of immigrants with little resources or education, as well as the corollary to these needs, i.e. the growing demand for educated professionals and executives in the labor market. These necessitated a ‘departure from egalitarian concepts’ typical to the pre-independence period. Otherwise, “Professionals from scientific disciplines who do not receive sufficient compensation will seek a new place in the great big world.” Thus, Poless outlined the context of strikers’ demands: the extensive nationbuilding process provided structural advantages that the strikers now sought to ‘claim’ or realize. Higher pay and social status for white-collar workers was necessary to the potential success of the historical enterprise of absorbing 15  For a discussion of the comparison to the Soviet-Union see: Bareli, Israel Studies Review, Summer 2015.

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the very immigrant population from which they sought to be socially distinct. This was the essence of the liberal-republicanism logic that substituted the socialist-­republicanism logic; in other words: Ha’aretz’s answer to MAPAI’s Mizug Galu’yot.16 Opposite the white-collar workers and the professional middle-class are the blue-collar workers, noted Ha’aretz’ head publicist, who have incentive to resist wage gaps, as well as superior political power. This power can help them not only prevent wage gaps, but increase blue-collar workers’ wages as well, which may cause an “economic collapse due to inflation.” Poless therefore asked the blue-collar workers’ leaders to understand both the danger of inflation and that of alienating and distancing “our intellectual strongholds.” His contentions linked, in terms of a potential socio-economic strategy, between striker supporters such as Poless himself, and the relatively right wing faction within the MAPAI establishment at the helm of Eshkol’s Finance Ministry and the Bank of Israel headed by Horowitz. He was aiming for an alliance between those who insisted on an anti-inflation policy and those who wished to secure a superior socio-economic status for the ‘intelligentsia’. As we saw in the previous chapter, another alliance was forming, socialist in its nature—between Ben-Gurion, Eshkol, and the Histadrut. Eilon and Gross-Poless wrote with the same ideological, class-centered incentive, and a liberal-republicanist demand for superiority that was promoted by their newspaper in opposition to MAPAI’s socialist-republicanism. Eilon’s aforementioned article vehemently attacked Histadrut leadership for its lacking democracy. However, Gross-Poless, taking an elitist and not necessarily democratic approach, hung his hopes on these very leaders and sought their understanding of the need for class distinction in the public sector. They must “… explain to the [blue-collar] workers why they should accept the idea of gaps in public service work, and not raise their wages,” he wrote (Ha’aretz Feb. 10, 1956c). Gross-Poless must have assumed there was a shared elitist-republican platform between MAPAI chiefs in the Histadrut and Ha’aretz affiliates, and underestimated the government’s commitment to socialist republicanism. He therefore attempted to invoke what he saw as mutual political elitism between the Histadrut and the liberal, class-centered ideology promoted by Ha’aretz. Eilon on the other hand, played the democracy card against the Histadrut while effectively promoting social distinction and class inequality. A rhetorical ideological stance such as Eilon’s was more common than GrossPoless’ honest approach. The ‘Ra’iti Shamati’ (Heb. ‘I saw, I heard’) column, for

16  See our discussion on this term and its socialist-republican connotation in the beginning of the Introduction.

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instance, stated that the need to untangle from the Histadrut’s restraints was the strike’s main impetus: The true struggle revolves around the status of the intelligentsia in Israeli society. The struggle is not just about wages, but also about freedom of thought, freedom of association, and mainly, the liberation of intellectuals, academics, and experts, from subjugation to uninformed political functionaries whose involvement in different professional domains since the State’s establishment has already caused severe damage. HA’ARETZ Feb. 17, 1956b

According to Ha’aretz, the confrontation was actually rooted in white-collar workers’ demand to realize one of democracy’s fundamental rights—freedom of association. They wished to set their own working conditions without the supervision of a handful of commissars who impose their opinions from the crest of the Histadrut. The true struggle was a response to the degradation and subjugation of the educated worker by the ignorant clerk. The Kupat Holim is a good example of this phenomenon, as it is not run by physicians, but rather by political functionaries who interfere in medical matters such as budgeting, medical service protocols, and more. The question at hand, therefore, is “Why are we recently witnessing this uprising when the intellectuals’ subjugation to the political functionaries has existed for years?” (Ha’aretz Feb. 17, 1956b). Gross-Poless attributed this to the high demand for educated workers, set against mass immigration absorption and nation building. His causative diagnosis exposed the new contours of the government’s relationship with the educated working class. On the other hand, the cause attributed by the unknowm writer of the column to the white-collar workers’ uprising was political functionaries’ current standard of living, which had significantly improved. The contention was that political operators lived modestly pre-state, but have ‘become different people’ since its establishment. This is why an engineer’s wage was now lower than that of a political functionary, who had become a symbol of wastefulness. The steady rise in political operators’ standard of living was what ultimately caused intellectuals to lose faith in those who preach modesty and do not abide by it (Ha’aretz Feb. 17, 1956b).

The Position of the General Zionists

The General Zionists, an important right wing party, adopted a stance identical to that of strikers. The Party was the Zionist Organization’s leading political faction pre-MAPAI, and was considered the chief opposition party after its

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relative electoral victory in 1951, and the second largest party in the Second Knesset (20 mandates). The electoral victory several years prior to the presently discussed dispute, and the General Zionists’ victory in the local elections that preceded it (November 1950), foreshadowed political tendencies similar to those expressed by the strike. These elections revealed pervasive right wing socio-economic tendencies throughout the veteran Ashkenazi public. MAPAI’s austerity policy dictated equal distribution of food and basic necessities due to shortages caused by the population doubling without the production to support it. However, during the 1951 elections the veteran Ashkenazi public exhibited its dismay toward these MAPAI-led socialist-republican agendas, which it considered excessively egalitarian, and toward the young State’s ‘flooding’ with the mass immigration wave of 1948–1952.17 However, the Party’s two and a half years of participation in Ben-Gurion and Sharett’s governments from December 1952 until June 1955, prevented it from being an effective, systemic substitute for socialist republicanism, for which it was a natural candidate. The Party represented the major business owners, tradesmen, manufacturers, land-owning farmers in the moshavot, grocers and shopkeepers, craftsmen,18 and workers in the liberal professions. The General Zionists party therefore saw itself as the strikers’ political representative. Alongside the municipal institutions of prominent cities such as Tel-Aviv, Petach-Tikva, Ramat-Gan, and affiliated moshavot, the Party’s frame of operation supported civic associations related to the private economic sector: The Industrialists’ Association, the Farmers’ Association, the Merchants’ Association, and other professional associations of various kinds. Therefore, it strove for some type of affiliation with middle-class trade unions. Their confrontation with MAPAI government was a good opportunity at a convenient time, shortly after the Party withdrew from the coalition at the end of Sharett’s short term as prime minister. The Party’s leaders hoped to revive its opposition as a capitalist, liberal alternative to MAPAI rule. They hoped primarily 17  For the fundamentally capitalist stance of the General Zionists, see for instance a significant article by one of their chief leaders Yosef Sapir: Ha’boker Feb. 18, 1949; Ha’boker July 27, 1951. 18  The present study discusses a central, prestigious faction of the middle-class, public sector white-collar workers, or middle-class salaried professionals. A similar tension, especially regarding taxation, existed between MAPAI and the independent artisans and small-scale tradesmen. The General Zionists Party saw itself as their representative, while MAPAI tried to compete for their support. On the tension between artisans and the regime see, for instance, articles from the eve of the white-collar workers’ strike: Herut Jan. 3, 1956; Herut Jan. 4, 1956a; Herut Jan. 4, 1956b; Herut Jan. 21, 1956a; Herut Jan. 21, 1956b; Herut Feb. 10, 1956a; Herut Feb. 10, 1956b.

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to establish themselves as an alternative to fostering the Histadrut economic sector in competition with the private sector, and to the organized labor that was restricting private business owners. The Party’s daily newspaper, Ha’boker, saw the Histadrut’s rapid development throughout the 1950s and the development of the Histadrut’s economic enterprises in particular, as an omnipresent threat to the private sector. It emphasized what it perceived as a permanent state of tension between the Histadrut and the State, and the workers’ incentives versus the Histadrut administration’s incentives. Ben-Gurion’s call to preserve the Histadrut’s hegemony was occasionally quoted as a testament to the restriction of private industry. The overall conclusion was that the Histadrut’s economic enterprise as a whole, though partly well-functioning, goes against the best interest of the State and its society. Furthermore, Histadrut is supposed to represent the workers’ professional interests, but does not allow them proper representation in managing its economic enterprises. Ha’boker newspaper therefore advocated dismantling the “pyramidion of bureaucratic rule in the Histadrut economic enterprises.” The way to accomplish this objective according to the General Zionists was nationalizing some of its factories and assigning others to workers’ authority, or by establishing cooperatives under their ownership (Ha’boker March 5, 1956). This unusual phenomenon was a byproduct of the Histadrut’s economic strength during the 1950s—a right-wing party advocating for partial economic nationalization or cooperation in order to weaken its class opponent. Ha’boker resisted the sectorial coexistence MAPAI aspired to, with the Histadrut economic sector alongside private sector. It claimed that Histadrut sector worked toward centralized power and increased cost of production, capital, and consumer products, to the point of jeopardizing national economy and the working public. The newspaper presented the Histadrut as an anti-republican (anti-mamlachti) establishment controlled by a small group of 56 board members, effectively controlled by an even smaller group of MAPAI leaders. Ha’boker emphasized that the Histadrut runs an extensive scope of operation and some of its financial ventures can even be considered a monopoly. It was involved in the agriculture, industry and construction, marketing and supply, financing and credit, transport and transportation domains, and in social services such as education, health, and more. The tight symbiosis between the government and Histadrut, they claimed, promoted an inefficient economic public sector, as the government was the Histadrut’s main ‘customer.’ Of projects totaling 768 million IL that were carried out by the Histadrut construction company Solel Boneh in 1954, only 3.1% were commissioned by private business-owners, 61% by the government, and the rest by public

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institutions such as the Jewish Agency. Thus, a closed economy had formed, which guaranteed a hike in prices without the necessary pressure to optimize production efficiency and lower product costs (Ha’boker March 5, 1956). The fierce class rivalry the General Zionists felt toward the Histadrut resounded in the newspaper’s report on the white-collar workers’ strike in the public sector. The report highlighted the harsh critique voiced by General Zionists in the Knesset regarding the confrontation between the Histadrut and MAPAI and the strikers, and what they called the outright discrimination of the working intelligentsia. In a Knesset discussion on the eve of the strike, a Knesset member of the right-wing Zionist party, Dr. Ben-Zion Har’el, claimed the government is striving for “A false equality that never existed even among the pioneers decades ago” (Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 6, 1956, 968; Ha’boker Feb. 7, 1956a). The General Zionists’ newspaper reported extensively on developments in the ongoing labor dispute; on the compromise proposed to white-collar workers after the government meeting on the first evening of the strike,19 on the government’s call to postpone the strike and continue negotiations, and on its request that physicians assemble to be addressed by government members. Ha’boker reported that the coalition, including Poalei Agudat Yisrael and excluding the Progressives who were about to withdraw following the dispute, rejected the requests of the General Zionists, Herut, and the Progressive and Communist parties, to hold a Knesset discussion on white-collar workers and executives’ wage issues in the public sector with a majority of 52 votes against 25 (Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 19, 1956, 972). The newspaper claimed the government is silencing the public debate on the strike in the Knesset, and the article’s title even warned that the strike itself might be overridden: “A state of emergency might be implemented” (Ha’boker Feb. 7, 1956b). Ha’boker quoted Davar, the mouthpiece of the rival government party. Davar too, saw the strike as an attempt to undercut the Histadrut’s power and therefore believed it should be stopped, meaning, Davar also saw the strike as a class-centered zero-sum game. Both publications and parties saw this as a class-centered dispute, a fact they both emphasized when matters escalated. Davar had a different perspective on the dispute of course, and Ha’boker

19  The proposal was also discussed in Levi Eshkol’s report to the government on negotiations with strikers. See SA, Feb. 6, 1956 and Feb. 8, 1956. As aforementioned, the government proposed that the full wages promised in Sept. 1955 would not be allocated in that year. In 1957, the promised wages would be reinstated, but in 1956 only 60% will be allocated and the government will decide how the remaining 40% will be allocated overtime.

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quoted the newspaper to corroborate MAPAI’s rigidity. According to the Davar quote in Ha’boker, this was the political strike of a public that wishes harm on a nation in crisis. The Histadrut must therefore ‘break-down’ this strike, with its well-known, previously employed method. “Its [the strike’s] intention is to sever physicians and engineers from the Histadrut, reject the workers’ inclusive union…. [It] tries to create an ostensibly independent, ‘distinguished’ entity, removed from the plebs, those ‘hundreds of thousands of illiterates’ derided by ‘working intelligentsia’ representatives during negotiations. Their [the white-collar workers’] rage is due to the limited wage increase other workers will also receive, more so than the temporary, one-time reduction inflicted on white-collar workers …” quoted Ha’boker (Feb. 7, 1956c). The right wing factions saw this quote as impetus for a counter-struggle. Along with its class context, the strike also had an ethnic context from the General Zionists’ perspective, although this observation requires a ‘musical ear’ due to its political sensitivity. The strikers were mostly veteran Ashkenazi citizens while the non-academic workers, and especially the manual laborers on the other side of strikers’ desired wage gaps, included a growing number of oriental individuals. MAPAI was therefore perceived as the guardian of oriental workers, which was inconvenient for a party like the General Zionists that may have vehemently supported the strikers, but still appealed to the general voting public during elections, namely the orientals among them. Even prior to the strike, the General Zionists were central to the faction that opposed immigration from Muslim countries to Israel. Their stance was partly reflected in an attempt to withhold voting rights from immigrants in absorption camps during local elections (the municipal sector being their political stronghold).20 It is therefore significant that at the height of the strike, Ha’boker published an extensive lecture by one of the General Zionists’ leaders regarding the ethnic issue. The lecturer was an unmistakable leader in the party’s municipal division and one of its chief heads, Knesset member Yisrael Rokach, head of the party’s faction in the Knesset, former mayor of Tel-Aviv and former minister of Internal Affairs. Rokach completely ignored the burning wage gap issue, despite its ethnic connotations. His lecture was published in Ha’boker two days after the strike broke out. It stated that integration of the exiles (Mizug Galu’yot) could be fully realized with a network of elementary schools, high schools, settlements, and housing projects that integrated the various ethnic 20  The government discussed the General Zionists’ wish to prevent the Petach Tikva absorption camp from being included in municipal jurisdiction, thereby inhibiting the camp’s residents from voting in municipal elections (SA June 14, 1955). For a discussion on the topic see: Ha’cohen 1994, 236.

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groups. He thereby sought to soften the blunt wage inequality issue his party advocated; as education suggests a future solution to the labor-market inferiority orientals were subject to in light of academic deficit, an inferiority Rokach implied was inevitable. Education, however, would clearly not mend the present crisis this inferiority induced. The only solution was the egalitarian wage regulation the General Zionists vehemently opposed, along with a policy of full employment and an organized, comprehensive labor system, which they also resisted. An additional tranquilizer Rokach recommended was expanding orientals’ political representation. He noted that in 1956, members of the oriental ethnic groups constituted 44% of the State’s citizens, and yet did not have the place they deserve in national affairs. These statements were directed at MAPAI as the State’s authoritative body: The Jewish Agency administration, consisting of 21 members, does not have a single oriental member; of 16 government ministers only one is of oriental origin; and for all of the Knesset’s 120 members, only eight are oriental, the same number representing Arabs, whose popu­ lation counts less than 200 thousand. Rokach added that the orientals’ part in official government positions was substantial under the Mandate government, but fairly limited in 1956. In this case, too, it was clear who the subject of criticism was. He claimed that in 1952, while mayor of Tel-Aviv, he received a delegation from the Ha’tikva neighborhood that informed him Ashkenazim refuse to send their children to the same school as the ‘blacks.’ According to Rokach, he reacted by announcing that any school that discriminates against potential students will be shut down. He believed elementary school could be the melting pot that forms a united people. However, Rokach’s address ended with a critique of the orientals themselves—many do not even allow their children to finish elementary school, and their attendance in high school and university—is meager (Ha’boker Feb. 10, 1956). As Rokach associated the oriental immigrants’ academic development with the distant future, he implied that they themselves, and perhaps those responsible for allowing them into Israel, were culpable for their inferiority. This inferiority was the mirror image of the professional middle-class’s demand for superiority, the same demand Rokach and his party expressly supported. According to the Ha’boker’s interpretation published February 19, 1956, thirteen days after the beginning of the strike, government representatives vehemently rejected all offers for settling the dispute. They did so despite threats to intensify the strike, by shutting-down every State hospital, schools, courthouses, construction, and public services nationwide.21 Ha’boker reported that 21  Compare to SA Feb. 12, 1956.

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the government treated white-collar workers with ‘impulsivity and rigidity,’ a result of its transformation into a pawn of the Histadrut, which sought to penalize white-collar workers for daring to rebel. “The Histadrut State” has taken over the State of Israel, proclaimed Ha’boker. It does not care for the damage the nation endures due to the government’s uncompromising stance, its unfulfilled promises, and the misled public of devoted, loyal workers, all for the sake of “… teaching the white-collar workers a lesson…. A large population of physicians, professors, engineers, jurists, and financiers have been pushed into the barricades.” The strikers’ representatives are negotiating not only with government representatives, but also with Histadrut representatives, who wage war on white-collar workers. Every suggested compromise by the strikers “… was received with disrespect and disregard—of the kind never before used with any Israeli worker…. The government’s abuse of the white-collar workers will be stopped! An end will be put to this dangerous strike! The foolish attempt to ‘break-down the strikers’ will cease—because it might break-down the State” (Ha’boker Feb. 19, 1956a). One of the white-collar workers’ notable representatives was Prof. Avraham Halevi Frenkel, former rector and one of the most prominent mathematicians at the Hebrew University. Ha’boker gave generous room to his commentary on the academic faculty’s incentives for joining the strike. He stated that his fellow professors opposed strikes in principle, but joined in order to protest the crisis of morality and the government’s thwarted obligations. Along with his complaints regarding morality, Frenkel protested the consistent erosion of faculty members’ wages since the pre-state period. When he began teaching at the Hebrew University 27 years ago, in 1929, the wage gap between a regular worker and an academic worker was 9:1, an unthinkable ratio in the mid1950s. On the other hand, explained the senior mathematician, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion uses every available stage to proclaim that building a State requires scientific development. He asserted that conditions in Israel do not promote scientific research, and that egalitarian wages in the public sector are a major impediment. Prof. Frenkel believed government policy had driven out some of the State’s young scientists. “The government and the Histadrut force white-collar workers to accept a situation in which manual laborers and drivers make 50% more than educated workers,” he claimed (Ha’boker Feb. 19, 1956b; Ha’aretz Feb. 19, 1956a). Even after the strikers relinquished most of their demands and the strike ended, the General Zionists persisted with harsh critique of the socialist republicanism at the core of MAPAI government’s confrontation with the strikers. They claimed its economic policy was intended to urge the transfer of capital and assets from the private sector to the collective Histadrut sector. The

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party’s leader, Knesset member Peretz Bernstein, claimed these domineering tendencies were dangerous to the economy. He vehemently criticized the government’s plan to increase taxes, especially comprehensive taxes, which was also perceived as the transfer of private capital to the public sector. He also chastised the government’s tendency to expand government bureaucracy as a tactic for unemployment prevention (Ha’boker Feb. 21, 1956a). The party’s speakers linked their general criticism with the recently ended government and professional middle-class confrontation. During Knesset budget discussions on February 22, one of the party’s prominent leaders, Yosef Sapir, Knesset member and former Transportation Minister (1952–1955) and Petach Tikva Mayor (1940–1951), spoke up against the government’s inequality abatement policy that was ‘trampling’ the middle-class: It all attests to a mechanism of ‘social alignment’ that is being employed without consideration of whether it benefits the economy. This system by definition tramples all who stand in its way. It is at the core of the Histadrut’s war against the working intelligentsia. This war is without moral or social foundation. “It is no coincidence that in its stubbornness to preserve the government and Histadrut’s prestige,” continued Yosef Sapir, “the government has burdened the public with unnecessary hardship and concluded the battle with failure. Because the conditions accepted by the Histadrut and government could have been approved before the strike.” In effect, however, the strike concluded with an agreement similar to the government’s rejection of the Guri recommendations’ implementation, which was the strike’s impetus, and certainly similar to the compromise Eshkol suggested prior to the strike. Yosef Sapir went on to assert that, “It is time we all free ourselves of the exilic shtiebel’s anachronistic influence, which made manual labor synonymous with the Zionist renaissance and the most explicit contradiction of exilic mentality. Here in Israel the ultimate test is that of efficiency, function, deed and thought, initiative, the measure of progress, and the expansion of production and the capacity to compete. These are the solutions to our problems.” It is therefore necessary to turn away from the anachronistic workers and look toward the liberal professions, the entrepreneurs, the tradesmen, the industrialists. The speaker, who later became a minister without portfolio on behalf of GAHAL party22 in the National Unity Government established on the eve of the 22  An acronym for Gush Herut Liberalim, an alliance between the Herut Party and the Liberal Party (the former General Zionists) led by Menachem Begin since its establishment in 1965 until the establishment of the Likkud Party in 1973.

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Six Day War, therefore expressed one of the strike’s most important characteristics: along with being a materialistic struggle, it was also a struggle for social superiority and prestige. The people of the professional middle-class had begun resisting the egalitarian ethos of the Zionist Labor Movement. They contrasted it with an ethos of individual, modernist, entrepreneurial excellence that was Zionist in its own particular way, and capitalist and stratifying in terms of its social agenda. Yosef Sapir repeated the familiar contention of strikers and their supporters in the political right and center: Improving immigrant workers’ economic conditions depends on the professional middle-class, and a wage gap in whitecollar workers’ favor is therefore advantageous to blue-collar workers. This contention, stated openly in Poless’ aforementioned article for instance, was merely implied by the more cautious politician: If we wish to promise the plebeian masses fair wages we must secure a just [i.e. higher] wage for the executive and educated workers. We cannot manage without them, and cannot rely on [foreign] support forever. At the end of his address, he linked criticism of the government’s approach to the middle-class with the General Zionists’ overall disapproval of the socialist republicanism (Mamlachti’yut) standing in the way of private capital interests: It seems MAPAI has lost faith in the nation’s middle-class, and has therefore resolved to ignore their rights completely and overburden them. This method is expressed in three ways: Lowering their wages as salaried employees, enforcing a heavy, devastating tax on both salaried and independent workers, as well as heavy municipal taxes especially on the independent [non-salaried] middle-class … lowering profits—whenever possible. We too are in favor of lowering profits—by increasing competition and efficiency, not by utilizing administrative proceedings. But we do not see fair profit as harmful to the State of Israel. And there is another tool being used: the credit restriction [for the private sector]. Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 21, 1956, 1131–1136 quote in Ha’boker Feb. 22, 1956

As aforementioned, the General Zionists advocated dismantling the Histadrut economic enterprises and claimed that the coexistence of two industrial sectors, one public and one private, was not in the workers’ best interest. Knesset member Shim’on Bejerano, an industrialist and representative of The Industrialists’ Association in the General Zionists’ Knesset faction, contended that dismantling the Histadrut economic enterprises is a necessary

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step toward independence from foreign aid and donations. Firstly, it requires substantial private investments, which the Histadrut economic enterprises deters, especially from domains under its monopoly. Secondly, Histadrut factories were inefficient according to the General Zionists’ speaker, which is why their production costs are excessive and they are unable to export. As a result, workers’ standard of living will not improve and their poverty and dependence on the authorities will persist. Developing the Histadrut economy means economically struggling citizens will be dependent on a single employer, which, in Bejerano’s estimation, would lead to totalitarian rule, as these citizens will be forced to elect the ruling party for income security. He claimed the expansion of the Histadrut sector is a result of government benefits that the private sector is not only denied, but also stalled by, as private investors hesitate to act under the Histadrut parties’ political and economic dominance (Ha’boker Feb. 23, 1956).23 The General Zionists’ call to dismantle the Histadrut economic enterprises clashed with the socialist republicanism of Ben-Gurion and his colleagues based on a strong workers’ Histadrut, which Ha’boker emphasized to its readers. The right wing and employers’ newspaper published an extensive account of Ben-Gurion’s vehement defense of the Histadrut and its social and national roles. Ha’boker generously quoted from Davar’s report of his speech at a Histadrut conference on February 17, 1956: Until the State’s establishment, the Histadrut was a professional organization, a cooperative association, a company aimed toward mutual social aid, and an educational institution, and its primary motivating ideology was striving for statehood. Ben-Gurion believed the Histadrut must now focus on ingathering theJewish masses into Israel, developing the periphery, and fortifying security. However, the State cannot achieve these objectives on its on—it requires a pioneering push, and the Histadrut must attract and absorb pioneering forces and prepare them to take active initiative (Ha’boker Feb. 24, 1956). Ha’boker therefore presented its readers with a precise account of socialist-republican ideology (left wing mamlachti’yut), in order to contrast it distinctly from its own liberal-republican ideology (right wing mamlachti’yut).

23  For an assessment of this critique of the governmental development policy and fostering of the Histadrut sector see Levi-Faur 2001; Kalman 2016.

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The Position of Herut

Herut, the second right wing party, reinstated as the largest political right party in summer elections of 1955,24 promoted an ideology that was fundamentally similar to the General Zionists’ liberal republicanism (mamlachti’yut). Headed by Menachem Begin, the party was committed to republican centralization for the purposes of national and economic development on a capitalist, middleclass basis. This was the essential socio-political position and class orientation of the revisionist movement that produced Herut,25 and was maintained by the party throughout the 1950s. Begin articulated it in a comprehensive ideological document published in 1952 (Begin 1952), and a distinct capitalist orientation characterized Herut’s election platforms alongside their promotion of social services (See, e.g., Herut July 6, 1951). This capitalist or right wing republicanism motivated Herut’s support of the strikers’ resistance to MAPAI government’s socialist republicanism, and their demands to set public sector wage gaps in their favor. Like the General Zionists, Herut weaved its support of the professional middle-class strike into a general attack on the Histadrut and MAPAI in its publication; the daily newspaper titled Herut. The party supported the strike despite its general support of compulsory arbitration in labor relations. At the Knesset discussion on the eve of the strike (Feb. 6, 1956), Knesset member Dr. Shimshon Yunichman of Herut demanded the government fulfill its promises to the strikers. Two weeks prior, he reasoned, the Israeli delegation in the ‘World Jewish Congress’ approached Diaspora Jewry with a request to send medical physicians, nurses, and engineers to Israel in light of the security emergency. They explained that if Israel were attacked by MiG and Ilyushin aircrafts, the amount of victims would be too great to provide sufficient and prompt medical care. The Herut representative therefore found it odd for the government to provoke a long strike among physicians and engineers at such a time. He claimed there was no correlation between physicians’ wage increase and monetary or economic stability, that This is strictly a matter of the Histadrut regime’s stability. This is why the ‘equality for all’ ethos, which has expired in every other regime, has ‘risen from the dead.’ The Histadrut has chosen our State to be the first and last egalitarian utopia. 24  Herut won 15 mandates during the 1955 elections (12.6%). 25  See for instance: Shavit 1978, particularly chapter 5, 152–201; Shoshani 2004, 93–119; Shoshani 2002, 75–97.

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Dr. Yunichman contended that physicians’ greatest mistake was believing they could ‘get along’ with the government, forgetting that the Histadrut effectively controls it. The physicians believed they could find resolution with Minister Zalman Aran and Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, but the true arbitrators were Histadrut Secretariat Mordechai Namir and Chairman of its Trade Unions Division Aharon Becker. It was due to the Histadrut’s pressure, claimed Yunichman, that the government was willing to endure the price of a strike, which can cost up to 3 million IL, all to avoid paying physicians one million IL and prevent it entirely (Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 6, 1956, vol. 29, 969–970; Herut Feb. 7, 1956a). In a Herut article, Eliezer Shostak, Secretary General of a small tradeassociation under Herut,26 claimed the white-collar workers’ strike was a responsible strike that does not target the public, but rather confronts the irresponsible authorities. He believed the strikers resorted to withholding public services after showing great patience, responsibility, and tolerance for the five years it took to assign a public committee to assess their wages and conditions. The committee named the minimal amount necessary for a compromise between the proponents and resistors of the wage gap, claimed the writer, which is how it reached its conclusions unanimously. “Hence, the authorities’ feelings of inferiority toward the educated, scholarly worker are so great, so deep,” wrote Shostak, “that they consider all means valid in the fight against him…. A new ‘class war’ is emerging from this dispute: the uneducated ruling class against the educated service class….” The authorities, he wrote, distinguished between two groups of executive workers in the public sector: those who earned their position via connection and loyalty to the authorities and chief government party; and those who acquired education over many years and were skilled in their public roles. The latter are granted no added rights or rightful benefits, and are labeled damaging and irresponsible for trying to claim them (Herut Feb. 7, 1956b). Herut’s editorial named the strike a rebellion against the MAPAI regime. The newspaper supported the white-collar workers’ demand for a fair pay-grade, as they were fulfilling the mitzvah ‘You shall meditate on it day and night’, expanding their knowledge constantly. The newspaper asserted that both orthodox and Marxist socialism, and not just the liberal faction, have abandoned the government’s wage alignment policy, which disregards expertise and academic degrees. According to Herut, ‘wage alignment’ forces educated workers to work overtime or take on part-time jobs that turn them into ‘robots’ whose 26  Histadrut Ha’ovdim Ha’leumit (National Workers’ Association).

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performance level pales significantly compared to their counterparts abroad. The strike therefore expresses a deep crisis of faith. The newspaper did not accept the government’s claim that policy was changed in light of the security crisis, and stated it should have found the necessary resources in the national budget to prevent 8,000 white-collar workers from striking. It therefore concluded the strike was not incited by authorities’ financial concerns, but rather their stubbornness and desire to “Force their will on a specific sector that dared protest the Histadrut’s oppressive rule.” Herut claimed MAPAI had formed a regime of safeguarded interests that drove coalition parties to abandon the general population’s best interest in order to advance that of a single sector, the Histadrut sector. Violating the promise to white-collar workers was done to uphold the government’s commitment to the Histadrut. This is why Herut saw the strike as a blanket rebellion against the State’s economic and social structure, represented by the Histadrut and the official reflection of its power—the government (Herut Feb. 8, 1956). In the following day’s editorial (February 9, 1956), Herut contested Davar newspaper, which accused the white-collar workers of borderline ‘treason’ and of turning their backs on the State and Histadrut. Davar claimed physicians were indignant that common workers would receive higher pay, and their desire to set wage gaps in their favor would once again be frustrated; thereby suggesting their strike targeted other workers, not the government. According to Davar, “The white-collar workers’ strike does not target the deceivers who deny their statements and promises [the people of MAPAI], but rather, the ‘hundreds of thousands of illiterates’, meaning, the common workers and the Histadrut.” This is how Herut presented Davar’s claim—and hurried to contradict it, as the ‘illiterate workers,’ i.e. oriental manual laborers, were an important targetpopulation for Herut, which competed with MAPAI and Achdut Ha’avoda for their support. The Histadrut, stated Herut newspaper, is the largest most affluent employer in the State and has no right to represent the workers or speak for them. MAPAI is attempting to mislead the working public and drive it into a civil war under the guise of a false and distorted pioneering (halutzi’yut) (Herut Feb. 9, 1956a; Herut Feb. 13, 1956). These statements implicitly reveal the same kind of discomfort the General Zionists expressed toward the strike’s class and ethnic orientation, a discomfort hidden between the lines of Yisrael Rokach’s article. Herut was even more sensitive to the possibility of being perceived as a proponent of veteran Ashkenazi middle-class professionals at the expense of the oriental immigrant workers. Another Herut article covering the strike that day was written by Avraham Axelrod, one of the founders and chiefs of the abovementioned small trade association included in Herut who later became deputy mayor of Jerusalem.

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He claimed that Israel was the only nation in the world where almost no wage distinction was set between the liberal and high-ranking professions and common, low-ranking professions. Even in Soviet Russia, leaders of the revolution understood wage-equality was unrealistic and adopted a pay-grade system so steep it formed a wealthy upper class, according to the writer. In Israel on the other hand, the workers’ parties and Histadrut leaders proudly announced only few years ago, that the Yemenite maintenance worker at Bank Ha’poalim receives twice the Bank manager’s pay thanks to his numerous children, wrote Axelrod. It therefore seems that even leaders of Herut’s trade association like Shostak and Axelrod, who were meant to represent the party’s populist streak and promote ‘social justice’, were supportive of strikers’ demands for wage gaps and social superiority over the oriental manual laborers. The matter at hand is a test case. It confirms that Herut as a whole was characterized by liberalrepublicanism, which prompted its support of deepening social stratification via significant wage gaps, far greater than those MAPAI was willing to accept. When it came to this issue, there was no distinction between Herut’s position and that of the General Zionists. As we will soon see, this was also true with regrads to Herut’s leader Menachem Begin. Axelrod claimed the Histadrut purposely pushed the working intelligentsia to strike in order to rouse the public’s distaste for it when they found closed clinics and hospitals. According to Axelrod’s interpretation, the government used an intentionally rigid wage policy to guarantee the Histadrut’s dominance over workers’ associations. In fact, the strike reflected a struggle between the Histadrut and the independent Israeli Medical Association (IMA), he wrote. The IMA insisted on its independence while the Histadrut tried to subsume it like the other independent professional associations. Until recently, wrote Axelrod, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion tried to disqualify the IMA from representing its members, claiming it was an academic association rather than a professional one. The writer, one of the leaders of the competing Herut organization, claimed the Histadrut’s true intention was to push against the strikers, encourage strikebreakers, and systematically attack physicians with a horrifying propaganda campaign in the ‘workers’ press.’ He therefore contended, “It is time the intelligentsia shakes free of its dishonest, disloyal ‘guardians,’ who have had a substantial role in forming the regime that has brought it to its knees” (Heurt Feb. 9, 1956b). This statement exposes the electoral hope the strike ignited among right wing factions, and reveals that a significant portion of strikers supported the authorities and rebelled against them from ‘within’. Axelrod hoped the class division that had erupted would remove the working intelligentsia from the Labor Movement’s files.

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“The Fear of MAPAI Party Bosses has Dissipated”

Herut leader Menachem Begin revealed his opinion of the strike’s political significance in an article published at its outset under the title ‘Rule over Substance and Spirit’. Begin believed the strike attested to the regime’s decline and loss of prestige: “A few years ago this would only be possible in the imaginings of some Jules Verne,” and now, the authorities find themselves threatening devotees and even defaming them, but are still unable to prevent the strike. He believed the Progressives, long time MAPAI allies (since Weizmann days), were now labeled a “party of saboteurs” due to their support of higher wages for white-collar workers. He observed that the strike indicated developing opposition among MAPAI-affiliated factions, opposition with ideological and class-related characteristics akin to those of Herut. This was a true, insightful observation. Begin did not forgo mocking his longtime rivals, the Weizmann-advocating Progressives. Those who resisted what they termed Jabotinsky-esque extremism were being accused of right wing, extremist social tendencies. He also pointed his arrow at MAPAI, which had now supposedly discovered the ‘treachery’ of its allies. Begin’s derision of the Progressives, however, does not conceal the ideological common ground he shared with the party, revealed over the course of the strike. “‘Egalitarianism’ is not ‘equality,’” determined Begin: “… a person who studies to earn their profession, sometimes in poverty and suffering, for five years …” should not receive a wage similar to those who train for a year. He believed the lack of pay-grades was unjust—not the wage gaps. In a manner reminiscent of his mentor Jabotinsky’s critique of Socialism (Shoshani 2002, 75–97; Shoshani 2004), Begin attributed this injustice to an envy that “lowers human beings.” Government funding must therefore be found to allocate white-collar workers their promised wages. Contrasting their needs with those of the absorption camps’ struggling population was sheer hypocrisy he believed, as authorities were the ones responsible for their meager wages. Begin wished to balance his support of wage gaps, however, as it placed him in an uncomfortable political position and contradicted his social justice platform. Therefore, alongside his support of wage gaps, Begin pointed to the poor condition of immigrants in absorption camps—to whom his party appealed on election-day. Additionally, he pointed to the wealth of the Histadrut, which enables it to purchase factories from their private owners, as well as its inability to truly represent workers. The foundation of the MAPAI regime’s social ideology was expressed in its selective benefits allocation, which is why it was bound to lose its “rule of the spirit,” implied by its inability to prevent the white-collar workers’ strike. “The fear of MAPAI party bosses has dissipated,”

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declared Begin. These circumstances were actually the result of a growing and intensifying “rule of substance,” he wrote, meaning, they were occurring just as the Histadrut’s financial expansion grew to the point of “commercial socialism.” The white-collar workers’ strike is therefore a “splendid sight” that demonstrates the power of the people’s spirit and its ability to overcome injustice. As opposed to the Marxist notions of the Histadrut, “The human mind shapes existence no less, and perhaps even more, than existence shapes the human mind. And while it may not be so among the goyim, it is so in Israel” (Herut Feb. 10, 1956b). He therefore used social rhetoric against the Histadrut in order to ease the contradiction between his support of social stratification and political appeal to oriental voters.

The Polemic between MAPAI and the Strikers

The other side of the dispute, i.e. MAPAI factions and especially the more leftwing division of the ruling party, saw clearly the right-wing socio-economic agenda behind the white-collar workers and executives’ strike as well. They responded with a counter class polemic. An article published in the Histadrut’s Davar vehemently attacked the physicians’ association (IMA) that initiated and coordinated the strike. The article’s writer (penname: ‘Hai’) claimed the IMA’s rigid approach, which rejects any government or Histadrut compromise, has led other groups of white-collar workers to confront the government and join the strike. IMA organizes independent and salaried physicians and is responsible for salaried physicians’ wage policy. In a way, noted the writer, there is shared interest between salaried and independent physicians, as the higher salaried physicians’ wage, the more independent physicians can charge. On the other hand, there is tension between them, as many salaried physicians work independently as well and pose competition. Furthermore, the independent physicians see the Histadrut’s Kupat Holim as a competing entity that pulls away potential clients and possibly reduces profit. This is why the independent physicians, wrote the Davar reporter, a significant group within the IMA, routinely denounce the Histadrut’a Kupat Holim and criticize the quality of its physicians and services. These interests shape the IMA’s social orientation, he asserted, regardless of who’s at its helm, as physicians tend toward the political right anyhow, and are bound to continuously resist the Histadrut’s policy: “The foremost danger of IMA guardianship over all salaried physicians is not only its occasional altercations with the Histadrut. The danger is that by organizing both salaried and independent employees, by blurring its political nature and reasserting it

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in large public disputes, the IMA blurs salaried physicians’ social orientation and inhibits their solidarity with other working sectors” (Davar Feb. 15, 1956c). This unique conjoining of independent and salaried physicians led the IMA to make wage demands based on a wage gap ideology never before seen in Israel according to Davar. The physicians’ association did not merely demand a wage increase to uphold a standard of living appropriate to their effort and commitment. The physicians demanded a new wage system that would create a significant, distinct gap between the physician and the common worker: Not five hundred, nor six or seven hundred liras will satisfy the physician, but three or four or five times the worker’s wage—total. This is the demand. The gap is the result of a reactionary worldview that seeks to distinguish between workers and form social classes divided by a clear social partition. This point of view was akin to the Progressive Party’s Gershom Schocken owner of Ha’aretz, whose agenda according to the Davar writer was “To cleave between the intelligentsia and the other workers” (Davar Feb. 15, 1956c). The government’s approach to the wage issue in the present strike was not a delimited power struggle according to Davar’s writer, but represented MAPAI and the Histadrut’s official wage policy, and was a comprehensive class struggle. Thus, both sides of the public polemic surrounding the strike agreed this was a class struggle, centered on the Histadrut’s status and its ability to defend manual laborers in the public sector wage dispute. The Histadrut leaders are conducting a revolution orchestrated from above, wrote Dr. Carl Meir from Haifa in the Michtav Le’chaver [‘letters to members’] periodical published by the IMA (no. 366): “A multidimensional attempt has been made to transfer State and private property to the Histadrut and its institutions. Decisions within this small faction can be made without the public criticism of the Knesset or Ha’aretz. Both MAPAM and Achdut Ha’avoda yearn for this, both agree on the final objective, and no true or significant disagreement is predicted to occur between them that is not illusory. They use the emergency jargon and pave the way for limiting individual freedom. By enforcing exit permits and added taxes, they target independent workers and those who are mostly un-reliant on the Histadrut” (Davar Feb. 15, 1956c). Dr. Carl Meir’s words were also published as a letter to the editor in Ha’aretz one week before the strike. They included a personal, vehement attack on Prime Minister Ben-Gurion. Meir declared that Ben-Gurion was preparing for a “revolution in our national and economic development,” a revolution from above against the white-collar workers’ “remaining individual and economic

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freedom,” aiming to subjugate them to the Histadrut (Ha’aretz Jan. 29, 1956b). These statements were identical in tone and content to the General Zionists and Herut’s attack on socialist republicanism. The strike’s class context was also reflected in the words of its leaders. At a Jerusalem press conference, IMA Secretary General Dr. Druyan claimed the strike was a “rare historical occasion” and an “unprecedented sociological experience.” He denied the claim that the IMA is a “pawn of the right wing parties,” and asserted that it was not physicians who sought to break-down the Histadrut, but the opposite. “For years, the Histadrut has tried to breakdown the IMA in every possible way, like establishing a Histadrut physicians’ association that numbers only a few physicians.” The strikers’ Coordination Committee vehemently criticized the Histadrut, and claimed its leadership will eventually suffer from having “incited the workers against the intelligentsia” (Ha’aretz Feb. 9, 1956b).

“You cannot Overthrow It!”

Throughout the strike, MAPAI ministers and especially Prime Minister BenGurion defended the Histadrut against strikers’ attacks or those of Ha’aretz newspaper. An example of such attack was a Ha’aretz editorial stating that the Histadrut was jeopardizing national security and sabotaging resolution of the public sector dispute, by demanding that regular workers receive the same wage increase as white-collar strikers (Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 13, 1956, vol. 20, 1,029; Ha’aretz Feb. 14, 1956c; Ha’aretz Feb. 14, 1956d). “I regret that even my friend, Knesset member Pinchas Rosen, has joined in and discussed restraining workers’ demands,” said Ben-Gurion during a Knesset discussion on February 13, 1956 regarding the no-confidence motions submitted during the strike. He proclaimed, “As a Jew I am proud to have such a workers’ union in the country, that more than any other entity—and I am not diminishing the others’ rights—has ensured our independence, and since independence was achieved, has helped the state most” (Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 13, 1956, vol. 20, 1029; Ha’aretz Feb. 14, 1956e). He claimed the Guri recommendations were not immediately dismissed because the scope of danger posed by the Soviet-Egyptian arms deal was not yet known. It was now doubtless that “The entire nation, including the Diaspora, is facing a degree of danger it did not know even in 1947” (Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 13, 1956, 1030). The government had to utilize all of its resources including the funds approved for wage increases. He did not deny white-collar and executives workers’ fundamental right to fair wages that exceed those of

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common workers, as he was against “mechanical egalitarianism,” but claimed allocating the full wages now would risk national security. This was stated during a Knesset discussion regarding a no-confidence motion submitted against the government, which was eventually outvoted with 58 coalition votes versus 29 from the General Zionists, Herut, and Maki, who had submitted the motion (Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 13, 1956, vol. 20, 1031). Ben-Gurion’s address presented the three basic principles of his government’s wage policy: A basic, reasonable standard of living for every worker; scaled pay suited to workers with highranking professions and responsibility, i.e. senior executives; and a balanced budget (Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 13, 1956, 1029). The only promise made to white-collar workers during the speech was that the wage increase would be allocated “… in two to three years—I cannot say precisely at this time.” Ben-Gurion added that this “… largely depends on what transpires during the year—the government will ensure the delayed wage increase will be allocated, this is no disaster (Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 13, 1956, 1031; Ha’aretz Feb. 14, 1956e).” In retort to the opposition’s criticism of the Histadrut in the Knesset, BenGurion announced his full support of the Histadrut and with his voice rising, said, “You cannot overthrow it. We already heard the words [of Jabotinsky]: ‘we will break it down’ many years ago” (Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 13, 1956, 1029; Ha’aretz Feb. 14, 1956e). The white-collar workers’ crisis revealed an excessive kinship between Ben-Gurion and leaders of the Histadrut’s trade unions. During the February 13, 1956 discussion, Yisrael Rokach explained the General Zionists’ no-confidence motion. He claimed the government has repeatedly adopted the Histadrut’s initiatives and has not deviated from them, thereby engaging in political party tactics instead of taking a broad approach (he used the term mamlachti, i.e. republican) to the white-collar workers’ dispute. He refuted the claim that the wage-increase will cause inflation, and asserted that only an overall wage-increase could do so. Strictly increasing white-collar workers’ pay would only cost several million liras—which would not significantly impact the military-emergency budget (Divrei Ha’knesset Feb. 13, 1956, vol. 20, 1026 Ha’aretz Feb. 14, 1956e). Even prior to rejecting the noconfidence motion, the coalition majority under MAPAI rejected the Herut and General Zionists representatives’ demand to hold a Knesset Finance Committee discussion with strikers’ representatives. The Progressive Party abstained from voting on the no-confidence motion, and explained that despite its withdrawal from the government, it did not seek its downfall but merely wished to resist its wage policy (Ha’aretz Feb. 14, 1956b). Pinchas Sapir, Minister of Trade and Industry, participated in the polemic in favor of the Histadrut. At the height of the strike, during an assembly held

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Saturday evening at the “Ohel” (‘tent’) hall in Tel-Aviv, Minister Sapir noted that the physicians and engineers’ strike is winning the support of MAPAI’s right wing opponents Herut and the General Zionists. He claimed the strike had two primary objectives: The first, to break down the Histadrut as the workers’ umbrella organization; and the second, to undermine the government and the nation. He explained that the State’s deficit had already grown from 240 to 290 million dollars, and that wage increases would deepen it further. Pinchas Sapir vehemently refuted accusations of the government’s insincerity for not rejecting the Guri Committee conclusions prior to the July 26, 1955 elections. Sapir stated that it was only after an American delegation representative in Egypt reported to Israel on the scope of the arms deal, which had grown to 200 million dollars instead of the predicted 50 million, that the sense of threat sank-in among security bodies. “The engineers should have been working on shelter blueprints,” he said, “but instead they wished to stop even the electricity production that turns the wheels of the military industry” (Ha’aretz Feb. 21, 1956b). At the same assembly Knesset member Moshe Erem, a member of the Achdut Ha’avoda party, claimed the strike will be considered one of a kind among Israel’s strikes. He ponited to the fact that it is supported by the entire middle-class camp—the General Zionists, Herut, and the Progressives—and that the right wing’s true demand is to freeze common workers’ wages. This middle-class strike was aimed to destroy the working class and Histadrut’s achievements, claimed Erem, and concluded with the following: “The gap will not be instated, as it does not concern expertise, but is rather a first attempt to separate from the class,” meaning, to separate educated workers from the working class (Ha’aretz Feb. 21, 1956b).

The End of the Strike

The Histadrut and government’s success was in their ability to work in tandem and limit the strike’s expansion into other groups that included white-collar workers, a dissemination that would potentially paralyze the economy. This allowed them to isolate the strikers from the general public, and point to the strike’s partiality in representing a relatively small and limited sector that the other workers’ associations were averse to joining. High school and vocational high school teachers conducted a solidarity strike and only 12th grade classes were held as usual. The Teachers’ Association, however, denounced the strike and expressed trepidations regarding its unity in light of high-school teachers’ divergent activity. The high school and vocational high school teachers’ strike

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was only partial, however, as religious teachers refused to participate (Ha’aretz Feb. 19, 1956b). As aforementioned, the executive workers first announced they would join the strike on February 15, but decided to forgo striking that night, as there was not much difference between its demands and the government’s proposal. The government claimed it was willing to approve loans for executive workers over the course of 1957 for up to one third of the 40% that was frozen for the year. The remaining two-thirds would be allocated in 1958. The association continued negotiating with the State Services Commission, demanding that half of the loans be allocated in 1957 and half in 1958 (Davar Feb. 15, 1956d). Another tactical move of the Histadrut was to try to drive a wedge between the independent physicians and the physicians who were Histadrut members and employees of its health services (Kupat Holim). At a national convention on February 14, members of the Kupat Holim Physicians Association decided that if the IMA does not stop the strike by February 16, they would resume work as usual. Prior to the convention, 150 Kupat Holim physicians signed a petition declaring their wish to resume work immediately. There was tension surrounding the convention, due to two Kupat Holim physicians who professed support of the strike. Most of the other speeches, however, claimed the Kupat Holim Physicians Association was to blame for the present chaos, as it gave the IMA its support, thereby needlessly risking human lives (Davar Feb. 15, 1956e). The IMA responded to the convention by stating that its decisions were not binding, as only 70 out of 1,700 Histadrut physicians were present, and of the 70 only 20 voted in favor of stopping the strike. The IMA also publicized a stern warning for those considering strikebreaking and threatened to expel them (Ha’aretz Feb. 15, 1956). Every morning, Davar newspaper repeatedly announced that the “whitecollar workers’ strike is dissolving” while seeking to label the strikers, and the IMA in particular, as an extreme faction resistant to any compromise or negotiation. This, it stated, exposed their true intention: a political strike, unrelated to wage gaps. The government on the other hand, was portrayed as a pragmatic body that does not fortify itself with an inflexible stance, and has been willing to conduct ongoing communication with strikers. Davar claimed the IMA was controlled by “extreme right wing factions” seeking to drive matters to a deadend (Davar Feb. 10, 1956). The effort to limit and disband the strike from within involved the extensive activity of the government, MAPAI, and Histadrut chiefs, who held nationwide conventions to announce their stance in an attempt to dissolve the white-collar workers’ united front. They held, for example, a national convention of engineers, architects, agronomists, and chemists at the Histadrut headquarters. Minister of Trade and Industry Pinchas Sapir (of MAPAI), Minister of

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Transportation Moshe Carmel (of Achdut Ha’avoda), and head of the Histadrut’s Trade Unions Division Aharon Becker (of MAPAI) all participated (Davar Feb. 16, 1956a). The public relations campaign against the strike included paid announcements in Davar by the Engineers’ Association, calling engineers to resume their work immediately while portraying strike leaders as rigid and uncompromising: “You have publicly announced that the recent proposal for wage difference allocation is a sufficient reason to end the strike. Why then will you not end it? The vast majority of engineers, who continue to work, look with sorrow and bitterness upon the dissolution of solidarity and the organization’s [Histadrut] reins, which you continue to promote without purpose or justification. The executives have withdrawn from this miserable strike. What is the purpose of dragging behind the political ambitions of the IMA! End the strike! Resume your work!” (Davar Feb. 16, 1956b). Simultaneously, announcements were made that “strikers’ headquarters” reports on the scope of the strike were baseless. The claim that only five engineers in Tel-Aviv’s Public Works Department did not join the strike, stated one report, was a deceptive claim that misleads the public and creates the impression that only few heed the government, Histadrut, and Engineers’ Association. The counter-report claimed that in effect, 28 engineers continued working as usual, and listed 30 strikebreaking engineers (Davar Feb. 17, 1956a). One of the ‘divide and conquer’ attempts entailed a meeting between Finance Minister Levi Eshkol and university professors’ representatives. During the meeting, Eshkol claimed the government was determined to assign the higher-education instructors—the Hebrew University, Technion, and Weizmann Institute professors—a unique, independent status. This would entitle them to a wage-increase and illustrate the government’s reverence for their institutions. The Finance Minister met with the academics’ representatives on two occasions, and told them steps to enforce this policy could only be taken once ‘the storm passes’ and the strike is put to an end.27 Another effort to pull academics from the strike came from Yaacov Dori, an ally of Prime Minister Ben-Gurion and Head Director of the Technion.28 Dori, the IDF’s first Commander-in-Chief, worked to settle the dispute between the academic faculty and the government since the strike’s inception. He proposed to the government that the Technion would pay its faculty according to the

27  See Eshkol’s report at government meeting: SA Feb. 12, 1956, and Ha’aretz Feb. 17, 1956c. 28  Retired Lieutenant General Yaacov Dori was instated as Head Director of the Technion following Shlomo Kaplansky in 1951.

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pay scale agreed upon with the Hebrew University professors on December 1955 as of July 1 that very year. The Technion was even willing to source the additional funds from Technion supporters in Israel and abroad without the government’s contribution. Its administrative committee approved this plan and Dori’s impression was that several ministers with whom he spoke supported it. The radio even announced, to the shock of the Technion’s faculty, that due to independent negotiations there is no longer a strike at their institution. It was not until midnight that the announcement was declared premature, and Dori’s suggestions reported to have been rejected by the government (Ha’aretz Feb. 15, 1956). The government and the Histadrut in particular, showed superior organizational capacity in their accurate tracing of striker numbers, engineeremploying factories, the relations between workers and strikers, etc. On February 15, 1955, the Histadrut held a press conference and announced that 1,300–1,400 engineers and architects are carrying on with their work while less than 1,200 are striking. In 21 organizations employing a total of 746 engineers, 437 are currently working. Of 24 organizations in Jerusalem who employ a total of 436 engineers, 120 are currently working. There are 800 engineers employed in Haifa and the northern region but 250–300 are striking. In Tel-Aviv and the center, 1,500 engineers are employed and 800 are working. In the southern region including Be’er Sheva and the Negev 70 are working, and only six are striking. The Histadrut speakers therefore claimed that over half of the engineers were not involved in the strike (Davar Feb. 17, 1956b). At an assembly in Tel-Aviv’s ‘Mugrabi’ hall numbering 600 strikers, speakers focused on the government’s one-sided violation of the wage agreement. However, the continuous pressure on strikers began to show, and the Tel-Aviv district attorney Y. Bar-Or claimed strikers were willing to cooperate with any reasonable compromise. At his party’s public assembly the justice minister prior to the strike, the Progressives’ leader Pinchas Rosen, announced that State-employed workers’ salaries, his included, were not enough to live on. He did caution against intensifying the strike, however, stating efforts should be made to end it. The Progressive Party’s Secretary General M. Goldstein on the other hand, claimed the white-collar workers’ strike signifies the decline of a system that only allows Histadrut-approved strikes (Ha’aretz Feb. 19, 1956a). After the executives’ withdrawal from the strikers’ Coordination Committee, strikers began seeking to end the labor dispute. Their committee submitted written requests to the government, later printed in the press, agreeing that the designated portion of the wage-increase promised in September 1955 would not be allocated in 1956 but rather throughout 1957. Alternatively, they were willing to designate a quarter of the disputed wage increase projected

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for 1956 to the ‘Magen Fund’ established in response to Egypt’s military reinforcement.29 The undersigned on the press announcement—attorney M. Glass, Dr. R. Garjebin, Dr. A. Druyan, Ing. G. Kaplan, and Prof. A Theodor— still demanded that the wage-differences owed to white-collar workers will be allocated during the second half of 1955. They also demanded that the paygrades approved in the government that year be ratified (Ha’aretz Feb. 17, 1956d). Following the strikers’ proposal, negotiations were held between representatives of physicians, university faculty, engineers, jurists, and financiers, with Finance Minister Levi Eshkol, Health Minister Yisrael Barzilai (MAPAM), and Interior Minister Moshe Shapira Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi, along with Histadrut representatives General Secretary Mordechai Namir, and Chairman of the Trade Unions Division Aharon Becker.30 The main dispute revolved around the scope of pay reduction and the date of compensation (Ha’aretz Feb. 19, 1956a). During negotiations, meetings were held between Chairman of the IMA Dr. Zalman Avigdori and the Prime Minister, and between the Prime Minister, Finance Minister, Prof. Yoel Racah, and Prof. Nathan Rotenstreich of the Hebrew University (Ha’boker Feb. 21, 1956b). At 2 AM on February 20, 1956, the Prime Minister, Histadrut, and strikers finalized an agreement that ended the strike. The white-collar workers agreed to a 1/3 reduction from their 1956 pay increase, 6% less than the reduction agreed upon in the government. 13% of reductions would be allocated in the beginning of 1957, and the remaining 20% in 1958.31 Following the agreement, the Progressive Party rejoined the coalition (SA Feb. 22, 1956; Ha’boker Feb. 21, 1956b; Ha’aretz Feb. 23, 1956).

29  On the decision to establish the fund, see government meeting: SA Feb. 15, 1956. 30  See Eshkol’s report of the negotiations at the government meeting: SA Feb. 6, 1956. 31  See the discussion and conclusions during government meeting: SA Feb. 19, 1956, and preemptive discussion in the government: SA Feb. 12, 1956. Ha’aretz Feb. 20, 1956; Ha’aretz Feb. 22, 1956. Compare to: Ha’boker Feb. 20, 1956; Ha’boker Feb. 21, 1956b. Hence, a hospital director, for instance, who earned 228 IL and whose basic wage would increase to 490 IL according to the government’s previous commitments, would only earn 402 IL in 1956 according to the new agreement, allocated 421 IL in four payments as of 1957, and 629 IL in six payments during 1958. A first-rate engineer whose wage should have increased from 213 IL to 415 IL, will earn 348 IL in 1956 and receive 325 IL in four payment during 1957, and 485 IL in six payments during 1958. The government did not accede to white-collar workers’ request to make payments tax exempt (Ha’aretz Feb. 21, 1956a).

Summary and Conclusion The general objective of this study was to analyze the social, economic, and political tendencies of what can be described as a type of ‘moral persistence’ that enabled a newly sovereign Israeli society to address its monumental challenges. Israel underwent acute shifts during the years in question—a difficult war, mass immigration waves, deep social, cultural, and ethnic gaps, and an economic crisis that brought the new, fragile society to the brink of collapse. All this not long after the Holocaust. Our aim was to add a new dimension to analyses of why this ‘collapse’ never did transpire, and point to some of the shared moral frameworks and beliefs that fostered integration between diverse demographic groups in Israel. The process of this integration was by no means egalitarian. It was, however, the product of deliberate, persistent efforts by strongly influential political bodies to inhibit extreme inequality from developing in the highly significant domain of labor market wages. Our case study reveals that at the dawn of statehood, a leading group within the dominant, Ashkenazi political elite worked to restrict intensifying inequality within the heterogenic Israeli society shaped by the unparalleled historical circumstances of the 1950s. Our study uncovers MAPAI’s struggle against figures and bodies that advanced rapid wage-gap expansion—bodies to the right and to our surprise, the left of MAPAI, including Herut and the General Zionists on one side and MAPAM and MAKI on the other. It allows us to illuminate patterns of sociopolitical operation and development that merged nationalism and socialism in 1950s Israel. Contrary to assertions that Israeli nationalism and socialism contradict one another both pragmatically and theoretically (Sternhell 1995), the events addressed in this book reflect an essential fuse between them, on both levels. This fusion occurred within the framework of socialist republicanism, which at the time primarily heralded socio-economic integration. Our central assertion is that the ‘absorbing’ Israeli society was neither homogenous nor static, but rather comprised of diverse socio-political approaches and visions. Some of these were at odds and endured dynamic struggles and confrontations—much like those addressed in this book—which did not produce uniform results. The encounter between the Eastern and Central European veterans and new immigrants from Muslim countries occurred in the context of unequal, asymmetrical relations that fostered a ‘patronizing rule’ among the veterans. This patronizing propensity was characteristic of nearly all Ashkenazi circles at the time, both in government and in the opposition, but in the current context, this factor is nothing more than a point of departure for furthering necessary historical analysis. In fact, dwelling on this

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aspect would mask the range of possibilities made available by the political reality in question. Our study presents a central perspective in the resource distribution domain, namely the wage domain, which enables us to see that in the 1950s, Israel’s political elite underwent internal confrontation between two contrasting approaches, both of which had a ‘patronizing’ orientation. The first was socialist republicanism, whose adherents sought to control oriental immigrants, but also to protect them from the severe inter-generational implications of their low socio-economic status. They strove to enlist them in establishing a growing Israeli workforce under the Histadrut, in which a ‘working intelligentsia’ and a proletariat of manual laborers coexisted without significant wage gaps between them. On the other hand was liberal republicanism, focused on the academic middle class as distinct from the working class and as a holder of substantial material superiority over them. It advocated an enlightened form of meritocracy that answers to the interests of this middle class and fulfills its vision of a modern, developed society under its leadership. The ethnic significance of this confrontation was clear: integration of the oriental proletariat on the one hand and the separatism of the Ashkenazi middle class and reinforcement of its superiority on the other. In 1950s Israel, the option of restricting the political rights of new immigrants, even for limited time, was never seriously considered. The General Zionists, for instance, made an unsuccessful proposal to limit local council voting for transit camp residents. While these types of restrictions were customary in immigrant countries, they had no place in Israel at the time, as they fundamentally contradicted the socialist republicanism that characterized the political regime. Ben-Gurion-led MAPAI was highly dedicated to socio-national cohesion, a concept given the festively poetic title of ‘Mizug Ha’galu’yot.’ The pragmatic-prosaic significance of this principle was to seek out practical ways to protect the oriental immigrants in return for their ongoing support of MAPAI and the Histadrut under its control. Herein lies the gravity of the wage system in general, and wage gaps in particular. Every immigrant understood the significance of wages in determining their economic positioning and ability to integrate into the new society. As we previously indicated, this issue was extensively discussed in the mainstream press of the time, but wages and relative status in the labor market are issues that even recent immigrants in a new country become quickly aware of by default. Like in many immigrant countries, nearly all new immigrants became a source of cheap labor during their first years in the country. However, the combination of drastically narrowed wage gaps and strict oversight of the labor market, a social services system (though quite basic, mainly in the health and education domains), and a macro-economic policy of full employment

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enabled by accelerated development—these factors jointly prevented the perpetuation of cheap human resources via the new immigrant population. Giora Hanoch has noted the development of economic inequality in Israel, claiming that the distinction between the affluent Ashkenazi strata and the poor oriental strata was informed by seniority and ethnic identity. Thus, a correlation was struck between belonging to a certain ethnic or immigrant community and low financial compensation. The reinforcement of this status-quo bred deeprooted sentiments of discrimination and inferiority, cultivated socio-cultural divisiveness and tension, and could have led to the alienation and separatism of the oriental immigrants from the cultural and political system (Hanoch 1961, 95). Our study therefore presents an exegesis of historical resources indicating some of the reasons why this alienation never did come to fruition, despite strong feelings of discrimination and inferiority. It also presents insights into what enabled immigrants from Muslim countries to gradually transcend their inferiority over the next several decades. MAPAI may have been patronizing in its approach to oriental immigrants, but this patronization had two aspects: political control on the one hand, and socio-economic protection on the other. The flexibility of the political system established around MAPAI from the 1930s onward, and its capacity to adapt, were among the strengths of yishuv society and later Israeli society. Our study opens a channel into understanding one factor that enabled this flexibility: the relative independence of the government in addressing social-class structures. This investigation was prompted by the assumption that it is valuable to regard the government as a relatively autonomous entity, whose policy is not the mere product of socio-economic incentives. Admittedly, MAPAI was politically affiliated with Ashkenazi veteran immigrants and the academic middle-class wielded indisputable influence within it. However, in our direct context, the abovementioned assumption means that the Party’s wage policy was nonetheless cognizant of broader socio-national considerations, combined with its own electoral interests. Indeed, our findings reflect the incredible role of the political system in immigration absorption, and especially the government and Histadrut’s part in protecting a progressively oriental proletariat of manual laborers from powerful interest groups. Their role in the distribution of other economic and social resources, however, was not examined in this work. However, the political system was composed of a broad array of additional players that influenced its development—other coalition parties, opposition parties, trade associations, the Histadrut, and different forms of press. Our study unveils the gap between the overt, unmasked positions of various political parties, particularly Herut, the General Zionists, and MAPAM, and their true socio-economic agendas. In this regard, the wage-gap issue is a type of litmus

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test for deciphering class-orientation. It reveals essential kinship between known adversaries such as MAPAM and the General Zionists or Herut and longtime Weitzmann supporters in the Progressive Party. MAPAM, Ha’kibbutz Ha’artzi party, was supportive of wage-gaps. This is made evident in the statements of Mordechai Bentov and Yisrael Barzilai during government debates— despite attempts to conceal this position by leaders such as Ya’akov Hazan or MAPAM members in the Histadrut. This position can perhaps be viewed as more than an early sign of bourgeoisification in a significant group of Ashkenazi elite and the Kibbutz movement as a whole at the dawn of statehood. It is possible that MAPAM’s approach signified a broader political agenda that surfaced later and even swept-up MAPAI, Achdut Ha’avoda, and eventually the labor party—converting them into the political bastions of the Israeli middle class. The perspective we offer reveals that MAPAM was not the ‘keeper of the seal’ of a lost or fictitious pre-state socialism as its adherents might claim, but rather foreshadowed the entire labor movement’s shift to the right in terms of social and class orientation. MAPAI and Achdut Ha’avoda on the other hand, seem to have undergone what was perhaps among the final stages of their affiliation as labor parties; i.e. workingclass representatives in the sphere of resource allocation, and in turn, subjects of its electoral support. MAPAI’s ongoing and intermittently successful effort to mitigate wage-gaps between the largely Ashkenazi academic middle-class and the progressively oriental proletariat was an important tactic in enlisting the latter’s support of the ruling party. The wage-gap restriction can be seen as a kind of ‘bait’ for the immigrants’ electoral loyalty. However, this restriction also drew MAPAI into an intensive socio-political confrontation with incredibly powerful groups that were able to paralyze the economy in central domains or tamper with government stability. MAPAI was willing to jeopardize itself by engaging this confrontation on the eve of Knesset elections in 1955—after its electoral decline among veteran Ashkenazi voters in the local elections of 1950 and Knesset elections of 1951. Later, after the 1955 elections, it was determined to withdraw promises made to the academic professionals and jeopardize the new government parallel to intensifying threat of war with Egypt in early 1956. These choices suggest not only electoral tactics, but also a fundamental social-democratic strategy designed to cultivate minimal social cohesion even at the cost of fierce confrontation with the academic middle-class, which had quickly evolved into an effective pressure group. Indeed, in the words of Moshe Lissak and Dan Horowitz, the political system became saturated with simplistic and emotionally charged content focused on David Ben-Gurion’s charismatic personality or that of Menachem

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Begin. Contrary to their statements, however, our assertion is that methods of political campaigning did not end there, and also employed ethical reasoning and attempts to develop a common social ethos. An ongoing struggle for wage-gap restriction was not an ideological compromise for MAPAI. It would be inaccurate to describe the influx of oriental immigrants into the political system as an expression of, “a tendency to slacken ideological affinity among the party elites” (Horowitz and Lissak 1977, 298). In fact, the relative protection oriental immigrants were offered by MAPAI during these years, enabled their socio-economic integration by maintaining narrow gaps, while simultaneously reinforcing the status of MAPAI’s political elite. This study illuminates the causal root of many oriental immigrants’ tendency to reject the old and new ethnic electoral lists and the General Zionists and Herut. It contributes to understanding why so many immigrants from Muslim countries were willing to adopt MAPAI’s social orientation, which was anchored in integrative political frameworks and universalist platforms. The wage policy of early Israeli government defended the oriental immigrants’ relative status in the labor market. The development-oriented, full-employment economy was vitally in their best interest. These are inevitably core factors behind the oriental immigrants’ electoral support of MAPAI. However, the current research reveals that MAPAI did not implement its protective wage policy merely to gain electoral support. Alongside its strong electoral motive, relevant documentation clearly depicts MAPAI’s unequivocal strive to mitigate inequality as part of the national and social ideology characteristic of the socialist republicanism it represented. One of the assertions among economists who have analyzed early Israeli statehood is that, “the absorption of an unskilled work force increases the value and wages of the more skilled workforce” (See, e.g., Kleiman 1968). MAPAI members understood this process and attempted to stop or at least monitor it, and to ensure that wage-gaps were as narrow as possible. It was clear that the new circumstances of the 1950s were conducive to the veterans’ climb toward higher rungs of the socio-cultural hierarchy. The status-quo encouraged an income distinction between the new immigrants and the veterans. However, our research indicates that MAPAI employed great effort, even after the austerity period, to control wage-gaps and thereby open a valuable ‘window of opportunity’ for oriental immigrants. It enabled them to integrate under more comfortable conditions than a segmented labor market with wage gaps three or four times as expansive, as the academic middle class demanded. Surely, significant wage-gaps did eventually form in the first decades of statehood. However, what we investigate is whether or not this process was fluent and free of conflict. As we have shown, MAPAI government led fervent

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efforts to narrow gaps, which it managed to do in the mid-1950s and early 1960s to a degree unparalleled in the democratic world, and certainly in the communist or developing world. Moreover, the government continued working to narrow gaps even when appointed public committees acknowledged the already significant erosion of academic middle-class wages. The government may have been only one significant force shaping the wage-system, but our research is a clear indication of its status in the 1950s relative to that of different powers in the civic and political spheres. During the 1950s, hundreds of immigrants endured extremely challenging circumstances, characterized by transience and disconnection from veteran Israeli society and its culture: “They lived in ecological and socio-cultural enclaves that shared limited points of contact with the veteran population, most of which were facilitated by bodies tasked with immigration absorption” (Lissak 1999, 134). As these circumstances threatened to breed permanent, inter-generational chasms between the different groups, central MAPAI circles led processes aimed to prevent precisely this type of inter-generational disposition. At the time, however, MAPAI was not a single homogenous unit and contained a diversity of voices. Some were unequivocally supportive of significant wage-gap expansion between the academic professional groups and the proletariat and lower-ranking clerks. Such expansion would create an economic borderline, and furthermore, a cultural and social borderline that would inhibit integration. This study offers a perspective outside of development towns, immigrant settlements, or the impoverished neighborhoods quickly developed in the urban periphery. Its focus, rather, is the political and economic national elite, and its primary discussion revolves around the absorbers’ vision of the young State’s development. Doubtlessly, most of the significant absorbers’ groups promoted accelerated modernization at the time, which emphasized economic development and advancing new higher education institutions alongside pre-statehood ones. The common assumption was that the State’s survival and ability to promote economic development hinged on increased gross domestic product, sophisticated economy, and growth in production capacity via technological and scientific innovation. This prevailing approach assigned veteran groups the role of progress ‘engines’ in fields such as medicine, engineering, industrialism, and law. These groups demanded compensation for their efforts and the leadership they were called upon to assume, and the tumultuous conflicts resulting from this demand offer a multifaceted snapshot of a cultural, economic, and class-oriented dynamic. Specifically, these conflicts reveal two opposing socio-economic visions projected onto early Israeli republicanism— a reveal that can contribute to analyses of the socio-economic development of Israeli republicanism over subsequent decades.

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From a Labor Party to a Middle-Class Party: The ‘Swan Song’ of Socialist Republicanism

The current study has described a clash between divergent republicanist visions—that of MAPAI and those of its rivals on the right and left during the 1950s, as well as the ethno-class, national, and identity-oriented implications of this clash. The struggle we have described should indeed be seen as a significant preventative measure relevant to the long-term ability of immigrants from Muslim countries and their offspring to overcome initial social inferiority. The question that arises, however, is whether the socio-political pattern examined in the current work—that of a patronizing yet protective ‘socialist republicanism’—continued to typify MAPAI rule and its political heir the Labor Party over the next few decades. Contrasting appears to be the most efficient analytical tool for addressing this matter. Over the next several decades, the labor movement headed by MAPAI and the Labor Party actually abandoned this approach and shifted gradually toward the liberal alternative. It adopted, however implicitly, meritocratic assumptions and a class-orientation characteristic of the ‘liberal republicanism’ that had previously opposed its ideology. In fact, from the end of the 1950s and increasingly during the 1960s, MAPAI and later the Labor Party became pillars of the predominantly Ashkenazi Israeli middle-class. This shift constitutes the primary challenge to accurately discerning, from the contemporary perspective of 21st century neo-liberal Israel, the precise nature of the hegemonic socialist republicanism that characterized the first decade of statehood. Many assume a continuity between this form of republicanism and that which developed from the 1960 and 1970s onward, through the ‘privatization revolution’ of the mid-1980s led by the Labor Party and the Likkud. This assumption is also reflected in scholarly literature that tends to anachronistically project onto first-decade, Ben-Gurion-led MAPAI the image of the middle-high-class party later established under the Labor Party title. However, applying an analytical approach that contrasts between the 1950s and the 1960s–70s, reveals a completely different picture. The historical junction we examined in this work was among the final expressions of an assertive socialist republicanism that was primed to endure conflict in the socioeconomic and political arena. It seems that the pattern analyzed above— the clash between a powerful socialist republicanism and what appeared to be a “younger,” newer liberal republicanism—did not foreshadow what was to come. Starting at the end of Ben-Gurion’s term, as Finance Minister Eshkol became progressively independent, and even more so under Prime Minister Eshkol and Finance Minister Sapir, MAPAI veered right in terms of socio-economic

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approach. This was reflected by various matters of policy such as the economic ‘recession’ of the later 1960s. It was also reflected by political and class-related phenomena such as RAFI (Hebrew acronym for Reshimat Poalei Yisrael, meaning, ironically, ‘Israeli workers list’, which was led by Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, and Shim’on Peres), and ATA (Ezrachim Tomchei Eshkol, meaning ‘citizens supporting Eshkol,’ a framework established by MAPAI following BenGurion’s withdrawal from the Party). ATA and RAFI were two rival frameworks within the MAPAI ‘world.’ They were established ahead of the 1965 elections and were highly similar in public, social, and class status. They constituted two significant expressions of the infiltration of business owners and high net earners into the mainstream of the Israeli labor movement. Until then, these coteries had been represented by parties such as the General Zionists, the Progressive Party, or Herut. Now, from the second half of the 1960s onward, some of these factions joined forces with elements of the Ashkenazi middle class, which, as described in the chapters of this book, were already affiliated with MAPAI. During the 1965 elections, a competition was held over representation of the middle-class between MAPAI, RAFI, and GAHAL (the alliance between Herut and the ‘liberals,’ previously known as the General Zionists). The background to this rightward shift was accelerated processes of economic strengthening in the kibbutzim and moshavim, as well as in the broad urban sector of the MAPAI-led labor movement, which encompassed top and mid-level leaders and managers of the Histadrut. What, therefore, had enabled this shift toward the socio-political right in such overt contrast to the political patterns described in this work? Addressing this question requires an extremely broad discussion. Here, we will suffice to refer to an assumption that precedes this type of causal analysis, and briefly and schematically discuss one specific case study, that of the ‘mitun,’ or recession, policy. An assumption that should serve as a basis for such causal analysis would point to a slow, gradual, but nonetheless substantial shift in the class orientation and in the ideology of MAPAI and its successor the Labor Party. From emphasis on the establishment of a Jewish working class, which included the so-called ‘working intelligentsia,’ they turned to the representation and development of an expanding Israeli middle-class, which included academic professionals. Simultaneously, they turned from a collectivist socialist approach—to liberal individualism. This foundational change in class orientation, and therefore policy and ideological aspirations, had obvious ethnic implications. During the 1960s and even more so during the 1970s, this shift was at the core of the increasing alienation of oriental immigrants from

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MAPAI and the Labor Party (alienation that continues to this day and blurs sight of the sector’s relative support for MAPAI during the period discussed in this work). The Ashkenazi academic middle-class had a substantial role in this sociopolitical development and comprised its intellectual leadership, a leadership whose ideological proclamations and initial class-aspirations were analyzed in the chapters of this book. The defeated party in the events we have discussed, the academic middle-class, was the eventual victor within the labor movement. It transitioned from being one significant factor in the diverse mosaic of social powers operating within MAPAI and Histadrut frameworks to a central group. It exerted increasing influence, from the second half of the 1960s through the beginning of the 1990s, over MAPAI leadership and the Labor Party as well as on the leaders of its ally MAPAM and later MERETZ. A primary expression of this process of de-proletarization, which of course led to intensified alienation from the Mizrachi working class, was continual neglect of the Histadrut and the consequent stasis of its organizational and economic structures. These had once been highly innovative and effective, but historical changes that transpired after the foundational years of the Histadrut demanded thorough adjustments, which waited long to occur. This neglect led to a crisis in the Histadrut following the privatization revolution of the mid1980s. Instead of necessary developments, the then-young Labor Party leader Haim Ramon led the dismantling and curtailment of the Histadrut in the early 1990s. Without significant resistance from Prime Minister and Labor Party leader Yitzhak Rabin, and likely with his quiet consent, Ramon advanced the most limited position that the Likkud had devised for the Histadrut within the privatized social order it promoted. However, this dismantling was rooted in the many years of neglect that preceded it, and is reflective of the class-context of the time. It seems that for at least half of the 1960s and perhaps even beforehand, leaders such as Levi Eshkol and Pinchas Sapir ceased to rely on an alliance with the Histadrut—the same reliance described in one of our chapters. In fact, their socio-economic policy required the Histadrut’s submission, in order to prevent the Histadrut from tampering with it (Grinberg 1993).1 The Histadrut described in the current research no longer existed. It was no longer an influential agent in general economic policy nor wage and employment policy, and no longer the entity whose cooperation Finance Minister Levi Eshkol was obliged to gain and whose interest he had to consider. Developing the Histadrut and updating its 1  This was a tactic that foreshadowed the subsequent subjugation of the Histadrut during the years of Likkud dominance and under the second Rabin administration.

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systems of operation was no longer a top priority of MAPAI and Labor Party leadership. Thus, from the second half of the 1960s through the 1980s, Labor Party leaders considered the Histadrut a vital political base but an anachronistic one nonetheless. This shift in approach to the Histadrut was evident as early as the economic recession of the mid-1960s. It makes the event a useful vantage point for observing the essential change in the class-orientation of the ruling party compared to that which was described in this book. New Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and his primary political partner Finance Minister Pinchas Sapir willingly acceded to the urgings of Bank of Israel Governor David Horowitz and initiated economic restraint in the beginning of 1964. This restraint was followed by a deep recession and mass unemployment (12%, without any type of unemployment insurance) in the beginning of 1966.2 Unemployment turned out to be more severe and long-term than they had apparently planned. However, they were likely to have known they were spurring severe social distress, to the point of hunger and poverty in many working families, with no significant remedy in the governmental welfare system to address the crisis. Their economic restraint policy was called ‘mitun,’ a misleading name that in Hebrew means the ‘slowing’ of over-accelerated economic activity. In practice, it was a conscious economic halt by means of steep cutbacks in government budget allocations, particularly in the construction domain. It was implemented right as highbudget infrastructure projects in water supply (National Water Carrier), the ports, and the Dimona Nuclear Center were concluding. It was therefore a sudden halt, not a slowdown—as the Israeli economy was delving into a recession (in the true sense of the word) anyhow, for “objective” reasons well-known to the government, meaning, the conclusion of the aforementioned infrastructure projects. The question that arises, therefore, is why did the Eshkol-Sapir government decide to exacerbate this recession with overt anti-Keynesian tactics? This was a turning point in terms of MAPAI’s macro-economic policy: for the first time, it knowingly and openly practiced a right-wing economic policy and utilized deliberate unemployment as a tool. Until this point, and for almost 15 consecutive years, it had implemented an overtly expansionary fiscal policy and an economy of rapid growth with one of its declared objectives being full employment. Scholarly research has proposed several explanations for this shift in MAPAI policy and the government’s decision to intensify an inevitable slowdown with steep budget cuts. One explanation attributes this to the government’s aim to limit the bargaining power of workers in the labor market. MAPAI government 2  For a detailed description of their initiative from the beginning of 1964 see: Navon 2016.

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strove to lower wages and prevent workers organized under powerful trade associations from developing into an independent body that does not cede to the Histadrut or MAPAI. Michael Shalev, Yonatan Shapira, and Lev Greenberg suggest that the intentional unemployment at the time should be regarded as a tool used by the government to reposition trade associations in a regulated corporate framework under the authority of the government, business owners, and the Histadrut. This was done, they argued, after several years of full employment (or ‘overemployment’), ‘wild’ strikes conducted without Histadrut approval, and pay raises corresponding to immigration waves in the second half of the 1950s and first half of the 1960s (Shalev 1993, 148–171; Shapira & Greenberg 1988). Another explanation attributes the ‘mitun’ initiated by Eshkol, Sapir, and Horowitz to purely economic considerations stemming from a deficit in the trade balance. This deficit developed due to increased import and lacking export, a decrease in external capital resources, and rising inflation. The issue of wages and their restriction is central to this line of reasoning as well: Higher wages interfered with exportation, according to economic leaders who believed this domain should be built on low wages, and accelerated inflation due to higher demand for imported and domestic products. According to this version, the impending conclusion of reparations from Germany and the decrease in American support and in the sale of ‘bonds’ in the United States exacerbated the need to push wages downward. By doing so, Eshkol, Horowitz, and Sapir hoped to salvage the Israeli economy from a dangerous combination of predicted exportation and inflationary crises (Aharoni 1991, 234–235; Greenberg 2011, 271–272; Gross 1999, 392; Halevi 1989, 329; Lerner and Ben-Shahar 1975, 70; Plessner 1993, 21–23; Schwartz-Greenwald 1972). Arie Krampf has offered that this explanation should be merged with the aforementioned corporate explanation, in his discussion of the ‘economic independence’ idea developed by Bank of Israel Governor David Horowitz (Krampf 2015, 120–127; Krampf 2009). Recently, Tom Navon offered a completion of the ‘pure’ economic explanation, which focuses on the need to develop exportation and mitigate inflation at the time, and attributed a reformatory motive to the initiators of the ‘mitun.’ Navon believes that Sapir and Eshkol strove to channel production to branches of industry more relevant to exportation, while narrowing the construction domain in order to redirect resources and workers to these new industrial spheres. According to Navon, one of their main objectives was to halt industrial domains that did not give Israel competitive advantage in the international market, such as chemistry, metal, and textile, and to reduce construction in light of decreased immigration into Israel. They aimed to advance the electronic and mechanical industries, including the military industry, instead.

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Additionally, he notes that addressing overemployment with governmentinitiated economic restraint was a method implemented by several other Western countries at the time (Navon 2016). In any case, the initiators of the ‘mitun’ could not have been unaware that the prospective implications of such an extreme shift would include socially destructive mass unemployment. However, in the context of the discussion at hand, the distinctions between these lines of reasoning and similar ones or their attempted merge into one cohesive explanation do not alter one evident conclusion regarding the fiscal policy of Eshkol and Sapir in 1964. As several scholars have surmised (Bareli and Kedar 2001, 105; Bichler and Nitzan 2001, 187–188; Levi-Faur 2001, 2), this policy marked or foreshadowed a paradigm shift in the ideology that guided economic policy.3 Based on the current research, we add that this paradigm shift cannot be described as anything other than a shift with significant longterm implications on the class-orientation of decision makers. A government that views a proletariat of laborers as a vital political stronghold may impede its interests to some degree—as a government cannot be treated as a mere class-affiliated committee working for the interests of its “dispatchers.” Its considerations are innately broad and varied. Nonetheless, no government can be wholly disconnected from its social foundations. Therefore, it is difficult to assume that a government knowingly and unnecessarily inflicts hunger and poverty on working families without assuming that such activity reflects its class-orientation. Throughout the chapters of this book, we observed how far MAPAI government was willing to go in order to defend what it saw as vital social and national interests, out of recognition that these overlapped with the interests of Mizrachi manual laborers. Eight years later, its actions make it impossible not to observe a fundamental change of approach toward the interests and values it once represented and promoted. During this period, between 1956 and 1964, MAPAI began to transition from being primarily a worker’s party, which also strives to gain the support of the ‘working intelligentsia’—into a middle-class party, which also has a basis of proletariat 3  The political crisis of the mitun obligated MAPAI to once again lead a relatively expansionary fiscal policy that gradually salvaged Israeli economy from the unemployment crisis. This fiscal policy continued in the enhancement of military expenditure and the growth of the security industry in the years surrounding the Six Day War, the War of Attrition, and the Yom Kippur War and its aftermath. Therefore, the 1967–1977 decade was a period of latency. The new individualistic and liberal trends were not fully expressed until the economic upheaval initiated by the Begin administration following 1977 and the process of privatization during the years of the grand coalition headed by Peres and Shamir, and the Rabin, Netanyahu, Barak, and Sharon administrations.

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support. The socio-political instability of this party-class structure was reflected from 1965 onward by the persistent chipping of the lower-class base of MAPAI and by the increasing tendency of the Mizrachi proletariat to abandon this political framework. MAPAI (and later the Labor Party) became a party that identifies and merges middle-class (rather than proletariat) interests with the socio-economic and national interests for which it was responsible. This detection of a paradigm shift challenges the claim that the ‘mitun’ was an integral continuation of the policy-related and ideological trends that guided Israeli government in its first decade. Two models have been proposed that describe the ‘mitun’ as a continuation rather than a paradigm shift: Shapira, Shalev, and Greenberg’s ‘corporate model,’ and the ‘pioneering model’ proposed by Daniel Gutwein. According to the corporate model, much like its opposite the full-employment policy, the deliberate unemployment policy was part of MAPAI’s exertion of control over the workers. When full-employment interfered with this control and fostered the independence of workers’ representatives, it was abandoned in favor of its opposite. Therefore, based on sociological assumptions regarding power itself, the consistent motivation was, in fact, control. As we have witnessed, political control was indeed a significant aspect of socialist republicanism during the first decade.4 However, the current study also indicated that protection of the workers, particularly manual laborers from Muslim countries, was one of the direct objectives of this control. This objective was forsaken. Therefore, the ‘mitun’ policy represented a paradigm shift in both the approach and class orientation of MAPAI government. The same applies to the pioneering model proposed by Gutwein, which is based on the contrast he emphasizes between the pioneering ethos and socialist ideology. According to Gutwein, the ‘mitun’ expressed an elitist form of pioneer ideology that alienates the lower classes and is bound to foster policies that are damaging to them—a trend that allegedly characterized MAPAI rule even earlier, since the beginning of the first decade (Gutwein 2010, esp. 238–239). To further substantiate his claim he quotes from an article written by a leader of the coalitional Achdut Ha’avoda, Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, in May of 1966. At the height of the unemployment crisis Ben-Aharon demanded a ‘tightening of the belt,’ and living ‘solely from the fruits of our labor,’ a regime of preservation and an ‘economic realism of supply and demand, prices and wages.’ He used these anti-Keynesian principles to support the ‘mitun’ policy (Ben-Aharon 1968, 122–123 and 162–163). His ideas parallel the policy of his fellow Achdut Ha’avoda leader, Labor Minister Yig’al Alon, who demanded, for instance, to limit striking rights at the height of the ‘mitun’ (Davar March 16, 1966; 4  For more on this matter see Bareli 2014.

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Al Ha’mishmar March 9, 1966; Davar March 10, 1966, quote in Navon 2014). Gutwein claims that it was strictly the acute unemployment crisis and the political threat it implied for MAPAI government that gradually drove the ruling party to lead a relatively developed universal welfare-state system from the 1970s onward. Therefore, according to Gutwein it was only after the turning point of the ‘mitun’ that MAPAI governments adopted a social-democratic policy. Our findings, however, do not corroborate this claim. The policy implemented during the first decade was not one that neglected the vital interests of the lower classes, as Gutwein’s pioneering model proposes. It was an expansionary development policy, perhaps even extreme in its Keynesian tendencies. It strove for full-employment, which was the primary interest of the lower classes at the time—in stark opposition to the overt anti-Keynesian approach of Ben-Aharon and the ‘mitun’ policy itself, of course. The wage policy in the mid-1950s, which was thoroughly investigated in this work, was a clear socialdemocratic effort toward egalitarianism. This path was pursued in the context of a difficult and unprecedented reality of blunt socio-economic and cultural gaps and required willingness to pay a political price. Additionally, the expansionary policy applied to the housing, education, health, and employment-policy domains (spheres that were not addressed in this work and merit further research) cannot be regarded simply as an outcome of elitist separatism.5 Therefore—contrary to proponents of the corporate model—the ‘mitun’ was indeed a watershed event, a paradigmatic change. However, the shift it marked was not necessarily a transition from a pioneering-elitist policy to a social-democratic one, as Gutwein claims when referring to its aftermath. It was rather an important junction in a gradual transformation. An assertive socialist republicanism, anchored in a ruling labor party and a strong trade union movement, was replaced by a liberal republicanism anchored in a ruling party that became increasingly conditioned to represent middle-class interests and values. The substantial expansion of the welfare state, from the onset of the 1970s through 1977 and several years later, should be seen from this perspective: Expansion of the welfare state was, at the time, common practice among center and center-right liberal parties in countries such as Germany, France, or 5  It is a pervasive convention in scholarly research that the acute inequality that developed between Ashkenazis and Sephardic Jews and between the center and periphery in allocations for education, health, employment, and welfare, attests to government policy on these matters. However, the present research indicates that in the wage policy domain the government worked vehemently to restrain inequality, and offers a hypothesis regarding government policy in these fields as well, in contrast to the impact of other factors on those fields.

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Italy, and not strictly among social-democratic parties. Both were equal parties in the instatement of the European welfare state. Thus, our observation on the change in MAPAI’s class orientation is not at odds with the expansion of the welfare state since early 1970s. The findings of the current study therefore produce the following conclusion: Throughout the first half of the 1950s and during the subsequent years of relative prosperity leading up to the recession, one can hear the ‘swan song’ of the particular form of socialist republicanism cultivated by MAPAI during the first decade of Israeli statehood. Furthermore, the socio-economic and political powers that altered this approach in later decades can be detected as early as the 1950s. They emerged ‘internally,’ from within MAPAI, and one of the most significant among them was the ‘working intelligentsia,’ or academic middle class in the public sector. The nature of this process dictated that MAPAI itself would be the arena of change. The Party would transform from a workers’ party to a middle-class party. From a party focused on the national-cultural cohesion of Israel’s immigrant society around a joint collective identity, MAPAI turned into a party that was eventually apt to partner with the Likkud in the privatization revolution of the mid-1980s. This shift in class-orientation drove the Party to be a partner in the cleavage of Israeli society into separate sectors or competing social and cultural coteries from the 1980s onward. This shift caused a change in its ethnic orientation as well. Awareness of this fact illuminates the two most important conditions that, several decades prior, had given MAPAI the motivation and power required to face the rising Ashkenazi middle-class in the important wage-gap domain. It was still a workers’ party, and was therefore reliant on the votes of the lower classes, its source of power, and designed to represent their interests. Additionally, it still aimed to consolidate a new national collective out of distant groups linked only by the intangible and largely abstract concept of klal Yisrael.

Decades of Solidarity and Alienation

Despite the immense, obvious distinction between the first decade and recent decades, it is clear that some of the fundamental conflicts that characterized Israeli immigrant society at its inception are still relevant today, albeit with varying outcomes and circumstances. The ethno-class conflict we have discussed in this work from the significant aspect of wage policy, continues to affect contemporary Israeli political culture. This issue influences competition between primary parties, and affects socio-economic policy, radical and

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moderate public and intellectual associations, and the politics of culture and identity in Israel. Paradoxically, it was in the first decade—when Israeli society was fragile, heterogeneous, and suffered severe inequality—that the dominant political approach of socialist republicanism was a fundamentally integrative one, despite its patronizing nature. On the other hand, the politically dominant neo-liberal republicanism characterizing Israeli polity in recent decades has revealed disintegrative tendencies, just when Israeli national identity has become “consolidated.” This is reflected, though not exclusively, by MAPAI’s transition from a labor party to an Israeli middle class party and a part of the neo-liberal political agenda. It is possible that what seems like a paradox is nothing but a byproduct of the (justified or unjustified) relative and surprising sense of immunity of the “political class” and the hegemonic sectors of Israeli society. Israeli society has come a long way since that once burdensome sense of social danger with which we opened this work. It has come a great distance from the fear felt by the editor of Davar during the 1950’s, a fear of disintegration, of a dictatorship being established in the State, or of severe, ongoing social lags. As mentioned in the beginning of this work, this fear was the outcome of a precarious combination of gaps that were identity-oriented, ethnic, and cultural on one hand, and class-oriented, intergenerational, and socio-economic on the other. It appears that during the first two decades of the 21st century, some of the economic “sting” tied to the ethnic-class tensions we have discussed had dissipated considerably. In 2013, Momi Dahan pointed to a “nearly constant trend of narrowing income gaps between households from the two groups of origin (Europe / America versus Asia / Africa) since the mid-1990’s.” According to Dahan, “This improvement has manifested in a sharp decline of households originating in Asia / Africa in the two bottom socio-economic clusters and a significant rise in their representation in the upper clusters.” Furthermore, in the years 2010–2011, “The representation of the group originating in Asia / Africa in the upper cluster was for the first time proportionate to its demographic representation” (Dahan 2013, 1. Also: 13, 15–16). Additionally, Dahan noted significant expansion in the representation of the Asia-Africa origin group in the middle-upper class (the 8th and 9th clusters), even to the point of over-representation (versus under-representation in the 1970’s) (ibid., 17). He also found that wage-gaps between the two groups had narrowed to a mere 25% (ibid., 19), parallel to a narrowing of the educational gaps between them (ibid., 22). Dahan believed that the wage-gap had narrowed because the increase in the education level of immigrants from Asia-Africa and their descendants was greater than that of immigrants from Europe-America and their descendants (ibid., 25, 26). As aforementioned, during the first decade

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educational gaps had catalyzed the Ashkenazi middle-class’s demands that significant, systemic wage gaps be implemented. Dahan further explained the narrowing of wage-gap by stating that Israel’s transition to a market economy benefitted the Asia-Africa immigrants and their descendants. He also mentioned Cohen and Leon’s assumption (2011) that this group enjoyed economic and socio-political benefits under Likkud rule, and the assumption that changes in the group’s familial structures contributed to the narrowing of gaps as well (Dahan, 26–28). In any case, it is clear that the impressive narrowing of economic gaps between Ashkenazis and Mizrachis does not indicate that Israeli society has become more egalitarian. Within the complex web of Israeli public thought, there is a tendency to associate the social-gap issue with the AshkenaziMizrachi-gap issue, but this is association is quite anachronistic. For the most part, Mizrachi manual laborers at the bottom social rungs have been replaced by Arabs, Haredis, periphery residents (though many are indeed Mizrachi), and certain parts of the Jewish immigrant groups of the 1990’s and early 2000’s. Whether based in fact or not, linking the ethnic and class gap is a common aspect of Israeli political discourse. Moreover, there is reason to believe this associative link has urged the “political class” to support the privatization of Israel’s socio-economic systems in recent decades, without concern that this would lead to social disintegration and destabilization. Presumably, such concern has dissipated thanks to the improved relative status of immigrants from Muslim countries and their descendants. It is therefore possible that, as Dahan claims, Israel’s transition to a market economy has contributed to the improvement of the Mizrachis’ relative status. However, it is also possible that this improvement has paradoxically strengthened the political foundation for privatization processes and the sectorialization of Israeli society. Therefore, socio-economic integration in Israel has surprisingly cultivated a disintegrative privatization trend. A similar paradox, by the way, characterizes the economic development of the western welfare state, which transformed large parts of the working class into middle class during the two decades following WWII. This instilled a feeling of such social stability, that many forgot this very stability was a product of the macro-economic and macro-social structures of the welfare state. However, it was precisely the relative social stability or security at the time that created a political opportunity to subvert these same structures from the 1970’s onward. The political fortification of the neo-liberal order in Israel was therefore characterized by a paradoxical link between socio-economic integration and disintegration. Parallel to this, the socio-political climate cultivated by the neo-liberal order laid the foundation for cultural separatism and polarized

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ideological discourse. The collectivist state of the 1950’s saw the incredible heterogeneity of its society as a threat and attempted to minimize it, as we have seen. Contrary to this, such heterogeneity has not only ceased to be a threat to the individualistic state of the 2000’s, but has reinforced its social order. In fact, it is precisely an overly-consolidated national collective that has the potential to stall commercialization of social services and the privatization of economy. This is why, for instance, ethnic uniformity is sometimes used as explanation for the relative resilience of Scandinavian social-democracy (until recent immigration waves). It is therefore unsurprising that parallel to the rise of market economy in Israel during the 1990’s, an intellectual group such as the ‘Mizrachi Democratic Rainbow’ became prominent in public and academic discourse. This group was characterized by tension between a fundamentally integrative social-democratic approach, focused on socio-economic justice, and ethnic separatism centered on the politics of cultural identity. The social-democratic approach was an extreme critical response to the rise of market economy. On the other hand, the Mizrachi cultural-identity-oriented aspect of the group expressed acceptance of the social order ascribed by market economy, which, in Israel, is a significant driver of social and cultural sectorialization. Since the 1990’s, Mizrachi intellectuals and academics have pushed for the general Mizrachi public to adopt sectorial cultural behaviors, similar to those of the Mizrachireligious public associated with SHAS. Although this has not come to fruition, it is important to understand this aspiration and its popularity among certain intellectual circles in the context of the privatization revolution and the social climate it has shaped since the mid-1980’s. Both the social-democratic criticism and the politics of identity expressed by this group were, in fact, respectively critical and ratifying reactions to the privatization revolution. The socio-political and identity-centered SHAS enterprise, which did come to fruition, is distinct from this failed aspiration in that this ultra-orthodox Sephardic party appealed precisely to the coteries of the Mizrachi public that did not climb the social ladder as reflected by Dahan’s aforementioned data. In coping with neo-liberal order, they adopted the sectorial “compensation” offered by SHAS, compensation that was both socio-economic and symbolic. In actuality, this allowed SHAS to integrate into neo-liberal order and contribute to its stability. The ultra-orthodox Sephardic party of SHAS won immeasurably greater public success than radical Mizrachi groups, as, although it cultivated ethnic separatism as well, it never intensified this to the point of negating Jewish nationalism. As recently stated by Leon, SHAS even displayed a certain form of such nationalism, thereby integrating into the dominant model of right-wing republicanism (Leon 2016).

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It is in this context that the escalating identity-oriented and cultural tension between Ashkenazis and Mizrachis in recent years should be seen. It is precisely when the economic gap narrows significantly, and Mizrachis become central to the middle and upper-middle Israeli classes, that the entire Mizrachi public can powerfully insist upon its cultural identity and the proper description and analysis of its history in the State of Israel. It is inevitable that the cultural picture will change in light of shifting power balances and the recovery of the Mizrachi public. An important aspect of this change is a shift in collective memory, insofar as it stems from historical research and instruction or conversely, influences them. This change can assume a contrarian and defiant form, particularly in resistance to ‘stakeholders,’ or it can express a demand for egalitarian partnership and the right to make an imprint on the culture and historical perspective of Israelis. Two contemporary phenomena illustrate these respective forms of reaction. The “Biton report on the empowerment of Mizrachi and Sephardic heritage in the education system” is a comprehensive and academically substantiated proposal (Biton Report 2016). It aims to lead a significant shift in the instruction of history, theory and literature, Israel studies, and civic studies, and to enforce the mandatory incorporation of Mizrachi thinkers, writers, and poets into school curricula, and the instruction of Mizrachi and Sepharadi Jewish history. Additionally, the report includes recommendations for improving the operation of various entities and functions under the Ministry of Education, including the Council of Higher Education and its budget and planning committee, research universities, museums, and informal education institutions. The Biton Committee report can be seen as an assertive demand for full, egalitarian ownership of Israeli culture and its development. It expresses a growing social and cultural self-assurance and a sense of belonging to Israeli culture on the part of Sephardic and Mizrachi Jews based on their own cultural sources. A less ‘buttoned-up’ cultural phenomenon is the poetry group ‘Ars-Poetica’ in the literary scene, which is traditionally characterized by inter-group ‘guerilla wars.’ As is natural to the literary scene, the group’s poets cannot rely on academic authority or political accreditation. They must pave their own road and establish the very cultural authority they seek by using assertiveness, if not aggression. The ‘anti-Ashkenzai’ approach of the group’s members, including personal attacks on iconic Ashkenazi literary figures such as Natan Zach, has expressed sentiments that prevail among Mizrachis, albeit to various degrees, with regard to Ashkenazis. These sentiments mirror an equally strong personal resistance toward Mizrachis among Ashkenazis. This collective aggregate of social proclivities is, of course, an outcome of the long economic, political,

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social, and cultural superiority of Ashkenazis, which has only recently begun to recede. As stated in our introduction, mutual feelings of alienation are an inevitable result of the encounter between Ashkenazis and Mizrachis in the same territory and under a common institutional-political umbrella. This alienation is precisely the outcome of Zionism’s efforts to transform the abstract concept of Klal Yisrael into the overarching ethos of a concrete polity. The horror felt by Ashkenazi ‘absorbers’ toward immigration from Muslim countries during the first decade, discussed in our introduction, is only one expression of a comprehensive, recurring phenomenon of mutual alienation. This alienation was experienced alongside intensive social merging and the establishment of a unified, strong national identity. Such cognitive and emotional intermingling is inherent to the ‘the Zionist condition,’ if we may borrow the term from a different context. The collective proclivity toward rejection expressed by Ashkenazi absorbers during the 1950’s contradicted their own national ideology. However, in contemporary Israeli society the inner conflict experienced by both Ashkenazis and Mizrachis is not a clash between emotion and ideology. Rather, it is a conflict between contradicting collective emotions, images, and perceptions. On one hand, there is alienation, anger, scorn and condescension spurred by power gaps between Ashkenazis and Mizrachis. On the other hand, shared national sentiment, shared fate, and shared cultural and religious identity. What is traditionally referred to as Mizug Galu’yot which was once ‘artificially’ imposed by Zionist ideology, has evolved into a ‘natural’ national sentiment with an unresolved ethnic tension at its core. Alienation and negative prejudice stand out due to their provocative nature, but it seems that national cohesion is a stronger political and even cultural factor. Political-cultural attempts to assign an alternative identity to immigrants of Muslim countries and their descendants, by offering them the title of Jewish Arabs or Arab Jews—with or without a hyphen and definite article—have not taken hold and have lacked significant impact (Shenhav 2003).6 Even when an important political party such as SHAS is established, which dissents from ‘traditional’ meaning modern, Zionism, it adopts a ‘Jewish-inclusive’ national approach (Leon 2016). Concepts such as ‘Jewish-Arab’ identity were proposed in the beginning of the 2000’s as a political-intellectual response to the rage of many radical groups, from the ‘Black Panthers’ during the 1970’s to the contemporary ‘Ars-Poetica’ group. However, the obvious political futility of 6  It is interesting to note that deep cultural ‘Arabness’ such as that of musician Amir Benayoun can easily coexist with an overt religious-Jewish and right-wing nationalism.

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these ideas stems from their clash with the far more powerful Zionist version of Jewish nationalism. They clash with a historical movement that since inception, despite its Ashkenazi origin, has included Mizrachis as partners— whether equal or inferior—in sharing the burdens of its enterprise. The cultural Zionism reflected in the Biton Committee report is far more aligned with the pervasive sentiment in the Mizrachi-Israeli public today: that of indisputable Jewishness and Israeliness that demand equal partnership and ownership of Israeli culture, out of increasing socio-economic self-assurance. The two social trends discussed above are manifested, for instance, in the ongoing affair surrounding missing children in Israel during the 1950’s, known as the ‘Yemenite children affair.’ A central question raised in current public discourse on this affair is whether it will be addressed from a ‘general-Israeli’ and therefore republicanist, perspective, or become a source and catalyst of Mizrachi separatism. Judging by the ethnic relationships that have evolved in recent decades, there is reason to believe the State will take responsibility for handling the terrible affair, while adopting a ‘mending’ approach. More generally, as we summarize these discussions, it is worthwhile to note the interesting contemporary and historical complexity produced by the oscillation of immigrant society between integration and national consolidation, and disintegration and ethnic separatism. It is a dialectical movement or tension, at times constructive and at times destructive, between solidarity and alienation. For decades, such tension characterized the merging of two distinct groups in a single territory and political society. It is inherent to the traditional assumption that these groups belong to the same historical collective. This tension, however, is all the more inherent to the modern ideological assumption, which stems from the traditional one but is far more demanding, that these groups must once again unite and resume their identity as a concrete historical collective in a joint political space. With this work, we have sought to illuminate the fact that MAPAI’s wage policy was a significant component of its attempts to forge at least minimal social solidarity during the first, crisis-riddled phase of this historical chapter. Thus far, a wide range of scholarly literature on related subjects has focused almost entirely on the sociological and historical roots of the alienation between the two primary groups comprising the Jewish population in Israel. This work highlights the exigency of reinvestigating other domains, additional to that of wages, in order to examine the roots of a national-social solidarity that has been forged, rather than solely those of ethnic alienation. There is a scholarly interest in re-assessing, from a dialectical perspective of both alienation and solidarity, domains such as health, civic identity (including rights and obligations), culture and religion, education, the labor market, housing,

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settlement and the army. It is necessary to return to these subjects with alternative working assumptions to those which have prevailed through scholarly literature thus far. These include two assumptions introduced at the beginning of our work. First, that government is, to a degree, autonomous of civil society and functions as more than an ‘executive committee’ of its hegemonic groups. Second, that such hegemonic groups were not in fact homogenous with regard to their approach to central socio-economic and cultural matters. Thus far, research literature has painted an unbalanced picture of the aforementioned tension between social solidarity and alienation. It has almost exclusively investigated the roots of alienation, and therefore cannot offer an explanation for the powerful national solidarity established among the Jewish population of Israel.

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Unna, Issachar. 1997. ‘The Genesis of Physics at the Hebrew University.’ In: Shaul Katz and Michael Heyd (eds.), Toldot ha’universita ha’ivrit be’yerushalay’im [Heb: ‘The history of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’]. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. 589–624. Vidich, Arthur J. (ed.). 1995. The New Middle Classes: Life-Styles, Status Claims and Political Orientations. New York: New York University Press. Viroli, Maurizio. 2002. Republicanism. Translated by Anthony Shuggaar. New York: Hill and Wang. 61. Ward, Gouldner Alvin. 1979. The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class. New York: Seabury Press. Yiftachel, Oren and Erez Zafadia. 1999. Mediniyut Ve’ze’hut Be’arei Ha’pituach: Hashpa’at Ha’tichnun Ve’hapituach Al Yotzey Tzefon Afrika 1952–1998 [Heb. ‘Policy and identity in development towns: the effect of planning and development on North African immigrants, 1952–1998’]. Beer Sheva: The Negev Center for Regional Development. Yizhar, Uri. 2005. Beyn Chazon Le’shilton: Mifleget Achdut Ha’avoda Poalei Tzion Be’tekufat Ha’yishuv Ve’hamedina [Heb. ‘Between vision and governance: the Achdut Ha’avoda-Poalei Zion Party during the yishuv and statehood periods’]. Ramat-Efal: Yad Tabenkin. 25. Yona, Yossi and Yitzhak Saporta. 1999. ‘Ha’hinuch Ha’kdam-Miktzo’i Ve’yetzirat Ma’amad Ha’poalim Be’Yisrael’ [Heb. ‘Pre-professional education and the establishment of the working class in Israel’]. In: Hannan Hever, Yehouda Shenhav, Pnina Mutzafi-Haller (eds.), Mizrachim Be’Yisrael: Iyun Bikorti Mechudash [Heb. ‘Mizrachim in Israel: Renewed Critical Reading]. Jerusalem: Ha’kibbutz Ha’meuchad and Van Leer Institute. 68–104. Zameret, Zvi. 1997. Alei Gesher Tzar: Itzuv Ma’arechet Ha’hinuch Be’yemei Ha’aliyah Ha’gedola [Heb. ‘On a narrow bridge: the shaping of the education system in the days of massive immigration’]. Sde-Boker: The Ben-Gurion Research Center. Zussman, Zvi. 1974. Pa’ar Ve’shivyon Ba’Histadrut: Ha’hashpa’ah Shel Ha’idiologia Ha’shivyonit Ve’ha’avoda Ha’aravit al Scharo shel Ha’oved Ha’yehudi Be’eretz Yisrael [Heb. ‘Gaps and equality in the Histadrut: the effect of egalitarian ideology and Arab labor on the wages of the Jewish worker in Eretz Yisrael’]. Ramat-Gan: Massada.

Newspapers Al Ha’mishmar, Jan. 5, 1956. Deot Shekulot Be’merkaz Mapai Al Inyanei Ha’sachar [Heb. ‘Even opinions on wage issues in MAPAI Center’]. Al Ha’mishmar, Jan. 6, 1956. Ha’va’ahap Dacha Et Ha’diyun Al Ha’sachar Le’yom Heh Ha’ba [Heb. ‘The Histadrut Small Council postponed the wage discussion until next Thursday’]. Al Ha’mishmar, Jan. 8, 1956. Mapai Hechlitah Al Ha’a’la’at Sachar Ze’umah [Heb. ‘MAPAI has decided on a meager wage increase’].

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Al Ha’mishmar, Jan. 9, 1956. Merkaz Mapai Isher Al Ha’a’la’at Sachar Mesuyeget [Heb. ‘MAPAI Center approved a partial wage increase’]. Al Ha’mishmar, Jan. 11, 1956. Ha’machlakah Le’igud Miktzo’i Titkanes Hayom Likrat Yeshivat Ha’va’hap [Heb. ‘The trade unions department will convene today in preparation for the small council meeting’]. Al Ha’mishmar, Jan. 12, 1956a. D. Ben-Gurion Koreh Le’mishtar Shel Konenut [Heb. ‘D. Ben-Gurion calls for an alertness regime’]. Al Ha’mishmar, Jan. 12, 1956b. Ovdei Tza’hal Muchanim La’avod Yomam Va’layla, Kedei Le’sapek Neshek La’tzavah [Heb. ‘IDF workers willing to work day and night to supply arms for military’]. Beterem, Sept. 1, 1955. Zalman Abramov, Ha’yemin Ha’Yisre’eli Le’achar Ha’bechirot [Heb. ‘The Israeli right post-elections]. 11–12. Davar, Feb. 19, 1951. Yechiel Halpern, Kibbutz galu’yot Ve’shivion Sotzialie [Heb. ‘Ingathering of the diasporas and socialist equality’]. Davar, July 20, 1951. Yechiel Halpern, Tochnit Optimit [Heb. ‘An optimistic plan’]. Davar, April 12, 1954a. Ha’memshala Lo Te’aneh Le’teviot Ha’rof’im Ha’schirim [Heb. ‘The government will not comply with salaried physicians’ demends’]. 1. Davar, April 12, 1954b. Ovdim Academayim Me’aymim Be’shelosha Yemey He’adrut [Heb. ‘White-collar workers threaten a three day absence’]. 1. Davar, May 18, 1954. Shevitat Ha’rof’im Alula Le’zi’azua Ha’refuah Ha’tziburit [Heb. ‘Physicians’ strike might shock public medicine’]. 1. Davar, May 20, 1954. Netzigey Histadrut Ha’rof’im Me’aymim Be’hachrafat Ha’shevita [Heb. ‘IMA representative to worsen the strike’]. 1. Davar, May 30, 1954. Ha’rof’im Chavrei Mapai Yiman’u Me’hashbatat Ha’refuah [Heb. ‘MAPAI Physicians will avoid shutting-down medical services’]. 4. Davar, June 1, 1954. Chusal Iyum Ha’shevita Ha’klalit Ba’refuah, Rofei Kupat Ha’cholim Ha’klalit Hechlitu Lachzor Lamrot Ha’Histadrut [Heb. ‘Threat of a general strike in medical services averted, as kupat Holim physicians decide to cede to Histadrut authority’]. 1. Davar, Dec. 9, 1954. Eem Tom Shevitat Ha’rofim [Heb. ‘Upon conclusion of the physicians’ strike’]. Beshulei Devarim Column. Davar, June 9, 1955. Doch Va’adat Guri Mamlitz Al Tikun Metach Ha’sachar Shel Ovdei Ha’medina [Heb. ‘The Guri Committee report recommends reforming wage rates among civil servants’]. 1. Davar, June 20, 1955. Ha’minhaliyim Yakimu Shevitat Mecha’ah Beyom Bet [Heb. ‘The Executives will hold a protest strike on Monday’]. 1. Davar, August 9, 1955. Va’adat Guri Megisha Hayom Din Ve’heshbon Achid [Heb. ‘The Guri Committee submits uniform account today’]. 1. Davar, August 10, 1955. Pursam Doch Va’adat Guri [Heb. ‘The Guri Committee report has been published’]. 2.

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Davar, Sept. 12, 1955. Ha’memshala Kav’ah Luach-Sachar Le’ovdei Ha’medina [Heb. ‘The government has established a pay-scale for civil servants’]. Davar, Nov. 26, 1955. Eshkol: Ha’a’la’at Sachar Klalit Tesaken Kol Hesegey Ha’medina [Heb. Eshkol: ‘A general wage increase would risk all national achievements’]. Front-page. Davar, Jan. 6, 1956. Ben-Gurion Hirtzah Al Matzav Ha’bitachon Be’meliyat Ha’va’ap [Heb. ‘Ben-Gurion addressed security status at the steering committee meeting’]. Davar, Jan. 8, 1956a. Merkaz Mapai Mitkanes Ha’erev Le’hachra’a Be’inyanei Ha’sachar: Tugash Ha’tza’ah Shenitkabla Peh Echad Ba’mazkirut [Heb. ‘MAPAI Center will convene tonight on wage issues: a unanimous decision will be submitted at the secretariat’]. Davar, Jan. 8, 1956b. 51 Tankim ‘Valentayn’ He’geeyu Etmol Le’Mitzrayim [Heb. ‘51 tanks arrived in Egypt yesterday’]. Davar, Jan. 9, 1956. Mapai Hechlitah Al Ha’a’la’at Ha’sachar [Heb. ‘MAPAI has made a decision to increase wages’]. Davar, Jan. 12, 1956a. Ben-Gurion: Hikon! (Devarim Be’yeshivat Ha’va’ad Ha’poel Ve’hairgunim Ha’miktzoiyim Be’Tel-Aviv [Heb. ‘D. Ben-Gurion: on your mark! (Address at the executive committee and professional organizations meeting in Tel-Aviv, 5.1.1956’)]. Davar, Jan. 12, 1956b. Ha’yima’tze Rofeh Le’Tzfat [Heb. ‘Will a physician for Tzfat be found?’]. Davar, Jan. 12, 1956c. Sachar Ve’pa’ar [Heb. ‘Wages and gaps’]. Davar, Jan. 13, 1956a. Y. Meshel, Ha’va’ap Shel Ha’Histadrut Hechlit Al Tikunei Sachar Le’shnat 1956 [Heb. ‘The Histadrut small council has agreed on wage adjustments for 1956.’]. Davar, Jan. 13, 1956b. Hafsharah Be’mediniyut Ha’sachar [Heb. ‘The wage policy compromise’]. Davar, Jan. 15, 1956a. Dvar Ha’yom (Editorial). Davar, Jan. 15, 1956b. Ha’memshala Tadun Be’sechar Ha’academim [Heb. ‘The government to discuss white-collar wages’]. Davar, Jan. 16, 1956. Ha’memshalah Tachlit Be’inyan Ha’sachar Be’shavuah Haba [Heb. ‘The government to rule on the wage issue next week’]. Davar, Jan. 17, 1956. Va’adat Mapai Metzi’ah Le’hachriz Mishtar Konenut [Heb. ‘The MAPAI committee proposes declaring an emergency regime’]. Davar, Jan. 18, 1956a. Y. Marcus, Tochnit Mishtar Ha’konenut Tachlita Yeter Shivyon Ba’netel Ha’bitchoni [Heb. ‘The emergency regime’s objective is more equality in carrying the defense burden’]. Davar, Jan. 18, 1956b. 85% Me’haolim Ha’chadashim Nikletu Ba’hityashvut Ve’be’ezorey Ha’pituach [Heb. ‘85% of the new immigrants have been absorbed into settlements and development regions’].

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Davar, Jan. 19, 1956a. Mapai Kiblah Tochnit Herum [Heb. ‘MAPAI has approved the emergency plan’]. Davar, Jan. 19, 1956b. Ha’mehandesim Kiblu Hachlatot Ha’va’ap [Heb. ‘The engineers have accepted the small council’s decisions’]. Davar, Jan. 19, 1956c. Ha’mishpatanim Me’aymim [Heb. ‘Judicial workers make threats’]. Davar, Jan. 20, 1956. Y. Horin, Shever Ve’pa’ar Ba’SSR [Heb. ‘Fracturing and gaps in the USSR’]. Davar, Jan. 23, 1956. Ha’ala’ot Ha’sachar Shel Ovdei Ha’medina Ba’machatzit Ha’shiur She’ushro Be’September (1955) [Heb. ‘Civil servants’ wages increased by half the scale agreed upon in September’]. Davar, Jan. 24, 1956a. 30,872 Ovdei Medina Bishnat 1954/5–40 Achuzim Mehem Olim Hadashim [‘30,872 civil servants in 1954/5—40% are immigrants’]. Davar, Jan. 24, 1956b. Rov Ha’progresivim Be’ad Aziva [Heb. ‘The majority of Progressives in favor of withdrawal’]. Davar, Jan. 25, 1956a. Rofei Kupa’ch Me’aymim Be’shevitah [Heb. ‘Kupat Holim physicians threaten to strike’]. Davar, Jan. 25, 1956b. Eshkol Mavhir Ha’tza’at Ha’sachar [Heb. ‘Eshkol explains the wage proposal’]. Davar, Jan. 25, 1956c. Ha’minha’liyim Dochim Et Ha’a’la’at Ha’sachar [Heb. ‘The executives reject the wage increase’]. Davar, Jan. 26, 1956. Ha’progresivim Dorshim Miluy Hitchayvuyot Be’inyan Ha’sachar [Heb. ‘The Progressives demand the fulfillment of wage obligations’]. Davar, Jan. 27, 1956. Ha’rof’im Hechlitu Lishbot [Heb. ‘The physicians have decided to strike’]. Davar, Jan. 29, 1956. Ben-Gurion Lo I’yem Le’haf’il Chukey Cherum [Heb. ‘Ben-Gurion did not threaten to instate emergency protocol’]. Davar, Jan. 30, 1956. Ha’va’ad Ha’merkazi Shel Ha’me’handesim Dan Be’she’elat Bitzuah Ha’sachar Ha’chadash [Heb. ‘The steering committee of the Engineers’ Association discusses the new wages’]. Davar, Jan. 31, 1956a. Ha’rof’im Hechlitu Al Klalei Shvitatam [Heb. ‘The physicians have delineated their strike rules’]. Davar, Jan. 31, 1956b. Et Asher Katavti Le’miflagti [Heb. ‘That which I wrote to my party’]. Davar, Feb. 1, 1956a. Ha’tza’at Ha’va’ad Ha’poel Le’irgun Rofei Kupach [Heb. ‘The Small Council’s proposal to the Kupat Holim Physicians’ Association’]. Davar, Feb. 1, 1956b. S. Morgenstern, Kol Koreh Le’havrei Ha’intiligentzia Ha’ovedet [Heb. ‘A call to the working intelligentsia’]. Davar, Feb. 1, 1956c. Y. Kremer, Lo Ye’uman Ki Yesupar [Heb. ‘Beyond belief’]. Davar, Feb. 1, 1956d. Moetzet Poalei TA Dana Be’she’elat Ha’sachar [Heb. ‘The Tel-Aviv Workers Council discusses the wage issue’].

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Davar, Feb. 2, 1956. Hugsha Ha’tza’at Peshara Le’ovdei Ha’medinah [Heb. ‘A compromise has been proposed to civil servants’]. Davar, Feb. 3, 1956a. Kinus Artzi Shel Havrei Ha’miflagah [Heb. ‘A national assembly of party members’]. Davar, Feb. 3, 1956b. Moetzet Rof’im Neged Ha’shevitah [Heb. ‘The physicians’ council is against the strike’]. Davar, Feb. 3, 1956c. Mo’etzet Ha’mehandesim Mitnagedet Le’shevitah Bilti Muskemet [Heb. ‘The engineers’ council opposes an unauthorized strike’]. Davar, Feb. 5, 1956. Ha’va’ad Ha’poel Oser Shevitot Lo Muskamot [Heb. ‘The Histadrut small council prohibits unauthorized strikes’]. Davar, Feb. 6, 1956. Igud Ha’rof’im Mitnaged Le’hashbatat Ha’refuah Ba’medina [Heb. ‘The Physicians’ Association objects to shutting down medical services’]. Davar, Feb. 7, 1956a. Morei Ha’universita Mitztarfim [Heb. ‘University faculty members join’]. Davar, Feb. 7, 1956b. Ha’memshalah He’tziya Dechiyat Ha’shevitah Le’mum Al Basis Ha’tza’ah Chadasha [Heb. ‘The government has suggested postponing the strike to negotiate a new proposal’]. Davar, Feb. 7, 1956c. Shevitat Ha’acdemayim Mechuvenet Neged Ha’medina Ve’ha’Histadrut [Heb. ‘The white-collar workers’ strike targets the State and Histadrut’]. Davar, Feb. 7, 1956d. Merkaz Mapai Koreh Lekayem Horaot Ha’va’ap [Heb. ‘MAPAI Center asks that Small Council instructions be heeded’]. Davar, Feb. 7, 1956e. El Me’handesey Chevrot Ha’chashmal L’AI ]Heb. ‘To the engineers of Israel’s electrical company!’]. Davar, Feb. 7, 1956f. Mazkirut Igud Ovdei Ha’medina Doreshet Me’ha’academayim Lo Lishbot [Heb. ‘The Civil Servants’ Association secretariat demands that the whitecollar workers forgo striking’]. Davar, Feb. 7, 1956g. Igud Ha’rof’im Mitnaged La’shevitah [Heb. ‘The Physicians’ Association opposes the strike’]. Davar, Feb. 7, 1956h. Merkaz His’ Ha’mehandesim Tomech Be’emdat Ha’va’ap [Heb. ‘The Engineers’ Association Central Committee supports the Small Council’s stance’]. Davar, Feb. 7, 1956i. El Poalei Yisrael [Heb. ‘To the workers of Israel’]. Davar, Feb. 7, 1956j. Eshkol: Tzurchey Ha’am Ve’ha’medina Kodmim Le’Tzurchey Chug Echad [Heb. ‘Eshkol: The needs of the people and State precede those of a single faction’]. Davar, Feb. 8, 1956a. Ha’shevitah Ha’anti Histadrutit Lo Hayta Me’le’ah [Heb. ‘The antiHistadrut strike was not pervasive’]. Davar, Feb. 8, 1956b. Giluy Da’at Le’tzibur Ovdei Ha’sochnot Ha’yehudit [Heb. ‘Public statement to Jewish Agency workers’].

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Davar, Feb. 9, 1956a. M. Namir, Ha’iskah Ha’checkit Mitzrit Tarfah Tochniot Muskamot Le’ha’a’la’at Ha’sachar [Heb. ‘The Czech-Egypt arms deal subverted approved wage increase programs’]. Davar, Feb. 9, 1956b. Y. Meshel, Ha’ala’at Sachar Merusenet—Le’tovat Ha’poel Ve’meshek Ha’medina [Heb. ‘A moderate wage increase—for the sake of workers and national economy’]. Davar, Feb. 9 1956c. Y. Almogi, Ha’yim A’difim Me’ramat Hayim [Heb. ‘Life is more important than lifestyle’]. Davar, Feb. 9, 1956d. A. Govrin, Be’ne’emanut Le’medina Ve’la’oved [Heb. ‘Loyalty to the State and the worker’]. Davar, Feb. 9, 1956e. M. Bitan (MAPAI), Ha’miktzo’ot Ha’chofshiyim Cha’yavim Le’shamesh Mofet Le’risun Atzmi [Heb. ‘The liberal professions should exemplify restraint’]. Davar, Feb. 9, 1956f. Y. Sha’ari (Ha’oved Ha’tzioni), Le’shalem 50–55% Me’hahosafot Ve’hash’ar Belagrut [should be: Be’agorot] [Heb. ‘Allocation of 50–55% of pay raises and the rest in securities]. Davar, Feb. 9, 1956g. L. Eshkol, Machatzit Ha’derech Me’achoreynu—Ha’machtzit Ha’sheniya Kasha Shiva’tayim [Heb. ‘We are half way there—the second half is far more difficult’]. Davar, Feb. 10, 1956. Shevitat Ha’mehandesim Holechet Ve’mitztamtzemet [Heb. ‘The engineers strike is getting smaller and smaller’]. Davar, Feb. 13, 1956. Dr. Simha Lev, Ha’shevitah [Heb. ‘The strike’]. Davar, Feb. 15, 1956a. A. Haft, She’elot El P. Rozen [Heb. ‘Questions for P. Rosen’]. Davar, Feb. 15, 1956b. B. Cohen, Ha’tza’ah La’shovtim [Heb. ‘A proposition for strikers’]. Davar, Feb. 15, 1956c. Et Mi Ve’et Mah Me’shareter Ha’shevitah [Heb. ‘Who and what does the strike serve’]. Davar, Feb. 15, 1956d. Ha’minhaliyim Lo Yishvetu [Heb. ‘The executives will not strike’]. Davar, Feb. 15, 1956e. Rof’im Chav’ His’ Yashuvu La’avodah Eem Ha’shevitah Lo Tafsik As Yom Heh [Heb. ‘Histadrut physicians will resume work if the strike is not ended by Thursday’]. Davar, Feb. 16, 1956a. Kenes Artzi Shel Mehandesim [Heb. ‘A national engineers’ convention]. Davar, Feb. 16, 1956b. El Ha’mehandesim Ha’shovtim [Heb. ‘To striking engineers’]. Davar, Feb. 17, 1956a. El Tzibur Ha’mehandesim [Heb. ‘To the engineers’]. Davar, Feb. 17, 1956b. 1,400 Mehandesim Mamchischim Be’avodatam [Heb. ‘1,400 engineers continue their work’]. Davar, Feb. 21, 1956. Eshkol: Nekaveh She’im Tom Ha’shevitah Techudash Ha’ha’vanah Beyn Ha’tzedadim [Heb. ‘Eshkol: we hope that when the strike ends the two sides will come to an understanding’]. 1–2. Ha’aretz, June 9, 1955. Doch Beynayim Shel Va’adat Guri: Hamlatzot Klaliyot Toch Havtacha Le’hatzi’a Tikuney Sachar Be’od Chodsha’im [Heb. ‘Guri Committee interim

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report: general recommendation and a commitment to offer wage amendments in two months’]. Ha’aretz, June 14, 1955. Ha’rof’im Yaf’ilu Machar Me’chadash Et Ha’hitnagdut Ha’pasivit, Ha’academa’im Me’a’ymim Bishvitat Azhara [Heb. ‘The physicians will resume passive resistance as of tomorrow, white-collar workers threaten warning strike’]. 4. Ha’aretz, June 20, 1955. Be’yom Bet Haba Shevitat Azhara Shel Ovdei Medina Academayim [Heb.’ A warning strike of academic civil servants scheduled for next Monday]. 1. Ha’aretz, June 22, 1955. Hechela Ha’shevita Ba’oniversita [Heb. ‘The university strike has begun’]. 1. Ha’aretz, June 23, 1955. Sharett Meganeh Shevitat Ha’rof’im Ve’doresh Savlanut, Emdat Ha’Progresivim [Heb. ‘Sharett condones the physicians strike and demands patience: the Progressives’ position’]. 4. Ha’aretz, June 24, 1955. Ovdei Ha’medina Ha’minhaliyim Ve’ha’academiyim Yakimu Be’yom Bet Shevitat Azhara Shel 3 Sha’ot, Ha’Histadrut Asra Al Ha’pekidim Lishbot [Heb.’ Executive and academic civil servants will hold a warning strike of 3 hours on Monday, Histadrut forbade officials to strike]. 8. Ha’aretz, June 28, 1955. Ha’inteligentzi’a Ha’ovedet Hefginah Mecha’ata [Heb. ‘The working intelligentsia has displayed its protest’]. Ha’aretz, July 7, 1955. Huchlat Al Hafsakat Ha’shevitah Ba’oniversita [Heb. ‘It has been decided to stop the university strike’]. 1. Ha’aretz, July 19, 1955. Ha’academa’im Ki’ymu Etmol Shvitat Azhara Be’chol Ha’aretz [Heb. ‘White-collar workers held a nationwide warning strike yesterday’]. 1. Ha’aretz, Jan. 19, 1956. Beyn Ha’progresivim Le’beyn Mapai [Heb. ‘Between the Progressives and MAPAI’]. Me’yom Le’yom column. Ha’aretz, Jan. 27, 1956. Ha’rof’im Hechlitu Al Shevita Me-7 Be’Februar; Ben-Gurion Hezhir She’yaf’il Chukei Sha’at Cherum [Heb. ‘Physicians have decided to strike as of February 7; Ben-Gurion warned that he will instate emergency protocol’]. Ha’aretz, Jan. 29, 1956a. Ben-Gurion Lo Hezhir Et Ha’rof’im [Heb. ‘Ben-Gurion did not give the physicians a warning’]. Ha’aretz, Jan. 29, 1956b. Dr. Carl Meir, Maskoret Ha’rof’im [Heb. ‘Physicians’ wages’]. Ha’aretz, Jan. 29, 1956c. Beyn Ha’progresivim lebeyn Mapai [Heb. ‘Between the Progressives and MAPAI’]. Ha’aretz, Jan. 31, 1956. Sachar Ha’academayim [Heb. ‘White-collar workers’ wages’], a letter signed by 22 scholars of the exact sciences. Michtavim La’ma’arechet [Heb. ‘Letters to the editor’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 1, 1956. Ha’ovdim Ha’minhalyim Ve’ha’academim Hechlitu Al Shevitah Klalit Ve’retzufa Me-7 Be’Februar [Heb. ‘The executive and white-collar workers have decided to go on a comprehensive, consecutive strike as of February 7’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 2, 1956a. Ha’progresivim Hesh’hu Prishatam Me’hamemshala: Ha’tza’at Peshara Shel Ha’memshalah Ve’ha’Histadrut [Heb. ‘The Progressives have postponed

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withdrawing from the government: proposed compromise by the government and Histadrut’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 2, 1956b. Ha’tza’at Peshara Shel Ha’memshala La’academayim [Heb. ‘The government proposes compromise to the academics’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 3, 1956. Netzigei ‘Histadrut Ha’mehandesim’ Heskimu Le’peshara Al Ha’sachar [Heb. ‘The Engineers’ Association representatives have agreed to a compromise regarding wages’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 6, 1956a. Maduah Huchreza Shevitat Ha’rof’im [Heb. ‘Why have physicians declared strike’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 6, 1956b. Sachar Ha’poalim Ve’sachar Ha’academayim [Heb. ‘The workers’ wages and the white-collar workers’ wages’]. Michtavim La’ma’arechet [Heb. ‘Letters to the editor’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 6, 1956c. Al Hamemshala Limnoa Et Shvitat Hapekidut. [Heb. ‘The government must prevent the white-collar workers’ strike’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 7, 1956a. 8,000 Academayim Potchim Hayom Be’shevitah [Heb. ‘8,000 white-collar workers go on strike today’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 7, 1956b. Kenes Ha’mehandesim Ha’artzi Hechlit Al Shevitah: Ha’sarim Sirvu Le’kabel Et Netzig Ha’kenes [Heb. ‘The national engineers’ assembly has declared strike: ministers refused to see the convention representative’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 8, 1956a. Pinchas Rosen Hitpater Me’ha’memshala [Heb. ‘Pinchas Rosen has resigned from the government’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 8, 1956b. Hetchila Shevitat Ha’academayim [Heb. ‘The white-collar workers’ strike has begun’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 9, 1956a. Ma’halach Shevitat Ha’academayim [Heb. ‘The white-collar workers’ strike’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 9, 1956b. Ha’tza’at Peshara Shel Ha’memshala La’academayim [Heb. ‘The government’s proposed compromise to the white-collar workers’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 9, 1956c. Tesisa Bekerev Morey Batey Sefer Tichoniyim [Heb. ‘Agitation among high school teachers’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 10, 1956a. Hayom Shevitah Be’batey Sefer Tichumiyim Be’TA [Heb. ‘A strike today in Tel-Aviv high schools’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 10, 1956b. Ha’ovdim Ha’academayim Ve’ha’minhaliyim Ro’im Be’hatza’ata Shel Ha’memshala Basis Le’masa Umatan [Heb. ‘The white-collar and executive workers see the government’s proposal as basis for negotiation’]. Ha’aretz, Feb 10, 1956c. Poless, Tafkid Manhigey Ha’poalim [Heb. ‘The role of the workers’ leaders’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 12, 1956a. Morey Batey Ha’safar Ha’tichoniyim Mazhirim [Heb. ‘High school teachers send a warning’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 12, 1956b. Ha’Histadrut: Hesder La’poalim Bedomeh Le’hesder Im Ha’academayim [Heb. ‘The Histadrut: An agreement for common workers equivalent to that of white-collar workers’].

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273

Ha’aretz, Feb. 13, 1956. Ha’pekidim Ha’minhaliyim Yitztarfu Me’machar Le’shevitat Ha’academayim [Heb. ‘The executive clerks will join the white-collar strike as of tomorrow’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 14, 1956a. Eshkol: Ramat Ha’chayim Shelanu Gevohah Mizo She’ramat Hachnasateynu Ha’leumit Me’afsheret Lanu [Heb. ‘Our standard of living is beyond the capacity of our national income’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 14, 1956b. Ha’shevitah Nimshechet [Heb. ‘The strike continues’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 14, 1956c. Miyom Le’yom: Ben-Gurion Magen Al Emdat Ha’histadrut [Heb. ‘Day by day: Ben-Gurion defends the Histadrut’s position’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 14, 1956d. Rosen Menamek Et Hitpatruto Me’ha’memshala [Heb. ‘Rosen explains his resignation from the government’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 14, 1956e. Ben-Gurion Omed Al Hachlatat Ha’memshalah [Heb. ‘BenGurion stands by the government’s decision’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 15, 1956. Eyn Tezuza Le’chisul Ha’shevitah [Heb. ‘No progress toward ending the strike’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 16, 1956. Ha’minhaliyim: Ha’sichsuch Chusal [Heb. ‘The executives: the dispute has been dissolved’]. In: Ha’memshala Lo Tatziah Ha’tza’ot Chadashot Al Ha’sachar [Heb. ‘The government will not make new wage proposals’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 17, 1956a. Tekes Ra’avah Hamoni [Heb. ‘A mass demonstration’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 17, 1956b. Ma’avak Al Ma’a’mad Hevrati [Heb. ‘A struggle for social status’], Rai’ti Sha’mati Column. Ha’aretz, Feb. 17, 1956c. Shevitat Ha’academayim [Heb. ‘The white-collar workers’ strike’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 17, 1956d. Ha’academayim Bikshu Pegisha Eem Va’adat Ha’sarim Leshem Ha’gashat Ha’tzoteyhem Le’chisul Ha’shevitah [Heb. ‘The white-collar workers have requested to meet with the Ministerial Committee to present proposals for ending the strike’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 19, 1956a. Lo Husag Heskem Eem Ha’academaiyim [Heb. ‘Resolution has not been reached with white-collar workers’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 19, 1956b. Hayom Shevitah Be’batay Ha’sefer Ha’tichoniyim [Heb. ‘A strike in high schools today’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 20, 1956. Ha’shevitah Nifsekah [Heb. ‘The strike has ended’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 21, 1956a. Vikuach Eem Eshkol Al Nikuy Mas Hachnasah Mitosefet Ha’sachar La’ovdim Ha’academayim: Ha’shovtim Chazru La’avoda—Ha’mirpa’ot Me’leot—Ha’limodim Nitchadshu [Heb. ‘A confrontation with Eshkol over tax exemption for white-collar workers’ added wages: strikers have resumed work. Clinics are full. Schools are in session’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 21, 1956b. P. Sapir: Shevitah Politit [Heb. ‘P. Sapir: A political strike’]. Ha’aretz, Feb. 22, 1956. Heskem Sofi Al Ofen Tashlum Ha’a’la’at Ha’sachar Le’academayim [Heb. ‘A final agreement on white-collar workers’ pay raise’].

274

Reference List

Ha’aretz, Feb. 23, 1956. Ha’progresivim Hechlitu Lashuv El Ha’koalitzya [Heb. ‘The Progressives have decided to return to the coalition’]. Ha’boker, Jan. 18, 1949. Yosef Sapir, Tochniteynu Le’binyan Ha’medina [Heb. ‘Our plan for nation-building’]. Ha’boker, Feb. 27, 1951. Histadrut Ha’tzionim Ha’kla’liyim—Mifleget Ha’merkaz: Ha’tochnit Shelanu, Ekronot Le’mishtar Alternativi [Heb. ‘The General Zionists’ Association—The center party: our plan, principles for an alternative regime’]. Ha’boker, Feb. 7, 1956a. Ha’koalitzyia Dachta Hatza’a Le’kayem Diyun Al Sachar Ha’academayim [Heb. ‘The coalition has rejected proposal to discuss white-collar workers’ wages]. Ha’boker, Feb. 7, 1956b. Yitachen Ve’yuf’alu Takanot Cherum [Heb. ‘Emergency protocol might be instated’]. Ha’boker, Feb. 7, 1956c. Od Al Shevitat Ha’academayim [Heb. ‘More on the white-collar workers’ strike’]. Ha’boker, Feb. 10, 1956. Y. Rokach Koreh Le’mizug Ha’galu’yot [Heb. ‘Y. Rokach calls for integration of the exiles’]. Ha’boker, Feb. 19, 1956a. Y.G., Simu Ketz La’shevita! [Heb. ‘Put an end to the strike!’]. Ha’boker, Feb. 19, 1956b. Ha’masah Umatan Le’chisul Ha’shevitah Nechsal [Heb. ‘Negotiations to end the strike have failed’]. Ha’boker, Feb. 20, 1956. Chuslah Ha’shevitah Shel Ha’academayim [Heb. ‘The whitecollar workers’ strike has been stopped’]. Ha’boker, Feb. 21, 1956a. Ha’mediniyut Ha’kalkalit Shel Ha’memshala—Gorem Le’hachlasha Mesukenet Mibefnim [Heb. ‘The government’s financial policy—a cause for dangerous internal decline’]. Ha’boker, Feb. 21, 1956b. Ben-Gurion Hezmin Et Ha’progresivim [Heb. ‘Ben-Gurion has invited the Progressives’]. Ha’boker, Feb. 22, 1956. Y. Sapir Be’vikuach Al Ha’taktziv: Mishtar Ha’misim Ba’medina Mehaveh Sakana La’meshek Ve’lademokratya Be’Yisrael [Heb. ‘Y. Sapir in a budget debate: the State’s tax regime is a danger to Israel’s economy and democracy’]. Ha’boker, Feb. 23, 1956. Yesh Le’farek Ha’meshek Ha’Histadruti [Heb. ‘The Histadrut economy must be dissolved’]. Ha’boker, March 5, 1956. Ha’meshek Ha’Histadruti—Sakanah Le’meshek Ha’medina [Heb. ‘The Histadrut economy—a danger to State economy’]. Ha’oved Ha’tzioni, 7–8, May-June 1954. Dr. N. Kaplinski, Ha’rof’im Ke’bney Adam [Heb. ‘The physicians as human beings’]. 12–14. Ha’poel ha’tzair, April 17, 1951. Eliyahu Fredkin, Nimanah Mishegi’ot [Heb. ‘Let Us Abstain from Mistakes]. 24. Ha’poel Ha’tzair, Sept. 22, 1953. Shaul Kentzler, Degamim Lekalkala Sotz’yalistit [Heb. ‘Models for socialist economy’]. 9–10. Ha’poel Ha’tzair, Feb. 20, 1955. A. Ofer, Gevulot Ha’pa’ar [Heb. ‘The limits of the gap’]. 6–7.

Reference List

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Ha’poel Ha’tzair, July 12, 1955. Z. Carmi, Le’parashat Ha’sachar Ba’miktzo’ot Ha’academayim [Heb. ‘The affair of the white-collar professionals’ wages’]. 4. Ha’poel Ha’tzair, August 10, 1955. M. Gertzberg, Ba’ayat Ha’inteligentzia Ha’ovedet [Heb. ‘The problem of the working intelligentsia’]. 10. Ha’poel Ha’tzair, Sept. 1955. D. Blum, Le’beayat Ha’pa’ar [Heb. ‘On the “gap” problem’]. 8–9. Ha’poel Ha’tzair, Oct. 4, 1955. M. Bareli, Ha’zika Beyn Ha’intiligentzia Ve’tzibur Ha’poalim [Heb. ‘The link between the intelligentsia and the working public’]. 9. Ha’poel Ha’tzair, Nov. 8, 1955. S. Svorai, Ha’mashi’yach Ba’sha’ar Mi”Beterm” [Heb. ‘The preacher of Beterem’]. Ha’poel Ha’tzair, Dec. 6, 1955. S. Blass, Secharam Shel Ha’mehandesim [Heb. The engineers’ wages’]. 7–8. Ha’poel Ha’tzair, Dec. 29, 1955. Miut Ha’lochem Le’zechuyotav [Heb. ‘A minority fighting for its right’]. 7. Ha’poel Ha’tzair, Jan. 17, 1956. N. Ben-Nathan, Achrei Ha’hachra’a Ba’va’ad Ha’poel Shel Ha’Histadrut [Heb. ‘After the ruling of the Histadrut Center’]. 5. Herut, July 6, 1951. Tenuat Ha’cherut: Matza Peulot La’Knesset Ha’sheniya Le’hakamat Mishtar Chadash Be’Yisrael, 7. Aliyah, Kelitah, Gibush Ha’umah [Heb. ‘The Herut Movement: a second Knesset platform for establishing a new regime in Israel, 7. Aliyah, absorption, national unity’]. Section 3. Herut, Jan. 3, 1956. Nehagey Ha’moniyot Yashbitu Ha’tenuah Eem Lo Yufchetu Shiurei Ha’meches [Heb. ‘Cab drivers will obstruct transportation if customs tax is not reduced’]. Herut, Jan. 4, 1956a. Hakalat Ol Ha’misim—Tov’im Ba’alei Ha’melacha Ve’ha’ta’asiya Ha’zeira [Heb. ‘Tax relief—the artisans and small-scale craftsmen and manufactures demand’]. Herut, Jan. 4, 1956b. Be’mecha’ah Al Mediniyut Ha’misim Shel Ha’koalitzia Ha’ironit: Sochrei Tverya Yisgeru Hayom Et Eeskeyhem Le’shalosh Shaot [Heb. ‘In protest of the municipal coalition’s tax policies: Tiberias merchants will shut-down businesses for three hours today’]. Herut, Jan. 21, 1956a. Ba’aley Ha’melacha Mitkomemim [Heb. ‘The artisans revolt’]. Herut, Jan. 21, 1956b. Irguney Ha’of’im Metziyim: Limsor Le’misradey Mas Hachnasah Et Hanhalat Ha’ma’afiyot [Heb. ‘The bakers’ associations suggest handing bakeries’ management over to tax authorities’]. Herut, Feb. 7, 1956. Eliezer Shostack, Shevitat Tzedek Ve’ones [Heb. ‘A strike of justice and necessity’]. Herut, Feb. 8, 1956. Ha’shevitah—Mered Neged Ha’mishtar [Heb. ‘The strike—a rebellion against the regime’]. Herut, Feb. 9, 1956a. Ba’shalav Ha’a’charon [Heb. ‘During the final phase’].

276

Reference List

Herut, Feb. 9, 1956b. Avraham Axelrod, Ha’opotropsim Shel Ha’inteligentziah Ha’ovedet [Heb. ‘The guardians of the working intelligentsia’]. Herut, Feb. 10, 1956a. Be’aley Ha’malacha Be’anaf Ha’benya Omdim Le’hachriz Shevita Klalit [Heb. ‘Construction workers intend to announce a general strike’]. Herut, Feb. 10, 1956b. Derisha Lisgor Et Kol Chanuyot Ha’mazon Be’mecha’ah Al Netel Ha’misim [Heb. ‘A demand to shut-down all grocery stores in protest of taxation’]. Herut, Feb. 10, 1956c. Shilton Al Ha’chomer Ve’ha’nefesh [Heb. ‘Rule over matter and spirit’]. Herut, Feb. 13, 1956. Dogmatiyut Sotzialistit Be’ochrey Ha’inteligentziah [Heb. ‘Socialist dogmatism to the detriment of the intelligentsia’]. La’merhav, Feb. 8, 1956. Editorial. La’merhav, Feb. 21, 1956. Editorial. Ma’ariv, Sept. 14, 1949. Mishmarot Poalei Ha’afiya Heshbitu Ha’avoda Be’ma’afiyot [Heb. ‘Groups of baking industry workers have halted operations in bakeries’]. 1. Ma’ariv, Sept. 15, 1949. Shevitat Poalei Ha’afiya Hitpashtah Gam Le’Gush Dan [Heb. ‘The baking industry workers’ strike has spread to Gush Dan’]. front-page. Ma’ariv, Sept. 16, 1949. Ha’tzava Yeshatef Peulah Le’aspakat Ha’lechem [Heb. ‘The army will assist with bread distribution’]. front-page. Ma’ariv, Sept. 17, 1949. Poalei Ha’afiya Nasogo, Lo Nechshalo [Heb. ‘Baking industry workers have retreated, not failed’]. 2. Ma’ariv, August 9, 1955a. Rofei Ha’medina Me’aymim Be’hitpatrut Ke’mecha’ah Al Doch Va’adat Guri—Ha’ovdim Ha’minhaliyim Notim Le’kabel Et Maskanot Ha’va’adah [Heb. ‘State physicians threaten to resign as protest against the Guri Committee report—executives leaning toward accepting the conclusions’]. Ma’ariv, August 9, 1955b. Me’at Midai Ve’meuchar Midai—Zo Teguvat Ovdei Ha’medina Al Ha’hamlatzot Shel Va’adat Guri: ‘Anu Mekavim She’eyn Zo Ha’milah Ha’acharona’ Hem Omrim [Heb. ‘“Too little too late”—the civil servants response to the Guri Committee recommendations—“we hope this is not the final word,” they say’]. Ma’ariv, August 17, 1955. Ha’rof’im Hechlitu Le’chakot Shevuayim [Heb. ‘The physicians have decided to wait two weeks’]. Ma’ariv, August 22, 1955. Tovi’m Ha’sachar Ha’chadash Hachel Me’April [Heb. ‘Demands for new wages starting in April’]. Ma’ariv, Nov. 26, 1956. Eshkol Matziah Le’hakpi Achuzei Ha’sachar Ad April [Heb. ‘Eshkol proposes freezing wages until April’]. 1. Ma’ariv, May 9, 1957. Almogi: Nishbot Be’atta Ad Ha’sof [Heb. ‘Almogi: we will strike at “Atta” until the end’]. 1. Ma’ariv, May 10, 1957. 1680 Poalei “Atta” Potchim Hayom Be’shevitah [Heb. ‘1,680 “Atta” workers launch a strike today’]. 1. Ma’ariv, May 12, 1957. Sichsuch Al Sachar April Machrif Et Ha’shevitah Be’ “Atta” [Heb. ‘“Atta” strike escalates due to conflict over April wages’]. 1.

Reference List

277

Ma’ariv, May 13, 1957. ‘Le’moler Hutar Le’hikanes Le’ “Atta” [Heb. ‘Moller was permitted to enter “Atta”’]. 2. Ma’ariv, June 16, 1957. Ha’Histadrut Dana Be’Siruv “Atta” Lekabel Maskanot Misrad Ha’avoda [Heb. ‘The Histadrut discusses “Atta’s” refusal to accept Labor Ministry decisions’]. 1. Michtav Lechaver (biweekly IMA organ). Dec. 1, 1954. Ha’memshala Mita’lemet Me’ha’metziut [Heb. ‘The government ignores reality’]. Front-page. Molad, June 1951. Tet (9) 50. Natan Rotenstreich, Al Ofek Hazman Be’Chayenu [Heb. ‘On the horizon of our life time’]. 63–67. Molad, Oct.-Nov. 1951. Het (8) 43. Natan Rotenstreich, Ha’tzvat Ha’rishona [Heb. ‘The first link’]. In: Natan Rotenstreich, Al Ha’temura: Prakim Be’she’elot Ha’am Ve’Ha’medina [Heb. ‘On the change: chapters on matters of nation and state’]. TelAviv: Am Oved, 1952. 162–169. Molad, May 1955. Yod Gimel (13) 81. H. Berger, Totzot Ha’bechirot La’histadrut [Heb. ‘Histadrut election results’’]. 129–133. Molad, June 1955a. Yod Gimel (13) 83. H. Berger, Yeter Tenufah O’yeter Shivayon: Ha’pituach Ke’be’ayat Goral [Heb. ‘Greater momentum or greater dissolution: development as a crucial problem’]. 208–210. Molad, June 1955b. Yod Gimel (13) 83. David Ben-Gurion, Mah Le’faneynu [Heb. ‘What lies ahead of us’]. 204. Molad, July 1955a. Yod Gimel (13) 84. H. Berger, Ma’azan Ha’bechirot [Heb. ‘The election balance’]. 259–261. Molad, July 1955b. Yod Gimel (13) 84. A. Raanan, Iyun Be’totzaot Ha’bechirot [Heb. ‘Analysis of the election results’]. 247–262.

Archives

Ben-Gurion Archives—BGA

BGA. Oct. 11, 1949. Item 235118. April 1950. Meeting Protocols. Divrei Sofrim [commentary]: Second meeting summoned by the Prime Minister on October 11, 1949. Ha’kirya. pp. 6, 7, 8. BGA. July 30, 1955. Ben-Gurion Diary. BGA. Sept. 20, 1955. Ben-Gurion Diary. BGA. Nov. 6, 1955. Ben-Gurion Diary. BGA. Dec. 13, 1955. Ben-Gurion Diary. BGA. Jan. 16, 1956. Correspondence. Letter by David Ben-Gurion to Z. [Zalman] Avigdori, Jerusalem. BGA. Feb. 12, 1956a. Correspondence. A letter by the Israeli Medical Association to Prime Minister Ben-Gurion.

278

Reference List

BGA. Feb. 12, 1956b. Correspondence. A letter by Prime Minister Ben-Gurion to Israeli Medical Association Chairman Dr. Z. Avigdori.



Labor Movement Archive—LMA

LMA. June 18, 1950. Folder 32-1950-21-2. MAPAI Coordination Committee. LMA. 1954–1955. Folder IV-250-36-1-2328. Division: Moetzet Poalei Yerushalayim. LMA. Jan. 20, 1954. Folder IV-250-36-1-2328. Va’adat Ha’tifkud ve’ha’dirug Protocol. LMA. March 18, 1954. IV 208. Container 1347. ‘Aharon Becker to IMA Regarding Physicians’ Wages.’ LMA. March 29, 1954. IV 208. Container 1347. Israeli Medical Association (IMA), ‘Decisions of the State Physicians Association.’ LMA. May 16, 1954. no. 22/54. Haskin, Y. Protocol of the Histadrut Steering Committee. pp. 2, 3–4, 14, 19, 27. LMA. May 20, 1954. IV 208. Container 1347. Letter by H. Yaffe of the Histadrut Small Council to kupat Holim physicians on Histadrut trial. LMA. May 26, 1954. no. 27/54. Histadrut Steering Committee Protocol. ‘On the agenda: the physicians case.’ LMA May 31, 1954. no. 27/54. Histadrut Steering Committee Protocol. ‘On the agenda: the physicians’ case.’ p. 5. LMA. June 9, 1954. IV 208. Container 1347. Letter by Mordechai Namir to IMA. LMA. June 14, 1954. IV 208. Container 1347. Letter by Prime Minister Moshe Sharett to IMA Chairman Z. Avigdori. LMA. June 29, 1954. IV 208. Container 1347. Letter by Aharon Becker to MK A. Govrin. LMA. Nov. 12, 1954. IV 208. Container 1347. Letter by IMA Secretary General Dr. A. Druyan to Health Minister Y. Serlin. LMA, Nov. 28, 1954. IV-250-36-1-2328. Division: Moetzet Poalei Yerushalayim 1954–1955. Prime Minister Moshe Sharett letter to M. Bar’am of Moetzet Poalei Yerushalayim. LMA. Dec. 1, 1954. IV 208. Container 1347. Letter by IMA Chairman Dr. Z. Avigdori to Prime Minister Moshe Sharett. LMA. Dec. 2, 1954. IV 208. Container 1347. Letter by IMA Chairman Dr. Z. Avigdori to government ministers. LMA. Dec. 12, 1954. IV 208. Container 1347. Letter by Dr. P. Noah to Aharon Becker. LMA. Dec. 20, 1954. Folder IV-250-36-1-2328. Va’adat Ha’tifkud Ve’hadirug Protocol. LMA. Dec. 27, 1954. Folder IV-250-36-1-2328. Va’adat Ha’tifkud Ve’hadirug Protocol. LMA. Jan. 20, 1955. IV 208. Container 1347. An invitation from A. Druyan to the Engineers Association for a meeting of the white-collar workers’ coordination committee. Similar letter Feb. 14, 1955. LMA. Jan. 21, 1955. File 2-932-1955-109. LMA. Jan. 25, 1955. IV 208. Container 1347. Aharon Becker to the Central Committee of the Israeli Engineers and Architects’ Association.

Reference List

279

LMA. Jan. 30, 1955. IV 208. Container 1347. IMA Secretary General Dr. A. Druyan to the Jurists’ Association’ (erased) ‘to Namir, for your information’ (added in handwriting). LMA. Feb. 3, 1955. Folder IV-250-36-1-2328. Va’adat Ha’tifkud Ve’hadirug Protocol. LMA. Feb. 10, 1955. Folder IV-250-36-1-2328. Va’adat Ha’tifkud Ve’hadirug Protocol. LMA. March 30, 1955. IV 208. Container 1347. ‘Announcement of the National Committee of the State Physicians Association: A one-day strike on 12 April 1954 and how to prepare for it.’ Signed by P. Noah, Chairman of the National Committee. LMA. April 5, 1955. Folder IV-250-36-1-2328. Va’adat Ha’tifkud Ve’hadirug Protocol. LMA. May 8, 1955. IV 208. Container 1347. Dr. P. Noah to ‘physicians in civil service, members of the government, and physicians’ associations.’ LMA. May 12, 1955. Folder IV-250-36-1-2328. Va’adat Ha’tifkud Ve’hadirug Protocol. LMA. June 8, 1955. IV 208. Container 1347. ‘Instructions for passive resistance, annex to a circular.’ LMA. June 16, 1955. IV 208. Container 1347. Letter by IMA Chairman Dr. Z. Avigdori to Prime Minister Moshe Sharett. LMA. Nov. 20, 1955. Steering Committee. LMA. Nov. 29, 1955. Steering Committee. Hemshech Ha’birur Be’inyanei Ha’a’la’at Sachar Be’rashuto Shel Sar Ha’otzar Levi Eshkol Ve’behishtatfut Rosh Ha’memshala Ve’sar Ha’bitachon David Ben-Gurion, Sarei Memshala Havrei Ha’Histadrut, Havrei Ha’va’ada Ha’merakezet Shel Ha’Histadrut Ve’muzmanim [Heb. ‘Continued discussion on wage increases led by Finance Minister Levi Eshkol, attended by Prime Minister and Defense Minister David Ben-Gurion, government ministers in the Histadrut, members of the Histadrut small council, and invited guests’]. LMA. Dec. 23, 1955. Histadrut Steering Committee. LMA. Jan. 12, 1956. Histadrut Steering Committee. LMA. Jan. 23, 1956. File 2-402-1956-62. LMA. Feb. 3, 1956. Histadrut Steering Committee. LMA. Feb. 6, 1956. Histadrut Steering Committee. LMA. Feb. 8, 1956. Histadrut Steering Committee.



Labor Party Archive—LPA

LPA. No date. File 2-932-1951-59b. Ben Yoseph, ‘The Popular Organization of Merchants in Israel—the Center,’ proposed program outline. LPA. Sept. 2, 1947. File 2-23-1947-48. MAPAI Center. Section 2. LPA. Dec. 19, 1947. File 2-21-1950-31. Constitution and election committee for the seventh party congress. LPA. Dec. 5, 1949. File 2-21-1950-31. Constitution and election committee for the seventh party congress. LPA. Jan. 5, 1950. File 2-21-1950-31. Constitution and election committee for the seventh party congress.

280

Reference List

LPA. June 18, 1950. File 2-21-1950-32. ‘A discussion of the MAPAI coordination committee.’ LPA. July 23, 1950. File 2-21-1950-32. MAPAI Coordination Committee. LPA. Feb. 16, 1951. File 2-932-1953-62. Letter from the Merchants Association in Israel to members of the Association. LPA. Feb. 17, 1951. File 2-15-1951-44. ‘The conference for party renewal, Ha’Kfar Ha’Yarok.’ Session 2. LPA. March 1951. File 2-22-1951-82. MAPAI Council. LPA. Jan. 20, 1955a. File 2-23-1955-45. pp. 7–8. LPA. Jan. 20, 1955b. File 2-23-1955-65. Levi Eshkol, MAPAI Center Meeting. LPA. Feb. 1, 1955. File 2-401-1955-84. Letter by S. Mintzberg to Mordechai Namir. LPA. Feb. 6, 1955. File 2-401-1955-84. Letter by Aharon Becker to MAPAI Secretariat. LPA. April 30, 1955. File 2-14-1955-16. ‘Symposium: The Intellectual Workers in the State and the Labor Movement.’ pp. 10, 22, 63, 68, 69, 71. LPA. July 9, 1955. File 2-14-1955-17. Symposium on: ‘The Intellectual Worker—Their Struggle for Security and Economic Independence.’ pp. 2, 11, 18, 21, 31, 35, 38, 46, 49. LPA. July 21, 1955. File 2-015-1955. Symposium of Intelligentsia in Jerusalem with David Ben-Gurion. pp. 12, 14–15, 17.



Israel State Archive—SA

SA. Jan. 20, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. Jan. 30, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. Feb. 12, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. April 14, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. May 9, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. June 12, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. June 14, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. June 19, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. June 26, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. July 3, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. July 17, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. August 11, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. August 14, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. August 21, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. August 28, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. Sept. 1, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. Sept. 11, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. Sept. 19, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. Oct. 3, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. Nov. 8, 1955. Government Meeting.

Reference List

281

SA. Nov. 27, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. Nov. 29, 1955. Government Meeting. SA. Jan. 1, 1956. Government Meeting. SA. Jan. 15, 1956. Government Meeting. SA. Feb. 5, 1956. Government Meeting. SA. Feb. 6, 1956. Government Meeting. SA. Feb. 8, 1956. Government Meeting. SA. Feb. 12, 1956. Government Meeting. SA. Feb. 15, 1956. Government Meeting. SA. Feb. 19, 1956. Government Meeting. SA. Feb. 22, 1956. Government Meeting. SA. Feb. 26, 1956. Government Meeting. Jabotinsky Institute Archives. Jan. 27, 1956, 4/2-1. Internal discussions: ‘Herut’ Center. Massuah Archives. March 10, 1955. AR-14-010-06. 10 6 Mem. The Progressive Party steering committee with Ha’oved Ha’tzioni. Massuah Archives. Jan. 25, 1956. AR-M-009-06. File 6. Container 9. Section Mem. Yad Tabenkin Archives. Jan. 25, 1956. 10-11/4/5. Ha’moatzah Ha’shishit Shel Mifleget Achdut Ha’avoda Poalei Tzion [Heb. ‘The sixth council of the Achdut Ha’avoda Poalei Zion party’].



Yad Ya’ari MAPAM Archives—YY

YY. Jan. 8, 1956 (6) 62.90. YY. Jan. 18, 1956 (6) 62.90. YY. Jan. 6, 1956. 90 Kaf. bin 6, file 5

Index Abeles, W. 75n1, 79, 185 Abramov 79 Abramov, Schneur Zalman 75n1, 79n3, 86, 123 ‘Absorbed’ VIII, 7, 9, 31, 35 ‘Absorbers’ VIII, 6–7, 9, 17, 19–21, 31, 33, 35–36, 234, 248 Achad Ha’am IX Achdut Ha’avoda 8, 24n21, 25, 44n5, 129, 150, 155, 155n6, 156, 156n7, 157n9, 158, 160–161, 163–164, 167–168n13, 170, 172–174, 178–180, 184, 187, 192, 195–196, 198, 217, 221, 224, 226, 232, 241 Al Ha’mishmer 23, 126–129, 141, 185–186, 191n4, 242 Almogi, Yosef 10, 135, 141n21, 156n7 Alon, Yig’al 129, 161, 241 Alpert, Uri 147n28 Alterman, Natan 19 Amir, Shmuel 21, 35 Aran, Zalman 108, 111, 114–116, 144n24, 147n28, 155, 167, 172, 176, 182, 186, 194, 216 Arieli, Yehoshua 148n30 Arnon, Ya’akov 156n7 ‘Ars-Poetica’ group 247–248 Ashkenazi Jews VII–XII, 2, 2n4, 3–9, 11–12, 12n15, 14–15, 17, 19–26, 25n24, 31–36, 51–53, 55–56, 60, 62–63, 66, 70, 73–74, 97, 99, 115, 120, 123–124, 124n5, 126, 129–130, 134, 139, 143, 148, 171–172, 189–190, 206, 209–210, 217, 229–237, 242n6, 243–245, 247–249 Assaf, Ami 141 ATA 236 ATTA strike (1957) 10 Austerity policy 3, 5, 7, 18, 29, 33–34, 55, 132, 154, 206, 233 Avigdori, Zalman 40, 42, 50, 101, 191, 200, 228 Avneri, Uri 14–15 Axelrod, Avraham 217–218 Bachi, Roberto 102, 109, 177 Bahir, Arye 141 Bank Ha’poalim 132n12, 218, 238–239

Bank of America 154 Bank of Israel 93, 110, 128, 128n7, 137–138, 138n16, 151, 153–154, 156, 158, 162, 164, 168, 168n13, 188, 204 Bar’am, Moshe 75n1 Bareli, Avi 1n1, 3n7, 5, 6, 12n15, 18, 27, 33, 53, 53n1, 54n4, 54n5, 55n7, 56, 58n12, 63n17, 67, 123, 132n12, 135n14, 147n27, 147n28, 148n30, 203n15, 240, 241n5 Barkat, Reuven 155n6 Bar-Niv, Zvi 84 Bar-Or, Ya’acov 227 Bar-Yehuda, Yisrael 155, 163, 167, 167n13, 172, 179, 184 Barzilai, Yisarel 155, 172, 177, 181–183, 185–186, 188, 228, 232 Bash, Rafael 41, 121n2, 156n7, 167n13 Bavli, A. 75n1 Becker, Aharon 38, 42–45, 56, 70, 87–88, 112, 123n4, 125, 127, 149, 155n6, 157, 163–165, 168–170, 179, 191, 216, 226, 228 Begin, Menachem 129, 212n22, 215, 218–220, 233, 240n4 Bejerano, Shim’on 213–214 Ben-Aharon, Yitzhak 161, 167n13, 170, 241–242 Ben-Gurion, David 3, 3n7, 13–14, 16, 16n18, 18–19, 21–24, 24n21, 25, 25n24, 26–29, 37, 51, 56, 58, 71–72, 91, 95, 99–100, 109, 112, 118–119, 121n2, 122–123, 125–128, 128n8, 129, 129n9, 130, 132–134, 137–138, 140–141, 147n28, 148–150, 150n1, 151–152, 154–155, 161, 165–166, 170–175, 175n14, 176–177, 179–180, 182–187, 190–191, 191n4, 192, 194–195, 197n12, 200, 202, 204, 206–207, 211, 214, 216, 218, 221–223, 226, 230, 232, 235–236 Bentov, Mordechai 154, 155n4, 157–158, 166–167, 169, 172, 182–185, 187–188, 232 Ben-Zvi, Yitzhak 145 Berger, Herzl 124 Bernstein, Devorah 32–33, 62 Bernstein, Peretz 97, 100, 118, 212 Beterem 121, 121n3, 123 BILU ix 

283

Index Bitan, Moshe 135–136 Biton Committee 247, 249 Black Panthers movement 248 Blue-collar workers 103, 204, 213 B’nai Moshe IX Brinker, Menachem 16, 148n30 Buber, Martin 13, 13n17, 14–15 Bund X Burg, Yosef 105, 114–115, 119, 166–167 Canaanite Approach 14–15 Carmel, Moshe 155n5, 158–160, 166n12, 172, 226 Carmi, Shulamit 29, 139n19, 190 Carmi, Z. 124, 168 Civil Servants’ Association 77–79, 90, 99, 106, 110, 112, 115–116 Cohen, A. 156n7 Cohen, B. 200 Cohen, Uri 2n6, 5–6, 16, 18, 27, 29, 31, 58n13, 61n16, 63n17, 65, 139n19, 148n30, 190, 245 Construction Workers’ Association 164 Dahan, Momi 244–246 Davar X, XI, 19, 39–41, 43–44, 50, 88, 117, 121, 124, 126–128, 130, 130n10, 132–137, 139–144, 144n24, 145–147, 166, 180, 188, 191n4, 192n5, 193–196, 198–201, 208–209, 214, 217, 220–221, 225–227, 241–242, 244 Dayan, Moshe 236 Dinur, Ben-Zion 13, 13n16, 13n17, 56, 72, 106, 108, 118 Dori, Yaacov 226, 226n28, 227 Dornait, Haya 156 Druyan, A. 80n4, 82, 181, 185, 222, 228 Egyptian-Czech arms deal 122, 128–129, 133, 137, 148, 151, 164, 175, 177, 191, 228 Eilam, Y. 156 Eilon, Amos 202, 204 Eisenstadt, Shmuel Noah 6, 31, 55 Electrical Company’s National Workers’ Secretariat 196 Engineers’ Association 145, 194, 196, 226 Erem, Moshe 224 Eretz Yisrael VIII–IX, 14, 24, 24n23, 67, 139, 176

Eshkol, Levi 26, 36, 39, 71, 90–91, 93, 96, 98, 103, 105–119, 127–128, 132, 137–138, 141n21, 145, 147n28, 149–153, 155, 155n3, 156–159, 160–164–167, 167n13, 168–170, 172–188, 192, 197–198, 200, 204, 208n19, 212, 226, 226n27, 228, 228n30, 235–240 Farmers’ Association 22, 206 Fleisher, Dr. 80n4, 82–83, 181 Forder, Yesha’ayahu 50 GAHAL party 212, 212n22, 236, 236n1 Galili, Yisrael 161 Garjebin, R. 181, 228 General Zionists 7–8, 16, 20–22, 26, 33, 44n5, 71, 75n1, 78, 86, 90, 92, 94, 96–98, 100, 105, 116, 118, 123, 150, 154–155, 180, 184, 189–190, 190n3, 193, 193n6, 198, 205–206, 206n17, 206n18, 207–209, 209n20, 210–211, 212n22, 213–215, 217–218, 222–224, 229–233, 236 Gilat, Aharon 37, 70, 75n1 Gilboa, Moshe 168 Glass, M. 228 Gluckmannn (Gillon), Colin 84 Go’elman, Y. 168n13 Goitein, Shlomo Dov 56, 72 Goldstein, M. 227 Gordon, Aharon David 71, 160 Gorny, Uriel 84 Gotthelf, Yehuda 19 Govrin, Akiva 121n2, 135, 141n21, 161n10, 167n13 Govrin Committee 76–78, 96, 135 Granot 185 Grinberg, Lev 7, 237 Gross, Shlomo 203–205 Guri, Yisrael 37n1, 49, 75, 75n1, 75n2, 76–78, 89, 96, 109 Guri Committee 49–50, 70–71, 75, 75n1, 77–78, 83–89, 89n5, 90–91, 93–103, 130n8, 104–107, 109–117, 119, 122–126, 138, 141–143, 150–152, 156–158, 160, 161n10, 163, 165–169, 172–181, 183, 185, 187–188, 190–192, 195, 198, 212, 222, 224 Gutwein, Daniel 3n7, 5, 13n17, 16n18, 58n12, 63n17, 67, 123, 132n12, 241–242

284 Ha’aretz  11, 11n14, 20, 49–50, 140n20, 145–146, 192–194, 194n8, 195, 195n9, 196–199, 199n13, 200, 200n14, 201–205, 211, 221–225, 226n27, 227–228, 228n31 Ha’boker 20, 193, 206n17, 207–214, 228 Ha’cohen, Devorah 5, 22, 31, 123, 130n10, 209n20 Ha’kibbutz Ha’artzi 24n21, 24n23, 150, 155, 155n6, 192, 232 Ha’kibbutz Ha’meuchad 24, 24n21, 150, 155, 155n6, 156n7, 160, 167n13, 192 Ha’olam Hazeh 14 Ha’oved Ha’tzioni 136, 150, 155n6, 156, 163, 167n13, 169, 180, 185, 187, 190n3 Ha’poel Ha’mizrachi 75, 92, 105, 114, 119, 141, 150, 161n10, 166, 166n12, 167–168n13, 178–180, 182, 185, 188, 192, 198, 200, 228 Ha’poel Ha’tzair (journal) 54n3, 121, 124, 124n6, 125 Ha’shomer Ha’tzair 24, 24n21, 25, 150, 192 Ha’va’ad Ha’poel 40, 42, 62, 92, 121n2, 122, 126–128, 132, 134, 139, 141–142, 145, 156, 156n7, 156n8, 161n10, 163–164, 169, 172–174, 182, 195–196 Hadassah Hospital 1, 11n14, 38–39, 78, 82–83, 99, 144, 181 Hadassah Women’s Zionist Organization of America 38, 75, 87 Haft, Avraham 200 Haifa Workers Council 10, 135, 156n7, 194 Halevi Frenkel, Avraham 211 Halpern, Yechiel X–XI Hanoch, Giora 231 Harari, Yizhar 50 Har’el, Ben-Zion 208 Hazani, Michael 75n1, 161n10, 167n13 Haskin, Yitzhak 40–41, 155n6, 186 Haykal, Muhammad Hasnin 129n9 Hazan, Ya’akov 112, 155, 158–162, 169, 232 Hebrew University of Jerusalem 5n11, 13, 13n16, 16, 18, 36, 38, 50, 56, 65, 71–72, 83, 87–88, 99, 139, 178, 187, 193, 195n9, 199, 211, 226–228 Helfman Dr. 69 Herut (newspaper) 20, 193, 206n18, 215, 216–217, 220

Index Herut (party) 8, 22, 26, 123–124, 129, 155, 159, 180, 184, 189, 190n3, 191, 193, 198–199, 208, 212n22, 215, 215n24, 216–219, 222–224, 229, 231, 233, 236 Herzl, Theodor VIII, IX, 3n7 Hess, Moses IX Histadrut 1, 1n1, 2n2, 3–5, 7, 10, 19–22, 26–28, 28n26, 29, 32–39, 39n3, 40, 40n4, 41–45, 47–48, 50–51, 53, 55, 55n8, 56–57, 61–71, 73–75, 75n1, 75n2, 79, 82, 87–88, 90, 92, 94, 99–101, 106, 109–110, 112–114, 115–116, 118–121, 121n2, 122–123, 123n4, 125–128, 131–132, 132n12, 133, 133n13, 134–135, 135n14, 135n15, 136–143, 143n23, 144–145, 145n25, 146, 146n26, 147, 147n29, 148–149, 151, 153, 155, 155n6, 156, 156n7, 157, 157n9, 161, 161n10, 163, 163n11, 164–166, 166n12, 167–168, 168n13, 169–170, 172–184, 186–190, 190n2, 191–196, 199–205, 207–209, 211–214, 214n23, 215–216, 216n26, 217–228, 230–232, 236–239 Histadrut Congress 21, 44, 55, 66 Histadrut Physicians Association’s Council  196 Hoffien, Eliezer 93 Holocaust 15, 23, 63, 229 Horin, Yehuda 143, 143n23 Horowitz, Dan 6, 15–17, 19, 55n8, 131n11, 148, 148n30, 232–233 Horowitz, David 128n7, 137–138, 138n16, 151, 153–154, 156–157, 159, 190n2, 204, 238–239 Ichud Ha’kvutzot Ve’hakibbutzim 24, 24n22, 155n3 Idelson, Beba 141 IDF 102, 122, 129n9, 170–171, 226 Immigration VII–X, 3–9, 11–12, 12n15, 13–18, 20–24, 26–28, 31–35, 38, 53, 55–56, 62–64, 67–70, 72, 78, 82, 99, 108, 116, 123–124, 124n5, 126–127, 128n7, 129–130, 130n10, 132, 134–135, 137–144, 147–150, 150n1, 153–154, 157, 159–162, 164, 170–172, 174, 189–190, 192, 198–199, 203–206, 213, 219, 229–234, 239, 243, 245, 249 From European countries VII, X, XII, 21, 34–35, 54n5, 124n5, 134, 231

Index From Muslim countries VII, X–XII, 2, 2n4, 3, 5, 7–9, 12–15, 17–18, 20–22, 24–25, 25n24, 26, 31–35, 38, 41, 51–52, 56, 62–63, 65–66, 70, 73–74, 97, 111, 111n10, 120, 123, 124n5, 128–130, 134, 142n22, 147, 148n30, 150n1, 151–152, 172, 179, 209–210, 217, 229–231, 233, 235, 237, 244–245, 248 Industrialists’ Association 28, 88, 174, 206, 213 Industrial Workers’ Association 125, 127, 133, 168n13, 169, 173 Intellectuals 15–19, 23, 58, 61, 66, 70, 78, 83, 125, 148n30, 204–205, 237, 244, 246, 248 Israeli Medical Association (IMA) 28n26, 36, 39, 39n3, 40–43, 45, 47–50, 69, 80n4, 82, 98, 101, 117–118, 140, 144–146, 181–182, 185, 187, 191, 194–195, 200, 218, 220–222, 225–226, 228 Jabotinsky, Ze’ev 219, 223 Jewish Agency IX, 75, 87, 130n10, 142, 143n23, 161, 164, 177, 199, 208, 210 Jewish Agency Workers’ Council 199 Jewish National Council, see: Knesset Yisrael Jewish National Fund 75, 87 Kabalo, Paula 5, 26 Kaplan, Eliezer 128n7, 138, 138n16 Kaplan, G. 228 Kastner Affair 100, 193n6 Katchalsky (Katzir), Aharon 56, 58–64, 73–74 Katzenelson, Berl 160 Kazantzei, Yehoshua 147 Keren Ha’yesod 87 Kesse, Yona 121, 156, 159, 167n13 Kimmerling, Baruch 6–7, 33 Klal Yisrael VII–XI, 243, 248 Knesset Yisrael IX, 22, 25, 33, 37, 37n1, 40, 44, 49–51, 55, 62, 67, 69–71, 74–75, 75n1, 84, 88, 90–91, 100, 112, 121n2, 122n3, 123, 126, 128n7, 129, 135, 138n18, 142, 145, 151, 175, 181, 185, 192, 197, 197n11, 198, 206, 208–210, 212–213, 215–216, 221–224, 232 Kol, Moshe 167n13, 169, 185 Korngold, 69

285 Krampf, Arie 138n17, 239 Kremer, Yaacov 146 Kupat Holim 36, 38–39, 39n3, 40–43, 48, 80n4, 81–82, 92, 101, 104, 118, 144, 144n24, 145–146, 147n29, 179, 181, 186, 191, 193, 202, 205, 220, 225 Kupat Holim Physicians’ Association 39n3, 144, 186 Kur’s Workers’ Association 199 Labor movement IX, X, 1n2, 11, 15–16, 16n18, 17–19, 23, 23n20, 27, 32, 37, 57, 61, 63, 112, 140, 148n30, 150, 156, 161–162, 165, 167, 187, 193, 213, 218, 232, 235–237 Lamdan, Hannah 75, 156 Lavon, Pinchas 93, 123n4, 141, 141n21, 142, 147n28, 149, 149n31 Lavon committee 141, 141n21, 142 Left Front 44n5 Leon, Nissim 27, 245–246, 248 Lerner, Abba Ptachya 156, 162, 168n13, 169, 239 Leumi Bank 93 Levant XI, 20 Likkud Party 212n22, 235–237, 237n2, 243, 245 Linn, Baruch 155n6, 169, 187 Lissak, Moshe 2n4, 6, 10, 16, 29, 31, 52, 55n8, 58n13, 62, 131n11, 148, 194n7, 232–234 Livneh (Liebenstein), Eliezer 122n3 Luz, Kadish 155n3, 162 MAFDAL, see: National Religious party MAKI (the communist party) 10, 44, 155, 192, 197, 197n11, 198, 223, 229 Mamlachti’yut, see also: Republicanism 3, 3n7, 86, 166n12, 196, 207, 213–215, 223 Mann, Dr. 1, 83 MAPAI X–XII, 1, 1n1, 2–5, 5n12, 6–10, 12, 12n15, 16–23, 23n20, 24, 24n22, 25–29, 31–37, 37n1, 39, 41, 43–44, 44n5, 46, 49–53, 53n1, 54, 54n3–5, 55–58, 61–64, 66–68, 68n19, 69–75, 75n1, 89–90, 94–95, 97, 100, 105–109, 113–114, 118–120, 120n1, 121, 121n2, 121–122n3, 122–124, 124n5–6, 125–127, 130, 132–133, 135–138, 138n16, 139–145, 147, 147n28, 148–151, 154–155, 155n6, 156, 156n7, 157, 159–160,

286 MAPAI (cont.) 161n10, 162–164, 166n12, 167, 167–168n13, 168–170, 172, 174–176, 178–181, 183–191, 191n4, 192–199, 201–202, 204–206, 206n18, 207–211, 213, 215–226, 229–240, 240n4, 241–244, 249 MAPAM 8, 10, 23–24, 24n21, 24n23, 25–26, 44n5, 127, 150, 153–155, 154n6, 156, 156n7, 157, 157n9, 158–159, 161, 161n10, 162–164, 166, 166n12, 168n13, 169–170, 172–174, 178, 180–183, 185–190, 192, 196, 196n10, 197–198, 221, 228–229, 231–232, 237 Marcus, Yoel 142 Marx, Karl 59 Marxism 31–32, 74, 216, 220 Meir-Glitzenstein, Esther 5 Meir, Carl 221 Meir, Golda, see: Meyerson, Golda Merchants’ Association 206 MERETZ party 237 Meshel, Yeruham 125, 127, 133–137, 143, 149, 168n13, 169, 173 Meyerson (Meir), Golda 89–90, 92–94, 97, 100–101, 105, 108–109, 114–115, 118–119, 142n22, 145, 147n28, 149, 155n3, 159–160, 167, 176, 181–186 Middle-class workers, see also: White-collar workers VII, XI, 2, 2n6, 4–5, 5n12, 6, 10–12, 16–19, 21, 23–25, 28–31, 33, 35, 37–38, 44, 50–54, 54n3, 56–58, 60–66, 68, 70–71, 73–74, 59, 78, 83, 96, 120, 121n2, 124–125, 127, 135–136, 140–141, 145–146, 148–149, 162, 177, 189–190, 190n2, 190n3, 193, 197–198, 204–206, 206n18, 208–210, 212–213, 215, 217–218, 224, 230–237, 240–245 Minzberg, Shraga 44 Mitun 26, 236, 238–240, 240n4, 241–243 Mizrachi Democratic Rainbow 246 Mizrachi, see Sephardic Jews Mizug Galu’yot XII, 3, 9, 21, 23, 26, 204, 209, 248 Molad Xin1, 121, 124, 124n5, 130, 133n13 Moller, Hans 10 Morgenstern, Dr. 146 Moshavim Movement 24n22, 24n23

Index Namir, Mordechai 36, 38, 40–41, 44, 56, 63–65, 121n2, 126, 132–133, 141n21, 147n28, 149, 155n6, 163n11, 173, 187, 216, 228 Naphtali, Peretz 67–69, 107, 161n10, 166n12, 176 Nasser, Gamal Abdel 122–123, 129, 129n9, 151, 154, 170–171, 191 National Metal Workers’ Association 164 National Religious party (NRP) 141, 178, 192, 200 Navon, Tom 238n3, 239–240, 242 Netzer, Dvora 147n28 Netzer, Shraga 147n28 Nietzsche, Friedrich 15 Noah, P. 49, 80, 80n4, 81–83, 116 Nurses’ Association 91 Ofer, Avraham 125 Oriental proletariat 6, 8, 23, 25–27, 29, 32, 36, 52, 64–66, 73–74, 120, 124–125, 147–148, 189, 230–232 Oron, Y. 38 Patinkin, Dan 68n19, 138 Peres, Shim’on 140, 236, 240n4 Physicians strikes (Spring 1954) 36, 38–39, 39n2, 40–42, 48, 50, 55, 63, 65–66, 104, 122 Plugot Ha’poel 10 Poalei Agudat Yisrael 198, 208 Poalei Tzion 196 Preminger, Eliezer 156n7, 168n13 Progressive Party 8, 44n5, 50, 89, 94, 97–98, 100, 105, 107, 109, 113, 116, 118, 127, 136, 141, 144–146, 150, 163, 166, 167n13, 169–170, 175–176, 178–180, 183–186, 189–190, 192–193, 197–198, 200, 202, 221, 223, 227–228, 232, 236 Rabin, Yitzhak 237, 237n2, 240n4 Rabinowitz, Yehoshua 147n28 Racah, Yoel (Giulio) 56, 56n10, 72, 228 RAFI party 236 Ramon, Haim 237 Rechter, Yaakov 100 Reparations Agreement 153, 239

287

Index Repetor, Berl 155, 173, 187 Republicanism, see also: Mamlachti’yut  3, 3n7, 4, 4n10, 11–13, 16, 28, 86, 123, 148, 166n12, 190, 193, 196, 202, 204, 204n16, 206–207, 211, 213–215, 218, 222–223, 229–230, 233–235, 241–244, 246, 249 Riftin, Yaacov 196 Rokach, Yisrael 71, 92, 96, 98–100, 118, 209–210, 217, 223 Rosen, Pinchas 89–91, 91n6, 94, 97, 100, 101n7, 105, 107–109, 111, 113–117, 119, 127, 141, 144–145, 155, 166, 175–180, 183–185, 192, 197, 197n12, 200, 222, 227 Rosenfeld, Henry 29, 139n19, 190n2 Rosenstein, Batya 69–70 Rosolio, David 1, 76–79, 89–91, 94–95, 102–103, 103n8, 104–105, 110–111, 144 Rotenstreich, Natan Xin1, 187, 228 Round bread strike (1949) 10 Rozin, Orit 5, 18 Rubin, Hanan 146, 197 Russian Jewry 23 Sabra 15 Sapir, Pinchas 26, 141n21, 145, 155, 157–158, 166–167, 174, 176–178, 184, 186, 223–225, 235, 237–240 Sapir, Yosef 95–97, 100, 118, 206n17, 212–213 Schocken, Gershom 145, 192, 197, 221 Seamen’s strike (1951) 10–11, 194, 194n7 Sephardic Jews VII–XII, 2, 2n4, 3, 5–9, 12–15, 16n18, 17–19, 21, 25, 25n24, 26, 29, 31–32, 36, 52, 64–66, 73–74, 111, 115, 120, 124–125, 147–148, 161, 189, 230–232, 237, 240, 242n6, 245–249 Serlin, Yosef 90, 98, 100, 118 Sha’ari, Yehuda 136–137, 155n6, 163, 169 Shalev, Michael 7, 33, 190n2, 239, 241 Shalon, Rachel 56, 61–62 Shapira, Moshe 92, 106, 114, 119, 166n12, 178–180, 182, 185, 188, 200, 228 Shapira, Uri 168 Shapira, Yaakov Shimshon 62–63, 65 Shapira, Yonatan 239, 241

Sharett, Moshe 36, 39, 42, 49–51, 56, 64–66, 75, 88–89, 91, 93, 96, 98–101, 103, 103n8, 104–111, 113, 115–119, 122, 138n18, 150–151, 154, 165, 170–171, 175–176, 178–180, 182, 190, 195, 206 Sharon, Arieh 100 SHAS party 246, 248 Shechter, Eliezer 147, 147n28 Sheetrit, Bechor-Shalom 172 Sherf, Ze’ev 101–102, 108, 115, 156n7, 157, 157n9 Shostak, Eliezer 216, 218 Sinai, Dr. 181 Solel Boneh 132n12, 159, 199, 207 State Physicians’ Association 36, 39n3, 43, 49–50, 80, 98, 101, 181 State Workers’ Association 196 Strenhell, Zeev 32, 52, 56, 148n30, 229 Svirsky, Shlomo 7, 31–33, 52, 62, 73 Tabenkin, Yitzhak 112, 155, 160–161, 163 Teachers’ Association 28n26, 69, 199, 224 Technion 5n11, 56, 61, 65, 87, 193, 195n9, 226, 226n28, 227 Tenenbaum, A. 156n7 Theodor, A. 228 Tzadok, Chaim 66–67 Tzena, see: Austerity policy Tzidrovich, Gershon 168 Tzur, Yaron 5 Tzur, Ze’ev 156 Veteran, see: Ashkenazi Jews Vilenska, Esther 197, 197n11 Wadi Salib riots 8 Wage freeze 5, 29, 125, 127, 137, 151, 156–157, 157n9, 158–159, 165, 168, 177–178, 191, 198 Wage Policy XI–XII, 3, 8–9, 11, 18, 20–21, 26–28, 32, 35, 39, 39n2, 40, 43–44, 51–52, 55–56, 62, 65–67, 73–74, 87, 89, 91, 121, 123n4, 125, 132–134, 140, 143–145, 147, 156, 164, 166, 166n12, 188–189, 191n4, 218, 220–221, 223, 231, 233, 242, 242n6, 243, 249 Weiner, Ze’ev 147n28

288 Weinstein, Baruch 75, 78 Weizmann Institute 56, 78, 87, 99, 178, 226 Weizmann, Chaim 219 Wertheimer, Prof. 1, 83 White-collar workers, see also: middle-class workers 1, 4–6, 9, 11, 13, 16, 18–19, 25, 27, 31–33, 35–40, 43–45, 47, 49–58, 58n12, 59–76, 79, 83, 87, 89–90, 95, 98, 104–106, 108–111, 113–114, 117–120, 122–123, 125–128, 130–151, 155–156, 159–160, 163–165, 168–170, 173–184, 186–196, 196n10, 197, 197n11, 198, 200–201, 203–205, 206n18, 208–209, 211, 213, 216–217, 219–225, 228, 228n31 Trade associations 29, 36–37, 44–45, 49, 55, 69–70, 99–100, 130, 141, 144–145, 189–190, 190n3 Workers’ strikes 10–11, 28–29, 50, 120, 122, 125, 145, 180, 182, 189, 191, 193–196, 201–203, 206n18, 208, 211, 216–217, 219–220, 222, 225, 227

Index Workers’ Councils 164 World Jewish Congress 215 Ya’ari, Meir 112, 158, 161 Yadin, Uri 68, 72, 84 Yadin, Yiga’el 128, 150 Yemenite children affair 249 Yishuv XI, 15, 17, 20, 22, 24–26, 28, 52, 57, 85, 99, 124, 129, 149, 172, 177, 179, 231 Yosef, Dov 90, 100–101, 101n7, 103–104, 106, 108, 110, 112–113 Yoseftal, Giora 141n21, 164 Yovel, Yirmiyahu 16 Yudin, Yehuda 161, 168–169, 173 Yunichman, Shimshon 215–216 Zach, Natan 247 Zameret, Zvi 5 Zilberman, Moshe 147n28 Zionist Congress IX, 177 Zionist Movement VIII–XI, 1, 11, 14, 16, 16n18, 17, 22–23, 23n20, 37, 57, 63, 150, 213