Newspaper Page Text
Pace Ten
THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
Friday, March 23, 1956
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Accurate Weather Strip & Screen Co.
JOHN CHEA, Manager
1162 West Peachtree Street, N. W. AL. 1506
A Happy Holiday
CLOUDT’S Food Shop
1933 Peachtree St., N.E. ELgin 7523
Sincere Holiday Greetings
DRUG SHOPS, INC
661 YT. Peachtree, N.E.
46 Filth St., N.E.
ELgin 3737
ELgin 0357
Greetings of The Season
Gate City Mattress Co.
625 Edgewood Ave., N. E.
ALpine 3100
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SEASON’S GREETINGS
★
ED L. ALMAND, Coroner
Fulton County
Consolidated Quarries
Corporation
P. O. Box 450
DECATUR, GEORGIA
DEarborn 1661
To Our Friends and Customers
$°you6
/^addouer Cjreetineas
A. S. Turner & Sons
Decatur, Georgia
DE. 4421
The Mayor, Mohammed,
And The Mountains
but that some enterprising pub
lic official in the United States
might follow suit. Native New
Yorkers might yet get to see the
Statue of Liberty.
By MARC H. TANENBAUM
The Fiorello LaGuardia of Is
rael was disturbed.
For three millenia Jewish men
and women dispersed throughout
the world yearned to be ingath-
ered to Israel. Why, now, were
so many leaving the country?
Abba Khoushy, the mayor of
Haifa who so frequently has
been likened to the late New
York mayor, LaGuardia, because
of his peppery and original way
of handling public issues, gave
the problem a first-hand look.
Behind the headlines of recent
years which reported the in
creasing departure of “olim,” im
migrants, to the lands of their or
igin, Mayor Khoushy dredged up
these surprising facts:
Most of the immigrants who
left Israel for their former homes
were elderly couples. They
were mainly city dwellers. They
had come to Tel Aviv or Haifa
or Jerusalem, set themselves up
in tight little apartments, and
spent a good part of their days
queuing up in long lines, under
the burning Mediterranean sun,
sweating out their turn for food,
or a seat on a crowded bus.
After a while they began to
feel like their forbears who mur
mured openly against Moses and
Aaron, “Why did we come here?
Would that we had stayed in our
lands when sat by the fleshpots,
when we did eat bread to the
full ...”
The fact that the fleshpots of
these urbanized Israelites in Cen
tral Europe, or India, or North
Africa were illusory or non-ex
istent did not affect their mur-
murings. They were unhappy
cliff dwellers in dusty noisy cit
ies and this was not the “Prom
ised Land of milk and honey”
they dreamt about.
At the same time, Mayor Khou
shy discovered a parallel devel
opment of more pregnant inter
est. There were virtually no
young people among the dissatis
fied “yodim” (those who went
down, out of the Jand, the anto
nym of “olim,” those who went
up). And the reason? The ma
jority of the young Israelis were
in the armed forces during the
struggles with the British and
the Arabs. During their “hitch”
in service, they traveled the
length and breadth of the coun
try from Dan to Beersheba, from
the Jordan River to the sun-
bleached Mediterranean shores.
Within the 8,000 square miles
of their young country/ about
the size and shape of New Jer
sey, the sabras and youthful im
migrants discovered a richness
and variety of scenery and cli
mate that enraptured their af
fections. The fertile coastal
plains were as luxuriant as the
hot cities were dessicating. The
streams and mountains of the
Galilee were altogether arresting.
The stony Judaean hills rustled
with memories of their Biblical
past. And before them the tri
angular Negev stretched out a
beckoning challenge of tomor
row.
The young who saw the coun
try, who lived in her warm em
brace, loved her. And they stayed.
Abba Khoushy gleaned the an
swer from this. The older cit
izens of the state must come to
know Israel in her magnificence,
not only in the meagemess of
her city life.
And so Mayor Khoushy made
this blunt proposal: all the taxi
drivers and truck drivers and bus
conductors should devote their
day off, voluntarily, to driving
the elder men and women of
Haifa through the countryside,
along Elijah’s pathways on Mt.
Carmel, overlook the resplendent
harbor. Out to the kibbutzim on
the weekends. The municipality
of Haifa would arrange the
technical details- The drivers
would be called on several times
during the year to bring the
older people to the country, and
the country to the older people.
The mayor was moving Moham
med to the mountains, and bring
ing the mountains to Moham
med. It worked, and the dis
gruntled elder citizens grew wise
from the young, and they stayed.
The project of Abba Khoushy
itf slowly being taken up by oth
ers, inside and outside of Israel.
Several weeks ago, for example,
an American-owned enterprise,
the Israel Tourist Service Cor
poration, followed in Mayor
Khoushy’s footsteps. The tour
operator’s general manager, Mey
er Passlow, announced that ev
ery American Jew who buys a
tour for sightseeing in Israel will
automatically receive a free tour
for his relative or friend in Is
rael. A sort of ‘‘Point Four
Tour" plan, Passow called it in
his announcement, “helping un
der-developed travelers in Is
rael travel in their own country.”
If the plan works who knows
★
Special Holiday
Greetings
Parcel
Delivery Service
64 Hunter St., S. E.
WA. 8672
★
Season’s Greetings
C. T. BAKER, Consulting Engineer
REFRIGERATION, MECHANICAL POWER PLANTS
1070 Spring St., N. W. ELgin 7710
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Season's Greetings
★
Smith-East CoInc.
Wholesale Produce
PLaza 5-3531
Happy
Holiday
TUCKER & WALLER
PHARMACY
1198 N. Highland Ave., N. E.
AT. 9743
‘3S3S3S3S3S3S3S3S3S3tSS3C3S5S3S3S3S363S3SSSJ63SSC3S363S3S3SJC
It Is Always a Happy Occasion to Join
in Wishing Our Jewish Friends a
Happy Passover Season
Cherokee Electric Co.
3111 Peachtree Rd., N. E.
EXchange 3531