The non-employment of Jewish labor by the Municipality of Jerusalem and the reasons for it are commented upon in a recent article in the English weekly supplement of “Davar,” Palestine labor daily, entitled “The Mysteries of Jerusalem” and written by I. Shukhman. Among other things the article says:
“Out of the total amount of L. P. 167,930 expended on works in the four years 1923-1927, contracts on which Jews were employed amounted altogether to 6,407, i. e., not even so much as 4 percent! In 1928 the percentage was nil. In 1929 the only contract allotted to Jews was for road construction in a Jewish quarter, which contributed (over and above the rates) half the expenditure involved, an arrangement unprecedented as far as Arab quarters, or, for that matter, German or Greek suburbs, are concerned. The Jewish inhabitants have always been treated by the Mayor as people to be fleeced, not to be fed, and, by the Municipality, as people who pay rates without benefiting by them:
“The ostensible reason given against the employment of Jews has been cheapness. The Deputy District Commissioner of Jerusalem indignantly rejected the idea that Jewish labor was being boycotted by the Municipality of Jerusalem. ‘Such a statement is contrary to fact,’ he wrote in reply to he Jerusalem Workers’ Council on September 28th, 1927.”
The writer cites, however, many in#tances to show that the argument #hat Arab labor and the bids of Arab contractors cost the municipality less #han would Jewish labor and Jewish contractors is not true. He says:
“The record of the Jerusalem Municipality fairly bristles with abuses, into which lack of space forbids us to pursue our inquiry. The frauds perpetrated in the quality of building materials, as revealed in the astonishing short-#ivedness of certain constructions and repairs, especially as compared with works carried out by Jewish labor, would in themselves provide a clue to the riddle of the lowest bid and show what underlies the argument of cheapness.
“In the very seat of the Central Administration a den of favoritism and corruption has firmly entrenched itself. ‘We want a Mayor,’ wrote ‘Al-Jamia-al-Araba’ before the elections of 1927, ‘who will not share with the contractors their profits from the municipal works.’ The fight of Jewish labor for its rights develops into a struggle for suppressing an evil, the pernicious effect of which cannot be over-estimated.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
