August 5
Touring the North
Israeli manufacturing with French financing.
“The Arabs seem to respect strength.”
Manufacturing of Buses and Trucks all with French Financing
August 5, 1957
Monday
Dear Mom Dad & Alan,
Thank G-d everything is fine & I’m having a wonderful time & learning many things about Israel & its people both Jews & Arabs. The Arabs seem to respect strength. As the number one ideal, goodness helpfulness etc. follow a very poor second. This was evident in all your conversations & talks with them. The younger ones learning Hebrew quickly and the older ones slower.
Sunday morning we left the Kibbutz & began touring parts of the Galil, Israel’s bread basket the Valley of Jezreel, and finally Haifa & the huge industrial plants. Of course the latter was most interesting especially some of the new factories going up for the manufacture of buses trucks etc. all with French financial backing.
The port of Haifa was seen in the distance with many ships including the captured Egyptian destroyer. Speaking to some sailors which was later verified by someone a vet from the air force, I found out some very interesting things about the boat & the Sinai Campaign.
I am now stopped at a combination school & farm for refugee children of broken homes from about 20 different lands. It is really a modern miracle while being done after you hear their backgrounds & meet the latest group of arrivals and see what they look like.
Until tomorrow then
Your Loving son
& of course Alan’s Pal
Bob
David’s Comments:
August 5, 1957 Monday
“…we…began touring parts of the Galil, Israel’s bread basket the Valley of Jezreel,…”
Comment leading us to the Emek Jezreel song.
“The new factories going up for the manufacture of buses trucks etc., all with French financial backing. “
In the 1950’S France was a great ally of Israel. In fact, Israel got most of its weapons from the French. Sometime around 1967 the relationship between France and Israel deteriorated.
“The port of Haifa was seen in the distance including the captured Egyptian Destroyer”
The Egyptian Warship Ibraham El Awal, was captured by Israel on November 1, 1956 during Israel’s 1956 war with Egypt. The Ibraham El Awal was towed back to Haifa where it was repaired, and later entered the Israel Navy as the I.N.S. Haifa.
Pict of Egyptian destroyer captured by Israel.
Google Sinai Campaign
French Israel relations