At the beginning of the 1950s, the arrival in Israel of Polish members of the Ichud Union of Zionist Democrats,1 which stemmed from the General Zionist movement in which both the Progressive Party2 and the Israeli General Zionists had their roots, triggered rivalry between the two parties for the new immigrants’ votes. Attempts by both parties to become the heir to the General
2.1 The Alliance of Jews from Poland in the Progressive Party4
In the period immediately after the war, Zionist organizations in Poland existed in an environment in which the Kremlin’s policy towards Zionism was still undefined, the Polish government still allowed Jews considerable autonomy on Jewish issues, and the attitude of some Zionist activists towards national authorities was flexible. Over time, the attitude of the communist authorities towards Zionist organizations deteriorated until plans emerged to ban and dissolve them. On 1 January 1950, the Polish Ministry of Public Administration announced the termination of Ichud.5
Most of the passengers traveling on the ‘Prothea’ hesitated for a long time to leave the country. Many people extended their passports even up to four times. If it were possible to extend them even longer, perhaps they would still be trying to postpone their trip. But time is pressing – it’s time to go. […] In the pauses between one attack of a stomach “quake” and the next, the people think about Poland – about Krynica, Szczawnica, Leśna Podkowa, the comfortable flats they’ve left behind and the soft furniture they’ve grown accustomed to. These reflections are all the sadder because the passengers know they’re heading to a country that, contrary to the famous quotation from the Bible, is flowing with a wave of severe economic crisis. Irena G. from Katowice is thinking about her husband, who already has an apartment in Tel Aviv. Venerable Chaim B. from Wrocław is thinking about his daughter and son-in-law, who have been living near Haifa for 20 years. But I don’t know what a 70-year-old woman who has been living in a municipal poorhouse in Lublin or a 65-year-old disabled woman from Warsaw, who was involved in the “private trade” of cigarettes, are thinking about. These people don’t even have a single acquaintance in Israel. […] Most people go to a camp. But many people have relatives in the country. These people have more confident expressions on their faces and are impatient when it comes to dealing with formalities. […] When the 500th oleh disembarks from the “Prothea” – I. F., a chocolate factory owner from Kraków – I climb into a car, together with the emigrants, heading to Shaʿar ha-Aliyah. Despite their exhaustion, people are observing the landscape of Haifa with curiosity. They try to outmatch one another in discovering things worth looking at. “What beautiful houses.” “What wide streets, just like Zakopane!” There is joy
and pride on every face. When the bus passengers see the barbed wire surrounding the camp and the police guard at the gate, everyone’s faces, as if on command, freeze in astonishment. 14-year-old Misha asks, with tears in his eyes, “Mum, camp again?” “No, child. It’s only for a few days – then we’re going to live over there.” She gestures towards Carmel, covered with luxurious villas.6
Some of the new olim were sent to camps for much longer than a few days. Others, with the help of their families, tried to settle in larger cities.
Exhilarated by Zionist apologetics, they lost their spiritual balance when confronted with the Palestinian reality. […] And the enthusiasm of these people – this crystal-pure idealism – is squandered, and people often ridicule it by harassing Zionist activists with this worn-out and hackneyed phrase: there is no need for Zionists here. Take a look at these Zionist activists after spending a while in the country. They are spiritually broken and bitter. For is there anyone who can understand why Zionist activists who only yesterday were working in the galut, making a living and performing important social and Zionist functions, have now, practically overnight, become beggars, elderly people, veterans, unnecessary people,
and are given, out of pity, work that was previously done by an errand boy? Has it occurred to anyone what these people are experiencing, how they are suffering, and how they wish to escape the pity that humiliates them, depraves them, and fills their hearts with bitterness and fear – the only and irreversible fear that overwhelms a man when he is forced to realize all at once that he has gambled away his own life and that everything he has worked for and achieved so far over many years has been destroyed without a trace, without salvation, without a ray of hope?10
The adaptation process for the new olim depended to a large extent on their professional usefulness. A problem was that the Polish government had opened up the borders above all for Zionists, members of religious communities, merchants, craftsmen, people without professions, and, most importantly – the elderly. Under Israeli conditions, such people were nearly condemned to unemployment. The stigma of the elderly was imposed on people over 35 years of age, and this phenomenon was labeled “the plague of the young senior citizens.”11 There were many such people among the distinguished Zionists in the diaspora. The need for public action, if only because of their experience in political work and leadership in the Zionist movement within the diaspora, above all the organization of mutual aid for colleagues who found themselves in difficult situations, motivated former members of Ichud from Poland to establish their own organization in Israel. After arriving in Israel, former Ichud members first met to socialize in Atara Café, near the headquarters of the Progressive Party, close to the intersection of Rothschild Boulevard and Allenby Street in Tel Aviv. Eventually they changed the informal character of these meetings and founded the Alliance of Jews from Poland, which became active on 25 May 1950.12 Hillel Zeidel (Zajdel)13
The organization of the Alliance of Jews from Poland was modeled on organizations from other countries in the Progressive Party, such as a
The Alliance of Jews from Poland, organized within the Progressive Party, gained political power: “We tried to act within the Progressive Party like a
We are sorry that the Progressive Party’s Shikun Council does not agree that the president of the alliance, Dr. Langnas, should receive a shikun. The alliance’s council is protesting against this! It’s unfair! It insults us. We appeal to the Shikun Council and urgently demand that the party’s secretary and administration intervene in this matter and arrange everything that it has destroyed. […] Langnas arrived in the country in October 1949 and was forced to live in a house for new olim in Holon until 1 December 1950. It was very difficult to obtain a temporary home from the General Zionists; he only received one on the condition that he would leave it by 4 January 1951. […] Dr. Langnas is a civil servant with a very low salary. He is unable to buy a flat with his own money. The fact that he must stay for so long in the olim house is a dishonorable situation for our party. We would like to remind you that Dr. Langnas has held very important positions in the public life of our organization, as well as in the Zionist movement. He is the editor of our newspaper. It doesn’t look good for our party when he is forced to turn for help to the rival party [The General Zionists]. This is
a very delicate situation. Our people from Poland are losing their trust in the party.”32
The interventions of people who were members of the organizations and the party compelled their leaders to make concessions. The alliance could invoke a more favorable attitude towards the party that was competitive with them – the General Zionists – or, having a solid base of future voters, could demand positions from the party and, by taking them, gain more opportunities to fulfil their obligations towards their community. In the archives of the Progressive Party there are many indications of such support – small cards with orders to settle various matters, most often concerning work or a flat. And it seems that due to the organizational structure of the Progressive Party, this type of protection – support for people from their country of origin – was more frequent than in other parties, perhaps with the exception of the ruling party, Mapai, in which, although ethnic connections were not very strongly emphasized, attention was paid to solidarity between party members.
At the beginning of their new lives in Israel, the expectations of distinguished activists from the diaspora fell short in the face of Israeli reality, but the Polish Ichud group – comprising well-educated, experienced Zionist movement activists – were able to operate effectively in the national and international spheres by creating their own organization within the Progressive Party. At the same time, they were able to create a sufficiently influential political environment in this party in order to put forward their demands, which needed to be taken into account especially before elections, when the press published in Polish was an essential means of communication with their electorate.
2.2 The Propaganda Policy of the Editors of Opinia
The first issue of the Israeli newspaper Opinia: Tygodnika Społeczno-Politycznego [Opinion: A Socio-Politicial Weekly] was published on 11 September 1950 by Matmon Press.33 The Alliance of Jews from Poland, reading Opinia, were
Naiman was known to Jewish readers in prewar Poland from articles published in the Warsaw newspaper Haynt, of which he was one of the chief editors. He also wrote poetry under the pseudonym A. Fojgel [A. Fojgł]. […] After the outbreak of World War ii, Naiman ended up in Vilnius and then immigrated from there to Israel in 1940. Despite his famous name, undoubtedly high journalistic qualifications, and deep erudition, Naiman experienced difficult times before being hired by the editor of Davar, Berl Katznelson, to write for this newspaper. In recent years he has been a theater reviewer for the weekly Davar ha-Shavua.39
One can also find articles in Opinia by authors collaborating with the newspaper on a freelance basis, and most often its political format limited this group of writers to the prewar circle of General Zionists.
The alliance published Opinia for less than a year, with several breaks.40 The editorial team of Opinia did not use press agencies, and the function of press correspondents was replaced by social contacts. It had a list of subscribers similar to other Polish publications – with a circulation reaching 3,000–4,000 copies.41 Due to a lack of funds and paper, it was published irregularly. Looking at archival collections, one may conclude that it was the lack of paper that concerned its publishers the most.42 The Minister of Justice, Pinchas Rosen,
Opinia was founded two months before the municipal elections. The cooperation of the Progressive Party with the editors of Opinia was part of the “fight for the souls of the new olim” – the votes of Jews from Poland who arrived at the end of 1949 and beginning of 1950. In the developing country, with the influx of successive waves of immigration, the electorate was changing dynamically, and parties were strengthening their position or had lost it to their competitors, depending on the success of their campaigns and election results. The character of the last wave of immigration, which had brought to Israel people recruited from Zionist organizations, opened up serious opportunities for
The foreign-language press was, first and foremost, indispensable in the camps for the new olim, as the political parties used it for daily contact with the camps’ inhabitants and, most importantly, for their indoctrination.47 Opinia was published for the first time in September 1950, and from the middle of October onwards, its editorial staff conducted an intensive propaganda campaign among the new Polish olim in the following camps: Beit Lid, Achuzah, Ein Shemer, Atlit, and Machaneh Yisraʾel.48 In these camps, the rivalry between the parties began with filling seats on their boards, and then each party had to offer its inhabitants its own newspaper, otherwise they would read ones published by other parties.49 Establishing contact with the inhabitants of the camps and then maintaining it was the main goal of the Department of
For example, the editorial staff of Opinia contributed to the spread of the ethos of working the land.52 The reason for this type of propaganda, apart from the obvious attempt to strengthen the state in the case of Zionists, was the desire to distinguish themselves from the General Zionists, who were seen as “bourgeois.” The General Zionists, who could be counted among the leading political forces in the diaspora, in Israel continued to sustain the model of traditional society: life in cities (in the diaspora – in smaller towns) and work in liberal professions such as trade and finance (in the galut – banking), while Jews’ return to their homeland was connected with work on the land, agriculture, industrial development, and the creation of a working class. The figure of the General Zionist did not fit very well into the ethos of the chalutzim (the first settlers in Eretz Israel, who established kibbutzim and worked on the land) and did not sufficiently meet its challenges.53 The alliance’s activists were well aware that only the number of kibbutzim, the size of youth movements, and the involvement of the new olim in the hityashvut parties could build political power and position in the state, and only the associations and factions could
As everyone knows, in Machaneh Yisraʾel all the olim are from Poland. Although they say they’re difficult to work with, I managed to organize a group for the hityashvut. I want to say something about it, because it was an interesting attempt. Comrade Braun from the hityashvut department says that the future of our party in the country is connected with the access of Polish Jews to the hityashvut. I’m not exaggerating, but certainly such activity will have an impact on Polish Jews in these beit olim.57 I would like to stress that these Polish olim are the only European Jews who come to the country, so their involvement in the hityashvut will restore our values, and this will be the only chance
to extend our influence to Polish and European olim. This is probably a wake-up call, which is why the Absorption Department will do everything possible for this group to become involved in agriculture. In general, the Machaneh Yisraʾel camp is very dynamic. There’s a high turnover there, unlike in other camps. Political activities should be continued – the organization of such groups should continue until the olim are transferred to agricultural areas. We have to make sure that many members of the party are in the camp council; I think that 10–15% of our club members should be in it. It is very important for them to include young people with enthusiasm and energy, not those old activists who came here and found it difficult to get used to the new conditions. Our employees in the Absorption Department must be very strongly attached to this place and visit us twice a week. I see new strength in this olim house: great opportunities for our party to be of greater value to the country.58
The problem was that the peak achievement of Zionist activists in the diaspora – aliyah – did not necessarily mean the adoption of the chalutz ethos, especially in the case of older people who found it difficult to be retrained. In 1950, many of the people who came to Israel from Poland had no profession. There were also craftsmen, merchants, and bureaucrats, as well as a small percentage of people from the intelligentsia.59 A proposal to develop the market through small private initiatives was ideally suited to this environment. A good place to do business was the city – Jews from Poland were most willing to stay in Tel Aviv or nearby.60 For this reason, the propaganda published in Opinia in favor of creating kibbutzim did not seem to convince Polish Jews. Zionism was a revolutionary ideology, declaring a complete change in private life and the Jewish collective. The General Zionist movement was not “general,” either – there were A and B wings. While the Progressive Party’s agenda shifted and Opinia’s propaganda campaigns were
2.3 Nowiny [The News]
In August 1952, the Ministry of the Interior confirmed the change of name from Opinia to Nowiny Izraelskie.62 As Dov Yohannes explained, Nowiny corresponded to the Israeli newspaper Chadashot [The News], and so after taking into consideration the place of publication, Nowiny Izraelskie was created. The last issue of Opinia ended the period in which references were made to the tradition of the diaspora and to newspapers previously published by Ichud: “We wanted to end this and have a fresh start,” Yohannes recalled.63 Also over, at least formally, was the time when the Alliance of Jews from Poland could be considered the main beneficiary of the newspaper, although people connected to the alliance continued to publish it in Polish. And despite having the subtitle “independent,” it was still published on behalf of the Progressive Party.64
At the beginning, Nowiny was published in three variations: Nowiny Izraelskie [The Israeli News], Nowiny Dnia [The News of the Day] and Nowiny Poranne [The Morning News]. Each was registered with the Ministry of the Interior by a different person or institution. The Progressive Party signed a contract with Tushiyah Publishing House for the publication of Nowiny Izraelskie. The publishing house dealt with the newspaper’s administrative and financial matters, as well as editing the newspaper, but the rights to the newspaper remained with the Progressive Party. Tushiyah could use it until the end of its
When I met him in Israel after the war, he had an incredible amount of wartime and political experience. […] He was looking for a way to make a living, selling everything that could be sold to the Polish olim. Then he came across something that satisfied him – a newspaper in Polish. Having only pennies at his disposal, he started publishing Nowiny. In the eyes of critics and realists, it was a ridiculous undertaking. What will happen tomorrow? Where will the funds come from for paper? For the printing house? He published it in some back alley, in an ancient printing house. […] He worked for days and nights on end as an editor, columnist, administrator, proofreader, and distributor. In his free time, he tried to attract more advertisers. He smoked an endless number of cigarettes and drank endless amounts of black coffee. Day and night, late into the evenings, he sat in the printing house. He even slept there. […] But the newspaper was published.70
It seems to me that we were different from each other in every possible way. He was from the radical left – quite the opposite for me. He was from Poland – me: quite the opposite, from Lithuania [Polish and Lithuanian Jews were competitive with each other when it came to assessing the importance of their achievements and position in the diaspora – E. K.]. He was recruited from the ranks of the Assimilationists – quite the opposite for me. […] If Brandys is to be described in one word, it would be heroism – that which is noble and dramatic in life. In the early period of his life, he found this heroism in Polish nationalism – he was a Polish nationalist in body and soul. Those who were in Soviet captivity with him told me that Brandys was the most passionate “Pole” among all the Polish prisoners of war. … When this nationalism began to arouse some doubts in him, he found heroism in communism. But when, after some time, he grew disappointed by the communists and perceived their ideology in a less heroic light, he turned his back on them without compromise. Finally, he came to both Israel and Zionism in the era of our heroic struggle.76
According to a letter written by Arie Ben Tov to Nowiny, Brandys was one of the main figures connected with the Polish-language press in the Progressive Party.77 From the documents of the Ministry of the Interior it is known that
Henryk Rosmarin78 was another person who held the right to Nowiny Poranne on behalf of the General Zionists. In prewar Poland, Henryk Rosmarin had been an editor of Chwila. His articles had also been published in other well-known Jewish publications, such as, Haynt, Moment, and the prewar weekly Opinia. In his memoirs, Saul Langnas mentions that he came from an assimilated family.79 From a young age he was an active Zionist, fighting for equal rights for the Jewish minority in Poland. Ben-Tzion Zangen recalls Rosmarin as follows:80 “I had the honor, as Dr. Rosmarin’s colleague at Chwila, to observe him during dangerous situations for Jews in Lwów – times when, quite simply, pogroms were looming. He was living simultaneously in Lwów and Warsaw. He arrived right away. He immediately intervened with the authorities. In fact, he did not just intervene – he made demands. In this respect, it can be said that he was a ‘Sabra.’ He understood Zionism literally – I would say without any galut impurities.”81 In addition to Rosmarin’s own personality traits, the above description aptly shows the complex relationship of former diaspora activists to the behavior of sabras in Israel, when “sabraization” meant “being like the goyim.”82 During World War i, he served on the front lines as an officer of the Austro-Hungarian army. After the war, he returned to Lwów. He was a member of parliament in the Second Republic of Poland and was remembered as
When an aliyah from Poland arrived in Israel at the beginning of the 1950s, Rosmarin established an Israeli version of the prewar, Lwów-based newspaper Chwila, which had been published simultaneously with Opinia and, according to documents, was associated with the General Zionists of Israel. The newspapers have a similar history. When the Alliance of Jews from Poland discontinued Opinia and started publishing Nowiny Izraelskie, Henryk Rosmarin registered Nowiny Poranne and discontinued Chwila.91 The similarity can be seen in
[Moshe Kolodny (Kol):] We belong to the same group that came from Pińsk. I hesitated, but now I am writing to you. We haven’t been in contact with each other for a long time. Our conflict was connected with the fact that you had a negative attitude towards Yitzhak Grünbaum, which was painful for me, despite the fact that we’d created Ha-Oved ha-Tziyoni together in Riszon in the 1930s. Two weeks ago I read in Zmanim101 that you’re delighted that Gershon Shoken, an editor of Haaretz, has joined the party and is in fifth place on the list for the Knesset. I’m surprised since, after all, you, Moshe, worked as hard as I did; we went through everything together, and were in Hitʾachdut Tziyonim ha-Klaliim. But you have always been attached to radical Zionist ideas. Why did you agree to Gershon Shoken being in fifth place? Our [Yosef] Serlin should be there – after all, we once worked with them [the General Zionists]. […] [Yosef] Serlin underwent Zionist training, but Gershon Shoken did not. He studied with us in the Zionist department. Together we were in the Grünbaum group: you, me, and [Yosef] Serlin. And there was always a lot of distance between us and [Gershon] Shoken. We’re going to vote for [Yosef] Serlin. I ask you, how will I be able to vote for the Progressive Party when it surrendered to the German Jews, the Aliyah Chadashah, and they only exist on the political map thanks to us, because they do not
have an electorate or anyone voting for them. This party exists because Polish Jews vote for it. Ha-Tziyonim ha-Polanim [Polish Zionists – E. K.] and all of us come from the General Zionists, from Poland. I must stress that you have done harm to Polish Jews and the Progressive Party. […] We voted for this party only because of the Polish Jews. I am very sorry, I am not sure if I will vote for the Progressive Party with such a list of candidates. And you are the ones who are guilty of this.102
Kol suggested that Shoken should be added to the list for the Knesset; Pinchas Rosen and Yeshayahu Foerder also spoke about this. But he [Shoken] wants to be independent, he doesn’t want to belong to a party. He is important to us because, as we all know, Haaretz always supported the General Zionists, and this spoiled the election result for us because it was a group of people who could have voted for our party. It’s very important for him to be on our list. Idov Kohen made the kind gesture of giving up his fifth place to Shoken. Ha-Boker103 writes that Zmanim will go out of business. Everyone is fighting against our party, including Mapai. And Shoken will ensure us a lot of votes.104
Shoken had a seat in the Third Knesset. About a year before the election, the party’s press publications were reviewed, and mergers were carried out. There was an evaluation of possible collaborations with journalists working in the Hebrew-language press and an assessment of the sphere for political exploitation that had appeared after the influx of new immigrants. Foreign-language newspapers gained importance during the election period, but their rank was not equal to that of the Hebrew press.
As we can see from these statements, the ideological proximity and identity of the General Zionist movement in the diaspora made it difficult to set political boundaries. Before the merger of the General Zionists of Israel
In their form, language, and descriptions of alleged events, many of the articles that were reprinted in Nowiny Izraelskie resembled the rhetoric of the “blood libel,” the legend of ritual murder spread by anti-Semites in Poland and throughout Europe, but this time evoking fear of Christians115 – in this version, the legend of “mixing the blood of innocent Christian children into their matzo” was replaced by “kidnapping Jewish children to baptize them.” Stereotypes guarded against the infiltration of religious worlds, and clear boundaries stood between them: “Jewish ‘Christmas,’ however, has even sadder results, namely that it is one of the things leading Jewish children to walk away from their own nation – towards assimilation.”116
Zionists equated life in the diaspora with assimilation.117 Their equation of yordim118 with apostasy was connected to accusations of abandoning the nation, and even conversion. “Baptized Jews from Israel Are Knocking at the Gates of Brazil”119 – this is just one example of this phenomenon.120 It is also
Nowiny Izraelskie was published three times a week: on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On the remaining days, it was replaced by Nowiny Poranne. The newspaper’s circulation was roughly 8,000 copies, and weekend editions were 9,000.127 Nowiny’s devoted readership and the fact that it was supported by the party ensured stable income. Although the party did not always keep its financial promises to the editorial board, the newspaper ran advertisements for the companies with which it was associated.128 A serious problem Nowiny faced was its quality level. Langnas assured everyone that 24 high-quality journalists worked for Nowiny:129 “Nowiny Izraelskie ensured the collaboration of the most outstanding journalists and columnists among Polish Jews in Israel. Additionally, it cooperated constantly with the Hebrew press, and numerous correspondents in Israel and abroad provided it with the latest news.”130 The reality described in this excerpt was heavily exaggerated. Nowiny Izraelskie, like Opinia, did not buy news agency services but rather reprinted articles without authors’ consent and without mentioning the source of the news.131 Saul Langnas swore that “the editorial team relies on news agencies from all over the world that are used by Israel’s leading newspapers,” but the editors of Nowiny Poranne received a letter from the Israeli Press Agency stating the following: “I would
There was no detailed research conducted at that time on the profile of the average reader, but it can be assumed that these were people who were not very active professionally. They were predominantly women, elderly people who found it difficult to learn the Hebrew language, and those who read it for social, entertainment, or sentimental reasons, often seeking information that had little chance of appearing in a Hebrew-language newspaper – for example, concerning Polish Jews in Israel.134 Nowiny Izraelskie was not a platform for political discourse – it didn’t pull the reader onto the stage of Israeli current events. At a time when Israeli society was being formulated and faced difficult challenges – building the state, managing internal conflicts, shaping relations between the state and religion, and facing the constant threat of war – these matters were rarely raised in Nowiny, and the matters of ethnic diversity and multinationalism (Jews and Arabs) was most often overlooked. Certainly, another reason for the low attractiveness of the foreign-language press, including publications in Polish, was political: the content provided by the party’s publisher was subject to party censorship and self-censorship by party activists on the editorial team. The newspaper’s articles therefore consistently offered “safe” content, which did not pull readers into political discussions or stimulate interest in social topics.
2.4 The Gomułka Aliyah
The arrival of Polish Jews in Israel between 1955 and 1960 changed the situation on the Israeli press market. The Polish-speaking community in Israel was joined by 42,569 potential new readers and a large number of journalists writing in Polish.138 The possibility of enlarging the electorate before the upcoming elections by over 40,000 new olim encouraged Israeli political parties, which had been almost absent so far in the Polish-speaking community, to establish newspapers competing with Nowiny. At the same time, the leaders of the Progressive Party’s Alliance of Jews from Poland didn’t want to give up their fight for the Polish electorate – they saw it as an opportunity not only to achieve a positive result in the general elections but also to improve their position in the party.139 The Progressive Party made use of its press publications in the general
Moreover, the absorption of well-qualified professionals from the Gomułka Aliyah increased the development potential of the country. At the same time as the arrival of successive waves of Jews from Poland, there was a discussion in Nowiny of how to absorb and make use of the new Mizrachi olim. For example, among former Ichud activists, there were fears that a huge aliyah of Jews from Arab countries would change the culture of the yishuv, which until then had predominantly had a European character, and would have a negative influence on the country’s level of development. “Fifty percent of future olim are ill and ‘social catastrophes,’ according to the treasurer of the Sochnut, who is against a chaotic aliyah,”142 stated an article published in Nowiny. They saw supporting aliyot from Poland, especially of highly qualified professionals, as an important strategy to maintain continued immigration from Poland and prevent Polish Jews from leaving the country.
The aliyah that has been coming from Poland in recent years will have the most significant influence on the upcoming elections in 1959. For this reason, we have a deep interest in [Nowiny] continuing to be published. This newspaper maintains itself very well financially; so far, we haven’t given any money to it, and for many years we did not pay it to print our advertisements or announcements. But Mapai has begun to publish a newspaper [Kurier – E. K.], which is a competitor to Nowiny, and we are afraid that Nowiny will not be able to compete with it because Mapai invests a lot of money in its newspaper. Our observations over the past four months have shown us that the sales of our newspaper are four times higher than for Kurier; presumably readers do not like party-affiliated newspapers. In order to increase sales of our newspaper, we want it to be published in a larger format, and that’s why the expenses have also increased. I’ve spoken to the newspaper’s board of directors and I think the sum of 10,000 lirot needs to be invested in order to overcome the current crisis. Since the elections are approaching, which opens up a very interesting period for our newspaper because advertisements and party announcements can be published, I propose that Hidun Avitula buy fifty shares from the Tushiyah Association, which will enable it to continue to be published. If you believe that this goal is not in line with the company’s plans, 10,000 lirot will need to be obtained through other political channels—e.g., from the party’s election budget.144
Together with a group of new readers of Nowiny, on behalf of whom I allow myself to make a statement, I came here from Poland – a country that can boast press and journalism of the highest quality in the past three years. I do not know many countries, not only in Europe, that could compete with the Polish press in the most recent period in terms of the professional and ideological level of its journalism, opinion columns and reportage. […] Renunciation of Stalinist rigidity and formality did not bring with it in the Polish press the pursuit of cheap sensation and bombshell stories of dubious value, which the tabloids in other countries consider a conditio sine qua non of a vibrant and interesting newspaper. In recent years, I have been thriving on this press as a reader, and I suppose it is the same for many other readers who have recently arrived from European countries.146
This statement by Henryk Dankowicz was one of many demanding an engaged and informative press that could serve as a political platform.147 Within the atmosphere of inactivity, unemployment, and cultural unproductivity among the new immigrants, who were living in tents and temporary camps far from cities, the Polish-language press seemed to be the only platform for communication at that time and a substitute for cultural activity.148
Despite the efforts of its editorial team, Nowiny was unable to attract many readers from the Gomułka Aliyah, for it was impossible to fit within one newspaper the views of both Zionists and former communists, many of whom had arrived in this aliyah. The clash between the expectations of the Polish Jews who voiced their demands or grievances and the experiences of the Zionists
Nowiny was established in response to the needs of readers who came to Israel from Poland in the early 1950s, a group that was politically different from those who came in the second half of that decade. The foreign press had been established for specific readers, and after these readers transitioned to the Hebrew-language press, the need for the foreign press ceased to exist. The key to gaining new readers was the ability to understand assimilated groups, mostly originating from left-wing circles, which is something the editorial staff of Nowiny had trouble with because they had mostly originated from Zionist circles.150 The political codes of the editorial staff were at odds with those of the new readers, who, on top of everything else, hoped to maintain an active political life with the help of the press. The Gomułka Aliyah was dominated by people who wished to be informed about mainstream political events and preferred to stay connected to the ruling party. The Progressive Party could offer an additional path for them to follow in their assimilation, but not the main one. The hunger for information and the need for press publications came from so many different sides of the Gomułka Aliyah that all Israeli political parties, ranging from the center to the extreme left, could join the battle to gain support from the new Polish olim. In these conditions, Nowiny could survive in symbiosis with another newspaper that was close to it politically. A copublishing agreement between the Progressive Party and Mapai before the elections was not only a political necessity for the coalition, but it also gave Nowiny a chance to continue to exist in a new format – as Nowiny-Kurier.
The reason why Polish Jews from the Progressive Party and the General Zionists established Polish-language newspapers was to attract the electorate
In Palestine in 1946, the two factions within the General Zionists (A and B) merged to form the United Party of General Zionists, from which two years later (in 1948) part (A) left and established the Progressive Party together with the German-speaking group Aliyah Chadashah (The New Immigration) and the more moderate faction of the professional movement (Ha-Oved ha-Tzioni). The remaining part (B) survived in conjunction with the Civic Union (Ha-Ichud ha-Ezrahi), under the new name of the General Zionist Party of Israel. In 1948, during the European Council of the World Federation of General Zionists, attended by members of the Ichud Union of Zionist Democrats, a decision was made to support the Progressive Party. When the members of Ichud arrived in Israel, they joined the Progressive Party, a political formation to which they had been connected while still in the diaspora and which, like them, honored social democratic and liberal ideas. Few joined the General Zionist Party of Israel. For more information about this organization, see N. Aleksiun, Dokąd dalej? Ruch syjonistyczny w Polsce (1944–1950) [Where to Next? The Zionist Movement in Poland (1944–1950)] (Warsaw, 2002).
The Progressive Party was a party with a social-liberal program that cooperated with left-wing groups and the dominant Mapai Party. It belonged to the ruling coalition from 1948 until 1977, with several breaks: in 1953 due to the coalition crisis, and in 1961–1965 when it joined the General Zionists. It formed the Liberal Party with a more progressive section that had split off from the General Zionists in 1963, taking on the name Liberalim Atzmaiim (The Independent Liberals), which was actually the same Progressive Party from 1948–1961. Its ideology focused on supporting free market solutions, separation of state and religion, reduction of bureaucracy and the role of the Histadrut trade union, maintenance of judicial independence, public education, and opposition to state centralism. Although it was weaker than other parties such as Mapai and Mapam, with its minimization of bureaucracy, demonopolization and favor of local entrepreneurship, due to support from the moshav and kibbutz movement, the party had better chances in the local government elections than in the general elections to the Knesset, usually obtaining the same number of seats, from four to six (First Knesset, 1949, five seats, Second Knesset, 1951, four seats, Third Knesset, 1955, five seats, Fourth Knesset, 1959, six seats). Occupying a central position on the political scene, addressing enterprises and the intelligentsia with priorities of a liberal economy and a moderate program for trade unions, it seemed to be a good partner for Mapai, although not strong enough to form a majority in the Knesset.
Israel State Archives in Jerusalem (hereinafter: isa), file 715/3 (gimel), letter from the Ministry of the Interior canceling permission for Moritz Arnold Hasle, the owner of Chwila, to continue publishing the newspaper. On the subject of the version of Chwila published in Lwów, see B. Łętocha, “Chwila: Gazeta Żydów lwowskich” [Moment: A Jewish Newspaper in Lwów], Rocznik Lwowski 4 (1995–1996): 63–79.
In documents you can find various names for this organization: The Association of Jews from Poland (Irgun Yotzʾey Polin) and the Alliance of Jews from Poland. After the merger of the General Zionists with the Progressive Party, the following inscription was added to the seal: The Association of Jews from Poland in the Liberal Party. isa, file 119/1, letter from the Association of Jews from Poland in the Liberal Party to Yosef Tamir, 15 March 1964. Sometimes the Alliance of Polish Jews also appears.
The leaders of Ichud (Saul Langnas and Edward Rostal) left Poland, taking their organization’s documentation with them. In Israel, it was entrusted to Yochanan Kohen. Tel Yitzchak Historical Archive in Israel (hereinafter: tyha), file 2/4 (ayin), Interview with Goren Ron by Tzahal Naftali, 1 May 1972; Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem (hereinafter: cza), file S 11/E/46, letter sent from the Israeli Consulate in Warsaw, 1 October 1949; G. Berendt, “Zjednoczenie Syjonistów Demokratów ‘Ichud’ – ‘z biało-niebieskimi sztandarami w morzu czerwonych sztandarów’” [Ichud Alliance of Zionist Democrats – “With Blue-and-White Banners in a Sea of Red Banners”], in Między emigracją a trwaniem: Syjoniści i komuniści żydowscy w Polsce po Holocauście [Between Emigration and Permanence: Zionists and Jewish Communists in Poland after the Holocaust], ed. A. Grabski and G. Berendt (Warsaw, 2003), 180; D. Stola. Kraj bez wyjścia? Migracje z Polski 1949–1989 [A Country with No Exit? Migrations from Poland, 1949–1989] (Warsaw, 2010), 53; D. Hacohen. Immigrants in Turmoil: Mass Immigration to Israel and its Repercussions in the 1950s and After, trans. G. Brand (Syracuse, 2003), 70–71.
H. Rachman. “Od Gdyni do ‘Szaar Alija’” [From Gdynia to Ha Shaʿar ha-Aliyah], Opinia, no. 1 (1950): 7.
“Listy naszych czytelników” [Letters from Our Readers], Opinia, no. 3 (1950): 6.
“Czytelnicy mają głos” [Readers Have a Voice], Opinia, no. 11 (1950): 6.
E. Rostal, “Gdzie granica podziału?” [Where Is the Dividing Line?], Opinia, no. 1 (1950): 3.
A. Eywkin, “Rozważania byłego działacza syjonistycznego” [Reflections of a Former Zionist Activist], Opinia, no. 9 (1950): 7.
“Czytelnicy mają głos,” 6.
tyha, file 119/1, letter from Dov Yohannes to the secretary’s office of the Progressive Party, 25 May 1950.
Hillel Zeidel was born in Kraków on 9 October 1920 and died in Tel Aviv on 14 February 1999. After moving from Kraków to Vilnius, Seidel was active in the Akiva Zionist movement (Agudah ha-Noʿar ha-Ivri “Akiva” [The “Akiva” Union of Hebrew Youths]) – a Zionist organization registered in 1934, with headquarters in Kraków. Its task was to prepare young people for their emigration to Palestine. An important part of this process was to learn Hebrew, the geography of Palestine, and Jewish history and literature, and to prepare members to work in Palestine. The organization adhered to tradition and respected religious commandments. Polski słownik judaistyczny: Dzieje, kultura, religia, ludzie [A Polish Dictionary of Judaism: History, Culture, Religion, People], ed. Z. Borzymińska and R. Żebrowski (Warsaw, 2003), 1:51. During World War ii, he was a member of the underground movement in the Vilnius ghetto, along with Abba Kovner, and a similar group in the city of Kluga. In postwar Poland, he was a Brichah activist. He left for Israel in 1948. He was responsible for the Absorption Department in the Federation of General Zionists. He also became the secretary of Ha-Oved ha-Tzioni. He was elected to the Eighth and Ninth Knessets as a representative of the Liberal Party, but in the Ninth Knesset he formed his own club and then joined Likud (Likud [Hebrew: union, alliance] was a right-wing political party in Israel with a nationalist-conservative character).
Saul Langnas was born in Lwów on 11 July 1910 and died in Tel Aviv in 1977. He was a journalist for the prewar, Lwów-based newspaper Chwila, for which he was in charge of a column titled “Informator Palestyński” [The Palestinian Informer]. He graduated from the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów with a master’s degree in law and then a doctorate in philosophy. He worked in the Palestinian Office in Lwów until the outbreak of World War ii. He spent the war in the ussr. In 1946 he returned to Łódź, where he became involved in the activities of the Jewish Committee as the head of social welfare, while also serving as a member of the Ichud Central Committee in Poland. He took part in the European Conference of General Zionists in Paris in 1947. Until the end of 1948 he was the director of the Jewish Agency Office, cooperating with Brichah in the illegal smuggling of small groups of Jews abroad. Langnas was a well-educated man and an experienced Zionist activist; while still in Poland, he had ambitions to achieve sufficiently high political positions and counted on a political career in Israel. Before leaving Warsaw, he stated to the Polish Minister of Public Administration: “When the Jewish Agency ceased its activity in Poland, it became obvious that my place is in Israel, where there is work for me and an appropriate position.” After arriving in Israel, he became chairman of the Progressive Party’s Alliance of Polish Jews and joined the Executive Committee of the party. In time, when his position in the party had become stronger, he began to take up positions in state institutions; for example, in the Jewish Agency, he was the head of its branch in Haifa, then in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. He was involved in investments in the “Rassco” construction company (which was managed by the General Zionists and Progressive Party activists), and this was of serious economic significance during the shortage of apartments, which Langnas himself was painfully aware of. He also performed similar duties in a powerful company called “Tzim,” dealing with passenger transport and commercial shipping. He was the editor of Polish-language newspapers published by the Progressive Party (Opinia and Nowiny Izraelskie, and later Nowiny-Kurier). See Saul Langnas’s letters to the directors of the Jewish Agency in Eretz Israel in Stosunki polsko-izraelskie (1945–1967): Wybór dokumentów, wybór i oprac [Polish-Israeli Relations (1945–1967): A Selection of Documents and Commentary], ed. S. Rudnicki and M. Silber (Warsaw, 2009), 134; tyha, file 2/4 (ayin), Interview with Goren Ron by Tzahal Naftali, 1 May 1972; interview with Dov Yohannes, 15 May 2008, materials from the author’s collection; Archive of the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw (hereinafter: ainr), file 01168/429/J microfilm, Langnas Saul, cards 8, 10, 11.
Dov Yohannes was born in Kraków in 1914 and died in Tel Aviv in 2014. He studied law and administration at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He belonged to the Akiva youth movement already when he was a high school student. When World War ii broke out, he was in Lwów, where he and his friends were active in the underground resistance, and then he returned to Kraków. He survived the war in a shepherd’s hut where he hid with the help of a highlander. His family – his sisters and parents – were all killed. After the war, he helped to organize a Brichah association in Kraków. The south of Poland was chosen for the headquarters of this organization, so that it would be easier to transfer Jews abroad (to Czechoslovakia and Romania). He also initiated the establishment of a school for Jewish orphans returning from the Soviet Union after the war. After taking over as the director of the Eretz Israel Office, which was a representative of the Jewish Agency at the level of the Polish government, he moved to Warsaw. There, he mainly dealt with obtaining certificates for the departure of Jews from Poland. Ichud’s travel policy was to organize the largest possible transports of Jewish emigrants, while the leaders’ trips were closely coordinated and usually postponed until later – it was assumed that they would be the last to leave. Dov Yohannes was forced to leave Poland in 1947, after having been denounced – it was suspected that while smuggling a group of people across the Polish border, he had hidden Poles among the Jews, thus helping them emigrate from their country. Moreover, before the creation of the State of Israel, there was a period in Poland when an anti-departure atmosphere intensified: the Polish borders were closed, and it became extremely difficult to organize the transfer of Jews on fake documents. When Yohannes was interrogated by the Security Office and put under surveillance, it became impossible for him to continue working and to organize further aliyot, so he was left with no other choice but to emigrate to Eretz Israel. In Israel, apart from his involvement in the Alliance of Polish Jews, he worked in the Histadrut, dealing with cultural and educational issues, organizing courses for employees, and finally establishing a private university – the College of Administration. H. Zeidel, “Księga Krakowa” [The Book of Kraków], Nowiny-Kurier, no. 2148 (1960): 4; Established on the basis of an interview with Dov Yohannes, 15 May 2008, materials from the author’s collection; tyha, file 2/4 (ayin), Interview with Goren Ron conducted by Tzahal Naftali, 1 May 1972.
“Kronika ruchu” [A Chronicle of the Movement], Opinia, no. 1 (1950): 8.
tyha, file 119/1, letter from Dov Yohannes to the secretary of the Progressive Party, 25 May 1950.
tyha, file 119/1, letter from the Alliance of Jews from Poland sent to the Progressive Party (unsigned), 11 October 1953.
Aliyah Chadashah (The New Emigration), formerly Ha-Goʾah. In 1938, immigrants to Palestine from Germany and Austria organized themselves as the Association of Jewish Emigrants from Germany and Austria (Histadrut Olei Germania Olei Austria, abbreviated as Ha-Goʾah). The main goal of this organization was to establish relations between these emigrants and Zionist institutions. This group had assets in the form of loaned funds and developed its own entrepreneurial spirit. Having among its ranks several outstanding political figures, mostly active in the judicial system, it also wanted to occupy a more independent position in public life. In 1942, it was transformed into the Aliyah Chadashah, which demanded political freedom and liberal principles in social life and was in favor of reaching an agreement with the Arabs. After the war, it supported the fight against Nazism, but not the boycott of things related to Germany and its culture.
K. Z. Paltiel, The Progressive Party: A Study of a Small Party in Israel (Jerusalem, 1963), 262, 303, 306. The author does not mention the organizations described in Opinia: from Yugoslavia, Turkey, Egypt, Africa, Shanghai, and Czechoslovakia. In an interview with Yochanan Kohen, a member of the Progressive Party in the Knesset originally from Poland (born in Łódź in 1917, died in 2013), he evaluated the party’s structure at that time and stated that although the Polish group was influential, the German group had the most control. Interview with Yochanan Kohen, 15 July 2008, materials from the author’s collection.
A. Rozenman, “O sytuacji narodu żydowskiego w Golucie” [On the Situation of the Jewish Nation in the Galut], Opinia, no. 1 (1950): 3. The compulsion among former Ichud activists to organize themselves was so strong that when the alliance was established, and then a Polish-language newspaper, there was a suggestion to create an organization called the Friends of Opinia Association. The need to belong to an organization was common among newcomers to Israel. “Kronika ruchu” [A Chronicle of the Movement], Opinia, no. 5 (1950): 8.
Interviews with Dov Yohannes, 15 May 2008 and 22 April 2009, materials from the author’s collection.
Moshe Kol, before changing his name to Kolodny (1911–1989), was born in Pinsk. He left for Israel in 1932. From 1941 to 1946 he was a member of the Histadrut Executive Committee, in 1946 a director of the Jewish Agency and a member of the Council of the Provisional State, from 1947 to 1966 the chairman of the Department of Youth Emigration (Aliyat ha-Noʿar), one of the founders of the Progressive Party, a member of the Second through Eighth Knessets (1951, 1959–1966, 1974), and the minister of tourism and economic development (1966–1969); For a biography of Moshe Kol, see Stosunki polsko-izraelskie (1945–1967): Wybór dokumentów, wybór i oprac [Polish-Israeli Relations (1945–1967): A Selection of Documents and Commentary], ed. S. Rudnicki and M. Silber (Warsaw, 2009), 77.
“Kronika ruchu” [A Chronicle of the Movement], Opinia, no. 1 (1950): 9.
tyha, file 119/1, letter to Saul Langnas to Yitzchak Arzi, 15 December 1959.
Interview with Dov Yohannes, 15 May 2008, materials from the author’s collection.
In 1951, 28 clubs of the Alliance of Jews from Poland were registered.
tyha, file 119/1, letter from the Alliance of Polish Jews, signed by Saul Langnas and Dov Yohannes, undated and numbered 85. It can be concluded from this document that this was a coalition formed in 1951.
The Alliance (Association) of Invalids from Poland was established in 1958, before the elections scheduled for the following year. At the beginning of its activity, it received funding from the party. In 1958, 1,400 disabled people belonged to the association. tyha, file 119/1, letter from the Liberal Party’s Alliance of Jews from Poland (illegible signature) to Yosef Tamir, secretary of the Liberal Party, which was a section of the Progressive Party from 1961 onwards, 15 March 1964; tyha, file 119/1 (mem), letter from the Alliance of Jews from Poland to Yosef Tamir, 15 March 1964.
See tyha, file 11/3 (alef) (comp. no. 37584), letter written by Wawek Zając from Kiryat Chaim, 20 February 1958.
tyha, file 19/9 (tzadi, yod, ayin) (ar-02-010-09), minutes from a meeting of a council for care of the new olim, 3 April 1949.
tyha, file 119/1, appeal of the Alliance of Polish Jews sent to the Progressive Party, signed by Edward Rostal and Dov Yohannes, undated; tyha, file 119/1, resolution of the Central Council of the Alliance, 28 February 1951.
llc, registered in the Ministry of the Interior on 26 July 1950. tyha, file 102/1 (mem), minutes from a board meeting of Matmon Press, 8 September 1950. Its chairman was Dov Yohannes, its treasurer was Bronisław Mendel, and its members were Edward Rostal, Hillel Zeidel, and Mordechai Zonshayn. Its shares were allocated to the Zionist Workers’ Society llc (Chevrah Mifʿalei ha-Oved ha-Tziyoni be-Eravon Mugbal), with a slight predominance of the Society of Enterprises of the Progressive Party (Chevrah Mifʿalei ha-Miflagah ha-Progresivit be-Eravon Mugbal). These were the economic enterprises of Ha-Oved ha-Tziyoni, making up part of the Progressive Party. Political parties in Israel were not allowed to run businesses, which is why they set up associations for this purpose. Private individuals each owned one share in Matmon Press: Dov Yohannes (chairman of the board), Edward Rostal, Bernard Mandel (treasurer), Mordechai Zonshayn and Hillel Zeidel; Opinia was printed by Yehuda Mozes. “Od wydawnictwa” [From the Publishing House], Opinia, no. 4 (1950): 8; tyha, file 102/1 (mem), minutes from a board meeting of Matmon Press, 8 September 1950; tyha, file 102/1 (mem), memo on the subject of Matmon Press, 6 January 1950; tyha, file 119/1, letter from Dov Yohannes to the secretary of the Progressive Party, 6 June 1950; interviews with Dov Yohannes, 5 May 2008 and 22 April 2009, materials from the author’s collection.
L. Chaikin, “Opinia poraz [sic] trzeci” [Opinia for the Third Time], Opinia, no. 2 (1950): 6.
Opinia (Tel Aviv), no. 2 (1950): 2; Opinia (Tel Aviv), no. 1 (1950): 1; Opinia: Tygodnik Społeczno-Polityczny [Opinion: A Socio-Political Weekly] (Tel Aviv), no. 1 (1950): 1. Opinia: Tygodnik Żydowski Polityczno-Społeczny i Literacki [Opinion: A Jewish Socio-Political and Literary Weekly] was established in 1933, first in Warsaw, where the editor-in-chief was Moses Indelman and the editorial office was headed by Moses Kleinbaum (Moshe Sneh). On 18 August 1935, the publication of the newspaper was transferred to Abraham Insler in Lwów, and after his death (21 September 1938), to Yechezkel Levin. In 1945, the Ichud Alliance of Democratic Zionists first established a newspaper named after the organization – Ichud – and then on 10 July 1946 produced the first issue of Opinia: Pismo Syjonistyczno-Demokratyczne [Opinion: A Democratic-Zionist Publication]. The change of title was justified as follows: “The pulpits of the preacher Yechezkel Levin were burnt down, but his Opinia has come into being again.” However, this was now a different Opinia. The prewar Opinia had focused on familiarizing readers with knowledge of Jewish customs, literature, and history, as well as providing Zionist education and maintaining national identity; more often than the idea of Zionism itself, the proposition of immigrating to Eretz Israel was raised. In contrast to the prewar Opinia, in its postwar version the experience of the Holocaust limited the aims of the newspaper, as well as the entire movement, making ideological discourse, at least theoretically, a marginal issue in relation to the main aspiration: the liquidation of the golus – the diaspora. Current events provided arguments: the first issue was devoted to the memory of the “martyrs from Kielce” (i.e., the victims of the pogrom in the Polish town of Kielce on July 1946), in which five members of Ichud had been killed. Opinia: Pismo Syjonistyczno-Demokratyczne [Opinion: A Democratic-Zionist Publication] 1 (Łódź-Warsaw, 1946): 1, 3; see also Opinia: Tygodnik Żydowski Polityczno-Społeczny i Literacki [Opinion: A Jewish Socio-Political and Literary Weekly] (Warsaw-Lwów-Kraków-Vilnius) 1 (1933): 1.
Ha-Oved ha-Tziyoni originated from the Ha-Noʿar ha-Tziyoni movement in Poland. At the fourth Histadrut conference (1933), a group was present that defined itself as the Ha-Oved ha-Tziyoni youth movement and had one envoy; from 1935 onward, it was in Histadrut. At the fifth conference (1942), as Ha-Oved ha-Tziyoni, they had 14 envoys (out of the 392 envoys present at the whole conference), at the sixth (1944) they had 12 (out of 401), at the seventh (1949) they had 19 (out of 289), at the eighth (1956) they had 42 (out of 467), and at the ninth (1960) they had 46 (out of 801). In 1956, compared to previous years, they had the highest number of participants in Histadrut, about 10 percent. In the 1970s, they owned 80 kibbutzim, moshavim, and boarding houses. Ha-Entziklopediyah ha-ivrit [Hebrew Encyclopedia] (Masada, 1976), 28:108; S. Eisenstadt, Ha-Chevrah ha-Yisraʾelit [Israeli Society] (Jerusalem, 1967), 235–36.
The following was written about Ebner: “Our editorial team managed to attract a great columnist, Dr. Mayer Ebner, to cooperate with us. Dr. Mayer Ebner is one of the veterans of the Zionist movement and a participant in the first Zionist Congress, one of Dr. Herzl’s close associates and a leader of Jews from Romania and Bukowina.” “Epilog i prolog” [Epilogue and Prologue], Opinia, no. 12 (1950): 1. Ebner’s columns were published, for example, in the prewar Opinia: “Żabotyński na rozdrożu” [Żabotyński at an Intersection], Opinia, no. 3 (1935): 1; “W ślepej uliczce” [In a Blind Alley], Opinia, no. 5 (1935): 1. See also “Zmarł przyjaciel bł.p. dr Meir Ebner” [Our Friend, Blessed Dr. Meir Ebner, Has Died], Nowiny Poranne, no. 153 (1955): 3.
Yechezkel Moshe Naiman (Neuman) (born 1893 in Żychlin near Kutna, died 1956 in Tel Aviv) was a writer, journalist, and member of the editorial team of the daily newspapers Lodzer Morgenbłat and Haynt (he was also a literary and theater critic for the latter). Zofia Borzyminska Rafal Zebrowski, Polski słownik judaistyczny: Dzieje, Kultura, Religia, Ludzie [Polish Judaic Dictionary: History, Culture, Religion, People] (Warsaw, 2003), 2:226.
“Pamięci I. M. Najmana” [In Memory of I. M. Naiman], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 129 (1958): 3. Davar Haszawua was a weekend edition of the Davar newspaper.
tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Moshe Goldstein to the Board of Directors of Opinia, 7 May 1951; tyha, file 102/1 (mem), Board of Directors of Opinia to the Budget Committee of the Progressive Party, December 1950, signed by Dov Yohannes.
isa, file 716/59 (gimel), newspaper subscription agency, Przegląd, 2,880 copies; Kronika Tygodniowa, 2,200 copies; Chwila, 3,000 copies.
tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Moshe Kol to Eliezer Granot from the Sochnut and Dov Yosef (Minister of Agriculture, then Minister of Tourism) requesting paper for Opinia, 11 October 1950; tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Saul Langnas to the secretary of the Progressive Party, 10 October 1950; tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Eliezer Granot to Dow Josef, 19 October 1950; tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Lipman of the Light Industry Department of the Treasury to the secretary of the Progressive Party, 4 April 1952; tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from J. Herzig of the Information Policy Department (Hasbara) to Saul Langnas, 29 April 1952.
tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Moshe Kol to Pinchas Rosen, the Minister of Justice, and Eliezer Granot, 11 October 1950; tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Eliezer Granot to Dov Yosef (whose responsibilities during the War of Independence included the distribution of food in besieged Jerusalem), 19 October 1950; tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Saul Langnas to the Progressive Party, 10 October 1950; tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from J. Herzig to Saul Langnas, 29 April 1952; tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Moshe Kol to J. Herzig, 14 December 1951. It often happened that a newspaper was registered in order to obtain an allocation of paper, which was then traded on the black market. For this reason, before the allocation of paper there were efforts to determine the actual number of press publications on the market. isa, file 716/54 (gimel), letter from the Ministry of the Interior to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, 9 January 1951; “Partia Postępowa protestuje przeciwko metodom walki z czarnym rynkiem” [The Progressive Party Is Protesting Against the Methods Used to Fight Black Market Trade], Opinia, no. 5 (1950): 1; “Do walki z czarnym rynkiem” [To Arms against the Black Market] (in a column titled “Na fali wydarzeń” [On the Wave of Events]). Opinia, no. 4 (1950): 2.
tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Moshe Kol to Pinchas Rosen, the Minister of Justice, and Eliezer Granot, 11 October 1950.
tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Dov Yohannes to the secretary of the Progressive Party, 24 June 1951.
According to a promotional article about him, he came from Suwałki and became interested in sports while he was a student at Vilnius University. He created a program for expanding sports facilities for youths in Tel Aviv, and he was the director of the youth department in Keren Kayemet. In 1959 he became the deputy mayor of Tel Aviv. M. Tiger, “‘Ulubione dziecko’ Moshe Goldsteina” [Moshe Goldstein’s “Favorite Child”], Nowiny-Kurier, no. 731 (1960): 5.
According to the leaders of the Alliance of Jews from Poland, the statistics for emigration from Poland and the participation of new olim in the camps from 1948 to 1953 were as follows: “From the creation of the State of Israel until 1 April 1953, 710,311 olim arrived from 56 countries. […] From Romania 122,653, from Hungary 13,700, from Bulgaria 37,000, from Czechoslovakia 18,200, and from Poland 103,996. This last number includes both direct aliyah from Poland and people who came by indirect routes. […] 198,733 new olim live in 111 maʿabarot. This shows that about half a million people have taken up residence in houses that formerly belonged to Arabs and in newly built shikunim, while about 200,000 are living in makeshift conditions and waiting for shikunim. Do Batei Olim camps still exist? Only three – in Bat Galim, Pardes Chana, and Shimon in Cholona, famous among Polish olim. Only in Pardes Chana do olim receive food from the Sochnut, because it is now a ‘city of old people,’ brought together from other locations. […] In the maʿabarot there are 3,030 families from Poland – 8,205 people. This is 5% of all maʿabarot inhabitants. For comparison, 24% are from Romania and 30% are from Iraq.” E. Rostal, “Z Polski przybyło 103 996 olim” [103,996 Olim Have Come from Poland], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 84 (1953): 2.
M. Goldstein, “Partia Postępowa w obliczu wyborów municypalnych” [The Progressive Party in the Municipal Elections], Opinia, no. 6 (1950): 3; tyha, file 102/1 (mem), minutes of the Opinia Committee, 4 January 1951.
E. Rostal, “Z okrętu – do osiedli rolniczych” [From the Ship – to Agricultural Settlements], Nowiny Izraelskie 141 (1954): 2.
tyha, file 19/9 (tzadi, yod, ayin) (ar-02-010-09), minutes of a meeting of a council for care of the new olim, 3 April 1949.
tyha, file 10/9 (tzadi, yod, ayin), minutes of a meeting of a council for care of the new olim, 3 April 1949; see also Archive of the Labour Party in Beit Berl (hereinafter: alp), file 2/929/1958/8, report by Moshe Kitron sent to Giora Josefstal, 17 March 1958.
Chaikin, “Opinia poraz [sic] trzeci,” 6.
tyha, file 11/4 (alef), letter to the Members of Ha-Noʿar ha-Tziyoni, 10 October 1959.
Interviews with Dov Yohannes, 15 May 2008 and 22 April 2009, materials from the author’s collection; tyha, file 2/4 (ayin), interview with Goren Ron by Tzahal Naftali, 1 May 1972.
D. Harten, “‘Jardenia’ Warszawska: Wspomnienia o akademickich działaczach syjonistycznych” [“Jardenia” in Warsaw: Recollections of Academic Zionist Activists], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 148 (1954): 4 (the end is from page 2). Binyan is Hebrew for “construction,” here in the meaning of: “building, creating something new”; hityashvut is Hebrew for “to reside, to settle down.”
Paltiel, Progressive Party, 229; tyha, file 11/9 (ayin, yod, tzadi), minutes for the period of 8 January 1950 to 31 January 1950. The decision of Polish Jews to settle on undeveloped agricultural land was associated with high hopes. A letter from a reader to the editors of the Israeli Opinia testifies to the difficulties faced in this process: “Let’s be honest, it is not, as Dr. Weiss writes, that ‘despite daily exasperations, the Polish olim are concerned about the importance of their positive role in the life of the nation.’ If this were the case, out of 12,000 Polish olim, more than 350–400 people would settle on the land, constituting 3–4 percent of the aliyah from Poland. If there were such an aliyah from all countries, its effects can be imagined.” Opinia, no. 6 (1950): 6.
Hebrew: a house for immigrants.
tyha, file 11/9 (ayin, yod, tzadi), minutes from the period of 8 January 1950 to 31 January 1950, sent by Yeshaiah Dreksler to the Department of Adaptation, Machaneh Yisraʾel, 1 February 1950.
This is confirmed by detailed reports written during trips made by Jews in the period from 24 November to 3 December 1949. ainr, file 01355/18, a targeted case concerning the immigration of Jews to Israel in 1950.
“Krakowianin – burmistrzem Tel Awiwu: Chaim Lewanon kandydat siódmego miejsca” [A Krakovian – the Mayor of Tel Aviv: Chaim Levanon Is the Candidate in Seventh Place], Kurier Izraelski 7 (1954): 5.
tyha, file 2/4 (ayin), Interview with Gorene Ron by Tzahal Naftali, 1 May 1972; D. Pines, Nie taka jest nasza droga [This Is Not Our Way]. Opinia, no. 6 (1950): 3 (the article appeared in the “Na cudzych szpaltach” column and was translated and reprinted from Davar – Histadrut’s press publication).
isa, file 715/3 (gimel), letters from the Ministry of the Interior to the Progressive Party, 31 August 1952 and 14 January 1953; tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Saul Langnas to Tzvi Klementynowski, 23 July 1952.
Interviews with Dov Yohannes, 15 May 2008 and 22 April 2009, materials from the author’s collection. With permission from the Ministry of the Interior, instead of Nowiny [The News], the title remained Opinia [Opinion]. tyha, file 137/6 (mem), letter from Judah Kuperman to the Progressive Party in response to a request on 10 August 1952. Letters making reference to Nowiny, but still under the name Opinia, came from offices and even circulated between party activists in 1952. tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Moshe Goldstein to Benjamin Akzin, 1 September 1952; tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from the Ministry of the Interior to the Progressive Party, 18 August 1952.
tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Saul Langnas to Tzvi Klementynowski, 23 July 1952.
tyha, file 137/6 (mem), permission to publish for the Progressive Party, 10 August 1952.
tyha, file 22/2 (mem), meeting of the secretary staff of the Progressive Party, 14 October 1954.
tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Moshe Kol to Saul Langnas, 13 September 1957.
tyha, file 102/1 (mem), a clause of the agreement.
“Do Czytelników” [To the Readers], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 1 (1952): 5.
“W piątą rocznicę śmierci Wiktora Brandysa” [On the Fifth Anniversary of the Death of Wiktor Brandys], Nowiny-Kurier, no. 347 (1960): 2.
J. Margolin, “Rogata dusza” [A Soul With Horns], Nowiny Poranne, no. 9 (1955): 2.
The Polish Armed Forces assembled in the ussr in 1943/1944, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Zygmunt Berling.
The Internal Security Corps was established in 1945 and was directly subordinate to the Ministry of Public Security. In the first years after the war, it was strongly associated with the fight against the political opposition and circles that were critical towards the communist authorities in Poland, and it was also used to ensure national security.
J. Margolin, “Rogata dusza” [A Soul with Horns], Nowiny Poranne, no. 9 (1955): 2.
Margolin, “Rogata dusza,” 2.
H. Rosenblum, “Nad grobem przyjaciela” [At a Friend’s Grave], Nowiny Poranne, no. 9 (1955): 2.
tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter to Arie Ben Tov to Nowiny, 23 December 1954.
He was born on 13 October 1882 in Peratyn, Ukraine. Archive of the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London (hereinafter: apism), file A.49/103, tag 508.
S. Langnas, “Bł. Dr. Henryk Rosmarin” [The Blessed Dr. Henryk Rosmarin]. Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 16 (1955): 2.
In Palestine, Ben-Tzion Zangen and Henryk Rosmarin belonged to the Association of Professional Jewish Journalists from Poland. apism, file A.49/37, tag 324, memorandum of the Association of Professional Jewish Journalists from Poland sent to the Polish Government in London, 22 December 1940. He came from a rabbinical family in the town of Rozwadów and graduated from high school in Tarnów. He collaborated with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He wrote for the literary section of Togblat as well as the Polish-language Zionist press, collaborated with the Lwów-based newspaper Chwila and was a correspondent for the Kraków-based newspaper Nowy Dziennik. He was regarded as a specialist in the field of Judaism. He reached Eretz Israel in 1940 through Romania and Turkey. “Bl. P. Bencjon Zangen” [Ben-Tzion Zangen, Blessed Be His Memory], Nowiny Poranne, no. 26 (1955): 2.
B. Zangen, “Gdyby to było we Lwowie” [If It Were in Lwów], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 19 (1955): 2.
Zangen, “Gdyby to było we Lwowie,” 2.
S. Langnas, “Bł. Dr. Henryk Rosmarin” [The Blessed Dr. Henryk Rosmarin], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 16 (1955): 2; “Pogrzeb błp. Dra Henryka Rosmarina” [The Funeral of the Blessed Dr. Henryk Rosmarin], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 17 (1955): 2; “Akademia żałobna ku czci bł. p. d-ra H. Rosmarina” [The Funeral Academy in Honor of Dr. H. Rosmarin, Blessed Be His Memory], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 15 (1956): 2.
apism, file A.49/37, tag 324, memorandum of the Association of Professional Jewish Journalists from Poland sent to the Polish Government in London 22 December 1940. The joining of the Association of Professional Jewish Journalists in Palestine with the Union of Polish Journalists in Palestine took place on 28 October 1941. apism, file A.49/327, a letter from Henryk Rosmarin to the Polish consul in Jerusalem, 18 October 1941.
The executive committee was formed by Chaskiel Neuman, Samuel Świsłocki, Fryderyk Schönfeld, Zygmunt Fogel (Fogiel in the document), and Zygmunt Hochwald. The list of members contained the following journalists from the Lwów-based newspaper Chwila: Maurycy Hescheles (director), Fryderyk Schönfeld (member of the Professional Council of the Syndicate of Lwów Journalists), Dr. Józef Finkelstein (editorial collaborator), and Ben-Tzion Zangen (collaborator in the editorial staff and with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency); journalists from Haynt (Warsaw): Mojżesz Indelman (President of the Jewish Section of the Syndicate of Warsaw Journalists, editorial secretary, and parliamentary reporter), Chaskiel Neuman (member of the editorial committee and member of the Pen Club executive commmittee), Mojżesz Kleinbaum (Moshe Sneh, member of the Committee Representing Polish Jews in Palestine and a political editor), Mojżesz Justman (member of the editorial committee, columnist), and Dr. Joseph Kruk (columnist and former president of the Union of Jewish Writers and Journalists); journalists from Chwila: Shulim Gottlieb (editor of the afternoon edition of Radio magazine), Natan Gurdus (a collaborator, member of the Union of Foreign Correspondents in the Sejm, and collaborator with Politiken in Copenhagen and Daily Express in London); journalists from Nasz Przegląd in Warsaw: Paulina Appenszlak (member of the editorial board and editor of Ewa magazine), Zygmunt Fogiel (member of the editorial board and member of the Honorary Court of the Jewish Section of the Association of Journalists in Warsaw); journalists from Nowy Dziennik: Zygmunt Hochwald (member of the editorial board), Dr. Rubin Wolf (collaborator and editor of Tzofim); a journalist from Piąta Rano: Samuel Świsłocki (editor-in-chief); a journalist from Togblat: Mojżesz Mark (a member of the editorial board); a journalist from Unzer Leben: Józef Klahrman (editor); and a journalist from Wort: A. Krój (a member of the editorial board). apism, file A.49/37, tag 324, memorandum from the Association of Professional Jewish Journalists from Poland sent to the Polish Government in London, 22 December 1940.
apism, file A.49/82, tag 422a, letter from Henryk Rosmarin to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Angers, 20 February 1940; apism, file A.49/103, tag 508, letter from Henryk Rosmarin to the Polish consulate in Jerusalem, 15 February 1940; apism, file A.49/82, tag 422(a), letter from Henryk Rosmarin to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 20 February 1940.
After Germany’s aggression towards Poland in 1939, the government of the Second Polish Republic left the country and designated Paris and then Angers as its headquarters, finally choosing London (from 1940 onwards).
S. Langnas, “Bł. p. Henryk Rosmarin” [Henryk Rosmarin, Blessed Be His Memory], Nowiny Poranne, no. 83 (1955): 2; See also Leder, “Ku czci bł. p. dra Henryka Rosmarina” [In Honor of the Blessed Dr. Henryk Rosmarin], Nowiny Poranne, no. 29 (1955): 2.
Ignacy Schwarzbart (1888–1961) was the president of the Zionist Organization for western Małopolska and Silesia, president of the World Union of General Zionists, vice president of the Joint Stock Committee of the World Zionist Organization, a city councillor in Kraków and a member of the Sejm. During World War ii, he was a member of the National Council of the Republic of Poland in Paris, then in London (a consultative body for the Polish president and the government of the Republic of Poland in Exile, appointed to replace the dissolved Sejm and Senate). After World War ii, he settled in New York, where as a member of the executive committee of the World Zionist Organization he headed the organizational department. “Dr. I. Schwarzbart” [Dr. I. Schwarzbart], Nowiny-Kurier, no. 105 (1961): 4; apism, file A.11.E/1230, statement by Henryk Rosmarin to the press in Palestine, not signed.
apism, file A.11.E/1230, report, undated (probably dating from December 1947).
M. Fuks, “Henryk Rosmarin” [Henryk Rosmarin], in Polski słownik biograficzny [The Polish Biographical Dictionary] (Wrocław, 1989), 132:102, 103.
There were 2,800 subscribers to Chwila, close to the subscription level of Opinia (3,000 copies). isa, file 716/59 (gimel), subscription agency, list of newspapers in February 1950.
tyha, file 22/2 (mem), meeting of the secretarial team of the Progressive Party, 14 October 1954.
tyha, file 137/6 (mem), letter from Gabriela Rosmarin to the district governor in Tel Aviv (Ministry of the Interior), 14 November 1957; tyha, file 137/6 (mem), letter from Yitzchak Arzi to the district governor in Tel Aviv (Ministry of the Interior).
tyha, file 137/6 (mem), letter from the District Office in Tel Aviv (signed by Juda Kuperman) to Gabriela Rosmarin, 25 March 1955; tyha, file 137/6 (mem), letter from Gabriela Rosmarin to the district governor in Tel Aviv, 14 November 1957. Gabriela Rosmarin was born 28 February 1905 in Sambor. apism, file A.49/103, tag 508, letter from Henryk Rosmarin to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in London, 28 January 1941.
tyha, file 137/6 (mem), letter from Gabriela Rosmarin to the district governor in Tel Aviv, 14 November 1957.
Rit [H. Ritterman-Abir], “Za kulisami ‘Nowin’” [Behind the Scenes of Nowiny], Nowiny Poranne, no. 40 (1956): 3.
tyha, file 22/2 (mem), meeting of the secretarial team of the Progressive Party, 14 October 1954.
E. Rostal, “Frontem do nowej aliji z Polski” [Facing the New Aliyah from Poland], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 77 (1956): 2.
D. Faigenberg, “Panu Lipskiemu – w odpowiedzi” [Mr. Lipski – In Response], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 109 (1956): 7.
A Hebrew-language newspaper published by the Progressive Party.
tyha, file 19/4 (ayin, yod, tzadi), letter from Baruch Kostryński to Moshe Kol, 5 July 1955. Accusations appeared in the Hebrew press that Shoken had “promised to donate his ‘independent’ newspaper to serve the Progressive Party.” Dr. Foerder supposedly submitted a proposal to him from the party. G. Shoken, “Do mego Czytelnika” [To My Reader], Nowiny Poranne, no. 83 (1955): 3.
The newspaper of the General Zionists.
tyha, file 19/4 (ayin, yod, tzadi), letter from Hillel Zeidel to Dov Lemberg, 19 June 1955.
tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Moshe Goldstein and Hillel Zeidel to the board of directors of Tushiyah, 15 October 1954.
The General Zionists had seven representatives in the elections to the First Knesset (1949) and twenty in the second (1951). This increase can be explained by the aliyah from Europe, which included people from Poland, as well as by the decrease in popularity – to the benefit of the General Zionists – of Cherut, which recorded a loss of votes (in 1949 it received 14 seats, and in the next election only 8). It seems that the General Zionists benefited from the fact that they were not excessively radical and were sufficiently right-wing. On the other hand, the main leaders of the General Zionists – Yitzhak Grünbaum, Nachum Goldmann, and President Chaim Weizmann (nonpartisan, but originating from the General Zionists) – gravitated towards the Progressive Party. In Nowiny Izraelskie there were also articles written by journalists from Maariv, most likely reprinted.
“Misjonarze polują na Żydów” [Missionaries Are Hunting Jews], Nowiny Poranne, no. 72 (1953): 2.
T. Weinstok, “Kobieta w walce z misjonarzami” [A Woman Fighting Against the Missionaries], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 36 (1958): 7.
“Dziewczyna i misjonarz” [A Girl and a Missionary], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 1 (1956): 2, 4.
“Jordim w Niemczech zrywają kontakt z żydostwem” [Yordim in Germany Are Cutting Off Contact with Jews], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 39 (1958): 2; “Wyrwana ze szponów misjonarzy” [Torn from the Claws of Missionaries], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 55 (1956): 3.
“Zbrodniarz w sutannie” [A Criminal in a Cassock], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 18 (1958): 3.
A. Nahor, “Olim sprzedali krzyże i kupują je na nowo” [The Olim Sold Their Crosses but Are Now Buying Them Again], Nowiny Poranne, no. 18 (1954): 2.
E. Weisel, “Z krzyżem na piersi u wrót Brazylii” [With a Cross on His Chest at the Gates of Brazil], Nowiny Poranne, no. 61 (1954): 3.
“Walka o dzieci między matką a misjonarzami” [A Mother Is Trying to Protect Her Child from Missionaries], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 1 (1956): 6.
For more on ritual murder, see J. Żyndul, “Kłamstwo krwi: Legenda mordu rytualnego na ziemiach polskich w XIX i XX wieku” [The Blood Lie: The Legend of Ritual Murder on Polish Lands in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries] (Warsaw, 2011), 228–40.
A. Remba, “Choinki w domach żydowskich” [Christmas Trees in Jewish Homes], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 152 (1956): 2.
I. Eisenberg, “Bakcyl asymilacji toczy żydostwo francuskie” [French Jewry is Spreading the Germ of Assimilation], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 46 (1957): 7.
Hebrew: Jews deciding not to settle in Israel.
E. Weisel, “Wychrzczeni Żydzi z Izraela kołatają do bram Brazylii” [Baptized Jews from Israel Are Knocking at the Gates of Brazil], Nowiny Poranne, no. 59 (1954): 2; “Z krzyżem na piersi u wrót Brazylii” [With a Cross On His Chest at the Gates of Brazil], Nowiny Poranne, no. 61 (1954): 3; H. Rosenblum, “Tragedia jordim” [The Tragedy of the Yordim], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 19 (1954): 2; E. Weisel, “Jak żyją ‘jordim’ w Brazylii” [How the Yordim Live in Brazil], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 81 (1954): 2; N. Wileński, “Co opowiadają ‘jordim’” [What the Yordim Tell Us], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 115 (1956): 9, 11.
A. Ejlon, “Akcja misyjna w Izraelu” [Missionary Action in Israel], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 62 (1954): 7; H. Rosenblum, “Ksiądz zakłada kibuc” [A Priest Has Established a Kibbutz], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 112 (1954): 2; H. Rosenblum, “Odpowiedź wychrzcie” [An Answer for the Convert], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 176 (1953): 3; A. Nahor, “Czarne sutanny czyhają na dusze nowych olim” [Black Cassocks Are Waiting for the Souls of the New Olim], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 18 (1954): 2; “Pamiętaj, że jesteś Żydem!” [Remember You’re a Jew!], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 46 (1954): 3; “Dusze olim w sidłach misjonarzy: Polowanie na dzieci i dorosłych” [Souls of the Olim in Missionaries’ Traps: Hunting Children and Adults], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 2 (1952): 2.
Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 39 (1958): 2; M. Goldberg, Why Should Jews Survive? Looking Past the Holocaust toward a Jewish Future (New York, 1995), 33–34.
“Walka o dusze” [A Battle for Souls], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 75 (1955): 2; E. Rostal, “Sieroty żydowskie w Polsce należą do Izraela” [Jewish Orphans in Poland Belong to Israel], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 121 (1956): 3.
B. Engelking, Zagłada i pamięć: Doświadczenie Holokaustu i jego konsekwencje opisane na podstawie relacji autobiograficznych [Holocaust and Memory: The Experience of the Holocaust and Its Consequences Described on the Basis of Autobiographical Accounts] (Warsaw, 1994), 45–58.
S. Samet, “Przyszłość Żydów w państwach komunistycznych” [The Future of Jews in Communist Countries], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 17 (1955): 3.
T. Hatalgi, “Czy nasze dzieci pozostaną Żydami?” [Will Our Children Remain Jews?], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 31 (1955): 3. We know from written memoirs that Teodor Hatalgi was from Warsaw. T. Hatalgi, “‘Dziki Zachód’ – w Warszawie” [“The Wild West” – in Warsaw], Nowiny-Kurier, no. 91 (1960): 3.
Hatalgi, “Czy nasze dzieci pozostaną Żydami,” 3.
tyha, file 102/1 (mem), memo on the subject of Nowiny Izraelskie, 1952.
tyha, file 137/6 (mem), letter from Saul Langnas to Hillel Zeidel, 15 March 1958. Political parties in Israel were not allowed to run businesses, so they set up associations for this purpose. Most of the Progressive Party’s businesses belonged to the Zionist Workers’ Group (Ha-Oved ha-Tziyoni), which was part of its structures (their advertisements in Nowiny Izraelskie showed their assets: 20 agricultural settlements, 5 educational institutions, 27 cooperatives and companies, and the “Meʿonet” Building Association). Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 2 (1952): 8; tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Saul Langnas to Moshe Goldstein, 30 December 1952; tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Moshe Goldstein to the “Dulek” Association, 29 July 1952; tyha, file 102/1 (mem), appendix to the agreement, 5 September 1957.
tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Saul Langnas to the board of directors of the Progressive Party, 10 October 1950.
“Do Czytelników” [To the Readers], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 1 (1952): 9.
tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter to the Israeli News Agency, 7 April 1953.
tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from the Israeli News Agency to Moshe Goldstein of the board of directors of Nowiny, 7 April 1953; tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Saul Langnas to Azriel Karlebach, editor of Maariv, 3 January 1954.
tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Moshe Goldstein to Saul Langnas, 29 December 1953; tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Moshe Goldstein to Saul Langnas (illegible date, estimated date December 1953).
As time went by, there was an increasing amount of content directed exclusively towards women, and finally an entire section was dedicated to them. See T. Hatalgi, “Jedność narodowa a języki krajów pochodzenia” [National Unity and Languages of the Countries of Origin], Nowiny Poranne, no. 40 (1956): 4.
D. Giladi, “104 itonim mefitzim la-az be-Yisraʾel” [104 Newspapers in Israel Are Increasing the Use of Foreign Languages], Maariv, 1 January 1954, 8.
tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Moshe Goldstein to Saul Langnas, 8 December 1953; tyha, file 137/6 (mem), letter from Hillel Zeidel to Henryk Ritterman-Abir, 14 December 1957.
tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Saul Langnas to Azriel Karlebach, editor of Maariv (copies were sent to Moshe Goldstein and Hillel Zeidel), 3 January 1954.
“Młodzi fachowcy przybyli z Polski” [Young Professionals Have Arrived from Poland], Nowiny Poranne, no. 37 (1955): 2.
In 1959, the secretary-in-chief of the Progressive Party admitted that the Alliance of Jews from Poland had significantly helped the party in the elections; thus it could request money from the party for its monthly activities and could have its headquarters in the party’s building at 48 King George Street in Tel Aviv. tyha, file 102/1 (mem), letter from Yitzchak Arzi to Nowiny-Kurier, 22 November 1959.
tyha, file 33/3 (ayin, yod, yod, tzadi), letter from Yehuda Shaʿari to Dr. Robinson, 4 June 1959.
tyha, file 11/4 (alef), letter from Moshe Kol to Hillel Zeidel, 1 June 1959. The idea was for ballot boxes to be set up in workplaces, and employees would vote under the watchful eye of the director. Due to the fact that the management apparatus of state enterprises belonged to Mapai, all employees had to be registered members of Histadrut in order to vote in every election. Mapai was able to increase its political power in this way.
“50000 nowych olim przybędzie do kraju w roku 1954/5” [50,000 New Olim Will Arrive in the Country in the Years 1954/1955], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 90 (1954): 2; Rostal, „Z okrętu – do osiedli rolniczych,” 2; “Żydzi z Polski w Izraelu” [Jews from Poland in Israel], Nowiny Poranne, no. 40 (1956), page number illegible.
E. Rostal, “O pomoc dla olim z Polski” [Aid for the New Olim from Poland], Nowiny Poranne 148 (1956): 3; “Do naszych czytelników” [To Our Readers], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 144 (1958): 2.
tyha, file 1/3 (alef) (comp. no. 37584), letter from Moshe Kol to Josef Golan, 11 June 1958.
For an explanation of the “Polish October,” see footnote 163 in chapter 1.
H. Dankowicz in the column “Czytelnik ma głos” [The Reader Has a Voice], Nowiny Poranne, no. 49 (1957): 8.
O. Feld, “Natania – miasto nowych olim” [Natania – A City for the New Olim], Nowiny Poranne, no. 53 (1957): 2.
alp, file 2/929/1958/8, Report by Moshe Kitron sent to Giora Yoseftal, 17 March 1958.
R. Frister, “Absorpcja, Achilles I … panny” [Absorption, Achilles, and … Young Ladies], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 82 (1958): 3; O. Feld, “Absorpcja nowych olim stanu średniego” [Absorption of New Olim at an Average Rate], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 68 (1958): 2; E. Rostal, “W domu powieszonego nie mówi się o sznurze” [Nobody Speaks of Rope in the House of a Hanged Man], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 127 (1958): 2.
E. Bora, “O patriotyzmie izraelskim” [On Israeli Patriotism], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 4 (1958): 5; alp, file 2/949/1957/8, letter from Moshe Kitron to Giora Yoseftal, 1 January 1958.