THE ISRAEL MUSEUM, which opened in 1965, has long been Jerusalem’s cultural jewel – until October 2023, when the National Library opened to the public. Israel’s capital now has two jewels in its cultural crown.
The National Library is older than the Israel Museum or the Hebrew University, where it was housed for many years. Established as the B’nai B’rith Library in 1892 on Ethiopia Street, it was later transferred to Hebrew University, Mount Scopus. During the War of Independence, Mount Scopus became inaccessible, and the library was moved to the Terra Sancta compound. After a few years, the library changed locations again to the Hebrew University’s Givat Ram campus and changed its name to the National Library of Israel, removing “Hebrew University” from its title.
Ten years ago this month, the cornerstone-laying ceremony for the National Library’s permanent home was held on a site facing the Knesset. All of Israel’s who’s who were there, including the two main foreign donors – Sir Jacob Rothschild, an Englishman; and David Sanford Gottesman, an American. At the time, both families had been generous supporters of the Zionist cause for more than a century and a half.
Following the cornerstone laying, I was assigned to interview Sandy Gottesman. He and his wife, Ruth, did not act like billionaires. No airs and graces; just pleasant, soft-spoken, down-to-earth people. In their suite at the King David Hotel, all the small tables were graced with long platters of assorted nuts, for which the Gottesmans apparently had a passion. They urged me to partake.
Sandy Gottesman passed away in 2022. Had he lived another four years, he would have celebrated his 100th birthday on April 26. Among the early investors in Berkshire Hathaway, he left Ruth a billion dollars. Already well into her nineties, she neither needed the money nor knew what to do with it. All her children were well off. She thought about where such a sum could do the most good and decided on the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
In 2008, her husband donated $25 million to the medical school for the creation of the Ruth L. and David S. Gottesman Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. Ruth’s donation was even more meaningful. She had met many promising medical students from poor neighborhoods to which they were not returning, as the low salaries there wouldn’t cover tuition loan repayment.
Ruth Gottesman’s billion-dollar gift, among the largest ever to an academic institution, was earmarked for the abolition of tuition fees. Albert Einstein College of Medicine students no longer have the burden of tuition fees; those wanting to work where they’re most needed can do so without money worries.
The 90th anniversary of Israeli public broadcasting
■ THIS YEAR also marks the 90th anniversary of public broadcasting in Israel and the 60th anniversary of the now-defunct Educational Television (ETV) station, whose programs were transferred to KAN 11. ETV was one of many projects where the Rothschild Foundation partnered with the Israeli government. The first broadcast went on air in March 1966.
This past Sunday, KAN devoted much of its radio and television programing to nostalgic interviews with past and present broadcasting figures – many of them household names – from Army Radio, ETV, former radio and television outlets that had been under the umbrella of the Israel Broadcasting Authority, and lots of archive material that the Israel Broadcasting Corporation, which is the roof body for KAN, inherited from the Israel Broadcasting Authority.
Excerpts from the archives are being televised or played on the radio for much of this year.
Last week, night owls who stayed up till after midnight had the opportunity to be reacquainted with the colorful Musrara neighborhood as it used to be, and with the Black Panthers, who could best be described as Moroccan-born Robin Hoods, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Heading the Black Panthers were Sa’adia Marciano and Charlie Biton, who are both deceased, and Reuven Abergel, who is a social activist and who, remembering the humiliations and hardships suffered by Moroccan immigrants in the 1950s and the following three decades of the state, works to promote civil rights for Palestinians.
The Black Panthers were arrested, and the person who bailed them out of prison was fellow Moroccan Shaul Ben Simhon, who was mostly a suit-and-tie man, unlike the Black Panthers, who wore jeans and polo shirts. Ben Simhon was an energetic figure in the Ashdod Workers’ Committee and chairman of local and national organizations of North African Jews and of people of Moroccan background. Ben Simhon had connections in high places and was able to arrange for the Black Panthers to meet with Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek and with prime minister Golda Meir.
The meeting with Kollek went fairly well, but the one with Meir was a disaster. When introducing them and their followers to Golda, Ben Simhon said they were good boys, to which Golda allegedly responded: “They’re not nice people.” Word quickly spread that Golda had declared that the Black Panthers were not nice people. This was regarded as a slur against the whole of Israel’s Moroccan community.
Golda’s reputation was rapidly becoming mud. Keen to clarify what she considered to be an error in reporting, Golda published that she had responded to Ben Simhon’s contention that the Black Panthers were good boys. What she had said, she contended, was, “They’re not nice people if they throw Molotov cocktails.” The quote attributed to her had been taken out of context.
Ben Simhon, who was also fighting discrimination, would say: “We didn’t come to Israel to be Moroccans. We came to share our culture.”
Part of that culture is the Mimouna, which eventually became a national festival.
There were scenes of Mimouna celebrations in Musrara, where everyone brought something from home to contribute to the feast, and most of the merrymakers were attired in Moroccan national dress. Within a relatively short time, though, there was not enough room in Musrara to accommodate all those who flocked to the area, and the main Mimouna celebration moved to Sacher Park, which became redolent with the aroma of family barbecues. Politicians then started taking advantage of the huge crowds to campaign for their various parties.
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