Summary
The Baghdad-born (1909) Mapai organiser hired in summer 1932 as the Palestine Labor League’s full-time organiser of Arab workers, who for more than four decades played a central role in the Histadrut’s Arab work (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 2340-2344).
Details
- Born in Baghdad in 1909, Agassi followed his family to Palestine in 1928, graduated from the Herzliyya secondary school, joined a labour-Zionist youth movement and began studying at the Hebrew University; in summer 1932 he accepted Dov Hoz’s and Abba Hushi’s offer to move to Haifa and organise Arab workers full-time, replacing Philip Hassun. He was Jewish, a loyal MAPAI member, fluent in Arabic and English, well acquainted with Arab culture, and deeply committed to organising Arab workers both from socialist conviction and as a means of realising Zionism’s goals; personally gentle, soft-spoken and respectful of Arabs, he endeared himself even to some who vehemently rejected his politics and mission (lines 2340-2344).
- For Agassi, organising Arab workers and the struggle for Hebrew labor were complementary, not contradictory; challenged on Hebrew labor he answered with the “sacks of flour” metaphor — the Arabs had three sacks of jobs (the Arab, government and international sectors), the Jews only one (the Jewish sector), so Jews were entitled to reserve their sack while also seeking a fair share of the other sectors (line 2335).
- He organised in Haifa (the Khayyat building workers, the bakery workers, the Nesher quarry workers) and from 1934 in Jaffa (stevedores and lightermen, Maspero cigarette workers, al-Majdal weavers), working with Reuven Zaslani from summer 1934 (lines 2361-2450).
- At the Iraq Petroleum Company strike of February-March 1935 he joined Hanna ‘Asfur and the strike committee in talks with the company after the PLL’s attempt to keep its organised drivers separate failed; IPC management’s attempt to exclude him from a meeting was refused by the PAWS leaders (lines 2507-2518).
- Chapter 5 note 40 records that after working in the Histadrut’s Arab Department until the 1960s, Agassi set up and then directed its Arabic-language publishing house, retiring in 1975 (lines 2696-2704).
Related pages
Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, Palestine Labor League, Histadrut, Abba Hushi, Reuven Zaslani, Nesher Cement Factory, Iraq Petroleum Company