Avi Bareli

The Middle Class versus the Ruling Party during the 1950s in Israel: The ‘Engine–Coach Car’ Dilemma

The political leadership of MAPAI (an acronym for The Workers’ Party of the Land of Israel), the ruling party during Israel’s first years of existence, found itself embroiled in a critical dilemma characteristic of leaders of new nation states during the period of post-Second World War decolonization: the ‘engine–coach car’ dilemma. Does a newly sovereign state’s progress toward becoming a ‘modern society’ require that the political leadership accelerate the advancement of the middle class via economic compensation and social prestige even at the cost of creating significant and lasting or reproduced inequality between the middle class and proletariat? Namely, ought the state allow, or even facilitate, the middle class to become the ‘engine’ that leads the ‘coach cars’ that are the rest of society? In the case of Israel, promoting the socio-economic advancement of the white-collar middle class would yield tremendous inequality between an Ashkenazic (European-Jewish) middle class – mostly veteran Israelis with a core of university-educated professionals – and between new immigrants hailing from western Asia and North Africa (Mizrahim), who were increasingly filling the ranks of the lower strata of society. The alternative to promoting the development of the ‘engine’ was to care for the ‘coach cars’; namely, to curb the ‘engine’s’ progress, thereby keeping under control the inequality between the two classes – which were rapidly filing into two distinct groups: an Ashkenazic middle class and a Mizrahi proletariat. At least in terms of wage policy, the MAPAI leadership did indeed adopt this alternative as a central element in its social and economic policy. The party’s political strategy was based primarily on a combination of two approaches: the social-democratic approach of a welfare state and an approach towards fostering a cohesive Jewish nation-state. This strategy was adopted, knowing that it would lead to ongoing conflict between MAPAI and the Ashkenazic middle class. To paraphrase the thesis of this article, we contend that during the 1950s, MAPAI grappled with the dilemma of the desired degree of inequality between the ‘engine’ of the Ashkenazic middle class and the ‘coach cars’ of the Mizrahi proletariat during the nascent phase of nation-building, ultimately choosing to curtail the development of inequality in Israel. This discussion of the engine–coach car dilemma can be instructive in elucidating the influences that shaped MAPAI’s political and ideological path during the State of Israel’s early years. MAPAI was the political party that propelled the Yishuv (the

Distributive Justice and a Rising Middle Class: Conflict between MAPAI and White-collar Professionals before the 1955 General Elections in Israel

‘Absorbers’ and ‘absorbed’ are the terms used in sociological and historical research on Israeli society in the decade that began in 1948, the year Israel gained its independence. These terms refer, respectively, to vatikim, veteran Israelis, those who immigrated in pre-statehood days, and to olim, new immigrants who arrived in 1948–1952, doubled the population, and matched the veterans in number. It is commonly held that this division solidified, relatively quickly, into a rigid ethnic-based and class-based dichotomous division, as clearly seen in studies of the first decade of statehood, be they of functional, Marxist, or post-colonial theoretical orientation. These interpretations all assume some variety of the basic division between absorbers and absorbed, which became a categorical division used to explain Israeli society in its first years. Eventually this division developed into the categories of middle-class Ashkenazi Jews (including those who immigrated to Israel in the 1950s) and Mizrachim who constituted the lower, proletariat class. Studies of the intense nation-building processes that established Israel as a modern society have dealt, primarily, with describing the conflicts and struggles between absorbers and absorbed. These studies vary in the degree of attention paid to the different interests and to the conflicts within each group, especially among the absorbers, the dominant group that controlled most of the resources owned by the new sovereign society. Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak have, on occasion, mentioned these distinctions, and Devorah Hacohen described the details of the conflict that split the absorbing establishment regarding the question of the number of immigrants from Middle Eastern countries, and the classification of the

Ethnic interests and national ideology during Israel's first decade: addressing the rational Oriental vote

ABSTRACT The article offers an empirical foundation through which the electoral behaviour of the new Oriental immigrants into Israel during the 1950s can be interpreted, based on the assumption that their conduct was, in fact, rational. It focuses on the egalitarian wage policy in the important public sector, which led Ben-Gurion and the leaders of Israels first ruling party, MAPAI, to a confrontation with the European academically educated middle class, and on the political–electoral strategy of MAPAI vis-à-vis the Oriental immigrants during the 1950s electoral campaigns. The article discusses three assumptions: first, that this wage policy was part of the ruling partys attempt to address the interests of the new Oriental working class; second, that this political strategy was publicly discussed, and it addressed the Oriental immigrants’ rational socio-economic calculations for the purpose of securing their political and electoral support; third, that the leaders of nascent Israel and its ruling party presented this policy as a measure towards creating a minimal socio-economic foundation for the process of nation-building during the 1950s.

“On Your Mark!” Public Discourse after the 1955 Elections

In The Academic Middle-Class Rebellion, Bareli and Cohen expose the attempts of nascent Israels European professional elite to maximize wage gaps between themselves and the new Oriental Jewish proletariat, and the successful resistance of the socialist ruling party, Mapai, to those ambitions.

A Class-Inclusive Strike

In The Academic Middle-Class Rebellion, Bareli and Cohen expose the attempts of nascent Israels European professional elite to maximize wage gaps between themselves and the new Oriental Jewish proletariat, and the successful resistance of the socialist ruling party, Mapai, to those ambitions.

The ‘Engine-Coach Car’ Dilemma: mapai’s Discourse on Class, Ethnicity, and Modernization

In The Academic Middle-Class Rebellion, Bareli and Cohen expose the attempts of nascent Israels European professional elite to maximize wage gaps between themselves and the new Oriental Jewish proletariat, and the successful resistance of the socialist ruling party, Mapai, to those ambitions.

The Academic Middle-Class Rebellion

In The Academic Middle-Class Rebellion, Bareli and Cohen expose the attempts of nascent Israels European professional elite to maximize wage gaps between themselves and the new Oriental Jewish proletariat, and the successful resistance of the socialist ruling party, Mapai, to those ambitions.

“In Torn Soles on a Marble Floor”: The Guri Committee and Sharett Government Debates on White-Collar Workers’ Wages, 1954–1955

In The Academic Middle-Class Rebellion, Bareli and Cohen expose the attempts of nascent Israels European professional elite to maximize wage gaps between themselves and the new Oriental Jewish proletariat, and the successful resistance of the socialist ruling party, Mapai, to those ambitions.

“If they Strike—So be it!” The Socialist Pact to Thwart the Guri Committee Recommendations

In The Academic Middle-Class Rebellion, Bareli and Cohen expose the attempts of nascent Israels European professional elite to maximize wage gaps between themselves and the new Oriental Jewish proletariat, and the successful resistance of the socialist ruling party, Mapai, to those ambitions.

Distributive Justice and the White-Collar Workforce: The Outbreak of Conflict

In The Academic Middle-Class Rebellion, Bareli and Cohen expose the attempts of nascent Israels European professional elite to maximize wage gaps between themselves and the new Oriental Jewish proletariat, and the successful resistance of the socialist ruling party, Mapai, to those ambitions.