November 24, 1938 — Parliament Debates Palestine
During the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt, the House of Commons holds a debate on the future of Palestine. Colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald says that British troops are restoring the crown’s authority, that the British Mandate is fulfilling its promise to pave the way for a Jewish national home and that Palestine cannot accommodate more than a fraction of the Jews who might try to escape Nazism.
November 25, 1940 — Transport Ship Patria is Sunk
The Haganah sets off a bomb aboard the SS Patria in Haifa’s harbor to prevent the British from sending more than 1,700 Jews seeking refuge in Mandatory Palestine to the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. The intent is to disable the ship, but it sinks within 16 minutes and kills 267 people, including members of the British crew. The survivors are allowed to stay in Palestine, but 1,560 others who arrived Nov. 24 are sent to Mauritius.
November 26, 1949 — Singer Shlomo Artzi is Born
Folk-rock singer-songwriter Shlomo Artzi is born at Moshav Alonei Abba, southeast of Haifa. The child of Holocaust survivors, he sells more than 1.5 million albums, and Israel Television names him “The Singer of the 60 Years” for Israel’s 60th birthday in 2008. He also gives his time freely to areas in Israel’s periphery, and he and his wife found a nonprofit organization that provides scholarships to Tel Aviv students.
November 27, 1914 — JDC is Founded
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is founded with the merger of the Central Relief Committee and the American Jewish Relief Committee. The organization is a response to the distress of Jewish communities in Europe and Palestine in World War I. The primary objective is to aid Jews worldwide in a timely and collective fashion. The JDC puts out a call for donations from “all Jews of every shade of thought.”
November 28, 1945 — British Issue Land Report
The British Land Transfer Committee issues a report on the effectiveness of restrictions on Jewish land purchases under the 1939 White Paper for Palestine. The investigatory panel, which includes no Zionists, finds that Arabs willingly continued to sell land to Jews in the early 1940s. Those purchases helped connect previously isolated settlements. “The remedy lies in the hands of the Arabs themselves,” the report says.
November 29, 1928 — Meretz Founder Aloni is Born
Shulamit Aloni, a civil rights activist and politician who starts the left-wing Meretz party, is born in Tel Aviv (some sources say she is born in December 1927 or 1928). She starts working with David Ben-Gurion’s Mapai party in 1959 and is first elected to the Knesset in 1965. She leaves Mapai’s successor, Labor, to start Ratz in 1973, then merges Ratz with Mapam and Shinui to form Meretz in 1992. She dies in January 2014.
November 30, 1947 — Jews are Attacked in Arab Cities
The U.N. partition vote the previous day not only sparks violence between Jews and Arabs in Palestine — the first phase of Israel’s War of Independence — but also leads to riots against Jews in such cities as Damascus, Cairo, Beirut and Aden. A 1,000-year-old Torah manuscript is badly damaged in an attack on Aleppo’s Great Synagogue. The leaders of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University declare a holy war against Zionists.
Items are provided by the Center for Israel Education (israeled.org), where you can find more details.