Newspaper Page Text
L’Hitraot, Mosl
Moshe Dayan’s resignation this week stirred
speculation as to who his successor might be and what
future plans Dayan might have. See stories at right and
on page two.
The Southern
Israelite
The Weekly Newspaper for Southern Jewry
Our 55th Yesr
VOL. LV
Atlanta, Georgia, Friday, October 26, 1979
No. 43
X' I-
:c x
What a week!
Dayan resigns; court rules
against Eton Moreh settlers
f-rom press dispatches
JERUSALEM—After over
coming five no-confidence
motions in the Knesset Tuesday,
Prime Minister Menachem Begin
faced the selection Qf a successor to
Moshe Dayan, who resigned
Sunday as Israel’s foreign minister.
Speculation centered on 70-
year-old Yosef Burg, presently
interior minister and head of the
National Religious Party, and
Deputy Prime Minister, Yigal
Yadin, 62.
Begin faced additional
difficulties after Monday’s
Supreme Court ruling that gives
the government 30 days to move
100 settlers from the Elon Moreh
settlement on the West Bank.
Reports indicated that Begin is
considering moving the settlement
to another West Bank site which
would not involve private Arab
land, but the radical Gush
Emunim settlers indicated they
would not move.
One of Israel’s staunchest
advocates of the controversial
settlements. Agriculture Minister
Ariel Sharon was reportedly
threatening to resign if the
government obeys the Supreme
Court order.
Dayan’s resignation apparently
surprised his fellow ministers,
though Begin had known of
Dayan's plans several weeks ago.
Dayan declared that he could
not continue to serve because of his
disagreement with the cabinet
majority over the conduct of the
autonomy negotiations with Egypt
and other basic policy matters and
because he and his office have been
relegated to a secondary role in
foreign affairs.
Begin expressed deep regret over
Dayan's decision and praised his
contributions to the peace process
over the past two years. He said
Dayan's resignation was an
important ‘‘national and
international event" but stressed
that the government will continue
to fulfill all of its obligations.
Reaction to Dayan's bombshell
announcement was swift. Labor
Party spokesmen declared it
spelled the beginning of the end of
Begin's Likud coalition
government and its “bankrupt"
policies. But opponents of Dayan's
moderate policies in Herut and the
National Religious Party
welcomed his departure.
In Cairo. Egypt’s Minister of
State for Foreign Affairs, Butros
Ghali. a participant in the
autonomy negotiations, said
Dayan's resignation was proof that
the Israeli government’s settlement
policies on the West Bank were an
obstacle to peace and that this was
recognized even within Israel.
Growing pains /
Kl D util Woliom a n
Israel’s kibbutz movement takes practical
realistic steps to meet needs of the elderly
by Ruth Seligman
As a young country whose social
orientation is geared to youth and
the future, Israel may have been
slower than some other societies to
recognize and meet the needs of the
aged in its midst. If this is true of
Israeli society as a whole, it was
even more pronounced in the early
days of the kibbutz, whose
founders were all youngsters.
Their values hardly related to a
time when a substantial number of
them would be old, with all that
this involves. They were building 1
not only a new society but also an
essentially young society.
“We ran away from the
problem," said one veteran settler.
“We thought we had done enough
by allowing women at 45 and men
at 50 to work a shorter day,
progressively decreasing their
hours each five years. We were
proud of that, whereas other
societies were preventing their
members from continuing to work,
we were striving to enable our
people to continue working—by
offering part-time employment for
as long as the individual so
desired." These work regulations
have been in effect since the end of
the Second World War and do
represent a position worthy of
emulation. Yet, they do not answer
all questions.
“What happens to you in terms
of your own self-pride when you
can’t work, when you feel that you
are not pulling your weight?"
asked another settler. “Or. even on
a more prosaic level, what happens
when you are unable to walk and
take your meals in the communal
dining room? As ‘vatikim’
(veterans), we are privileged to
have the best housing, but it is
often far from the dining and social
halls. Who will bring our meals to
us? What about those of us who are
ill and need daily attention?
Distances are sometimes so great
that in many settlements, it is
almost impossible for the nurse to
get to all of us."
Many practical problems
connected with growing old exist
even in the relatively caring and
protective environment of the
kibbutz. “The situation was not
eased," said one kibbutznick, “by
our refusal to see that a large
percentage of us were growing old
at the same time. Ntye’d been a
homogeneous group of idealistic-
youngsters when we founded our
settlement. And suddenly—almost
overnight it seemed—we were all
past our prime.”
Although slow to wake up to the
problem, it is to the credit of the
kibbutz movement that, once
awakened, it vigorously set about
taking practical and realistic steps
to meet the needs of the old. As
befitting a society built on and
around the ethos of work, one of
the first systematic studies of aging
in the kibbutz was occupational in
nature. This was a booklet
published in 1968 by S. Schacher
surveying the occupations and
activities of aged kibbutz
members. Results of this
occupational research showed that
women members, aged 40 to 50,
were being switched from teaching
and child-care to services and that
men. 50 to 60. were being
transferred from agriculture to
light industry. Yet. the research
also showed that many of the new
occupations were not tailored for
the aged and job dissatisfaction,
especially among the females, was
all too evident.
Other studies followed,
stimulating the kibbutzim to
See Growing Pains, page 21
The golden years?
