Back When Israel Was Seventeen: Commemorating Israel's Birthday May 14, 1948

Nadene Goldfoot                                              

On 21 January, the Shalom Meir Tower officially opens, becoming the tallest building in the Middle East (standing at 142 m)
Note:  Israel names a tower commemorating PEACE.
It's enemies name things for people who have killed Israelis.  

I was looking through an old scrapbook and came across an old newspaper on slick white paper of Portland's Jewish Review, May 1965 issue. It was an essay on Israel's 17th birthday.  I would make aliyah in 1980.  In 1965 I was concerned with my teaching and 2 children of of 11 and 12..  How many of us were aware of what was happening in Israel then?
                                                                           

                                                          ISRAEL IS SEVENTEEN

     Israel is currently celebrating her seventeenth birthday.  That is still very young, though not as young as she used to be.  Age however is not all bad.  There is a ripening and momentum that age brings, a maturing of experience and growth that offsets the passing of dewy freshness.

     Israel came forth at a time of supreme tragedy in the history of the Jew.
                                                                   

     Her childhood was a glorious but hard one.  Her people were sorrow-laden refugees;  her land eroded and bleak, her neighbors hostile and threatening.

     The land had no lumber, so it imported timber from Africa and developed an extensive industry exporting plywood.

     She had no diamond mines, but she built one of the world's great centers of diamond polishing and the exporting of polished diamonds continues as a main industry.

     Her neighbors proclaimed a boycott and Israel countered by the building of a merchant marine which grew from a tonnage of 22,000 tons, in the first year of the boycott to the present capacity of over a million tons.
                                                                       

     She had no water, so she built the huge national water carrier to irrigate the Negev and her scientists became pioneers in the desalination of sea water and it became known to such an extent, that President Johnson proposed a partnership of America and Israel in joint experiments in exploring the aid of nuclear energy in desalination.
                                                                         

     The role of America in the development of Israel has been very important.  It was after all only natural.  America too was built by refugees.
                                                                         

Rabbi Arik Ascherman and students planting olive trees
The population in 1965 of Israel was now 2.563 million.
In 2017 at age 69 it has reached 6 million Jews.  The total population
today is 8,323,248 including Palestinians and Christians and others.   

     Israel's annual rate of growth is in excess of 11 per cent a year, higher than that of most nations.  Her neighbors continue to proclaim their hostility, but Israel, not minimizing the danger and preparing for any eventualities, is going ahead and the new port city of Ashdod, giving Israel its largest harbor, will be completed this year.

     The great problem of the next half decade is the industrial development of the Negev.

     It was long ago prophesied that the desert would blossom like the rose, and the prophecy is now in the process of fulfillment.

Who was running the country in 1965?

• Prime Minister of Israel – Levi Eshkol (Mapai until 19 May, Alignment)
• President of Israel – Zalman Shazar
• Chief of General Staff - Yitzhak Rabin
• Government of Israel - 12th Government of Israel

What were the Palestinians doing in 1965?
                                                                       

 the launch of Fatah on Jan. 1, 1965, when it carried out its first terror attack against Israel, attempting to bomb ...Text: "The Al-Aqsa [Martyrs'] Brigades (Fatah's military wing) claim responsibility for the killing of an Israeli soldier during clashes in Hebron."

  The most prominent Palestinian terror attacks committed against Israelis during 1965 include:

• 1 January – Fatah's first major guerrilla attack takes place when Fatah members infiltrated into Israel and attempt to sabotage the National Water Carrier. The squad manages to put an explosive device next to the Water Carrier, but it fails to explode and is later discovered by an Israeli Border Police patrol.
• 1 June – Armed Palestinian armed militants attack a house in Kibbutz Yiftah.
• 29 September – A militant was killed while attempting to attack Moshav Amatzia.
• 7 November – A Fatah cell that infiltrated from Jordan blew up a house in Moshav Givat Yeshayahu, south of Beit Shemesh. The house was destroyed, but the inhabitants were unhurt.

What events were happening in Israel in 1965?

                   

• 21 January – The Shalom Meir Tower officially opens, becoming the tallest building in the Middle East (standing at 142 m).
• 24 January – Syria announces that it has captured the Israeli spy Eli Cohen.
• 7 March – The Israeli spy, Wolfgang Lotz, is captured in Egypt.
• 14 March – Israel and West Germany establish diplomatic relations, 20 years after the fall of Nazi Germany.
• 11 May – The Israel Museum in Jerusalem is inaugurated.
•                                                  
  
• 18 May – Israeli spy Eli Cohen is hanged in Damascus, Syria.
• 19 May – The Alignment party is established as an alliance of Mapai and Ahdut HaAvoda.
• 31 May – Jordanian Legionnaires fired on the neighborhood of Musrara in Jerusalem, killing two civilians and wounding four.
• July – The 1965 Maccabiah Games are held.
• 14 July – The Israeli left-wing political party Rafi is founded by David Ben-Gurion, who breaks with Mapai, the ruling party, and leads a breakaway group of eight members of the Knesset, including Moshe Dayan, Shimon Peres, Chaim Herzog, and Teddy Kollek, amongst others.
• 2 November – the Alignment party headed by Levi Eshkol wins the sixth Israeli legislative elections.

Like they say, "You've come a long way, baby."  

Resource:  Jewish Review Newspaper May 1965

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1965_in_Israel

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/population-of-israel-1948-present