The tragic comparison of Israel’s leaders in 1948 and now

Here in Jerusalem, protesters could be known as “Gazans,” after the prime minister’s residence on Gaza Street, or “Parisians,” for the square where they often gather. But we and others around the country are described as “Kaplanists” — Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv, named for Eliezer Kaplan, Israel’s first Finance Minister, is the national focus of anti-government demonstrations.

An engineer, Kaplan directed the technical department of the young Tel Aviv, and in 1933-1948 headed the finance department of the Jewish Agency. After the Second World War he formulated plans to absorb a million immigrants, and when Israel was established, he initiated steps which saved the economy from ruin, including obtaining American aid.

Bezalel Smotrich is Israel’s 28^th finance minister. The reader is invited to learn about his background and his achievements before he took his important seat around the cabinet table (to be fair – some say that his 11 months as Minister of Transport were successful).

Kaplan died in 1952 and was widely commemorated. Other ministers who served Israel’s early days also had streets named after them, but those designations did not become slurs.

With different decisions on naming streets, we might have been Sharettists, after Moshe Sharett, Israel’s first Minister of Foreign Affairs. A jurist by training, he was the deputy editor of Davar, a major daily newspaper. He taught and translated between English, French, Turkish, Arabic and German. The activist behind Homa Umigdal (tower and stockade) which was to determine the borders of the yet unborn state, Sharett recognized the need to communicate with our neighbors and therefore met with many Arab leaders.

Sharett, who was the director of the Jewish Agency’s political department, was the predecessor of Israel Katz, about whose diplomatic qualifications and skills there is little to say.

We could have been Sheetritists, named for Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit, Israel’s first Minister of Police. He directed the Tiberias police, was among the organizers of Jewish defense in the Galilee, studied law, held a senior position in the police training school, became a judge under the British mandate, was a member of “minhelet ha’am” (the provisional government which preceded the state) and is the only signatory of Israel’s Declaration of Independence who was born here.

He was the forerunner of our current Minster of National Security, Ittamar Ben Gvir, the provocative and convicted follower of openly racist Meir Kahana.

The reader will rightfully say that not everything was perfect during the state’s early years. Indeed, problems and the people responsible for them must be recognized. Bad decisions were taken and there were phenomena like discrimination and nepotism.

But imagine that the Foreign Minister at the time had been Israel Katz, Ben Gvir was Minister of Police and Smotrich in charge of the public purse. Would we have survived?

Imagine also that in face of the existential challenges now facing Israel, we had ministers like Sheetrit, Sharett, and Eliezer Kaplan, whose name is scornfully used to denigrate masses of Israelis who regularly take to the streets, in the hope that things here will get better.