Summary
The Jewish communist leader who sat on the Union of Railway, Postal and Telegraph Workers’ central committee, rejected the charge that the communists had incited the Arab workers to demand disaffiliation from the Histadrut, and was expelled from the union by a vote its delegates, including all the Arabs, confirmed in January 1925 (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 1484-1488, 1532).
Details
- Ungerfeld served on both the union’s central committee and its special committee on joint organization, which may have lent an official tone to the May 1924 meeting at the Palestine Communist Party’s Haifa branch at which communist activists declared they accepted the Arab workers’ unity proposals; for organising that unauthorised meeting, seven Jewish communist railwaymen were expelled from the union for one year (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 1482-1484).
- He rejected the union leaders’ charge that the communists were responsible for the negotiations’ failure: “It was not we who told them about the Jewish Histadrut, they themselves saw what was written on the membership cards they received, and then the question of whether they could be members of a Jewish organization arose among the very first recipients.…There is a sickness among you and you do not know how to cure it, so you look for others to blame” (line 1484).
- When communist activists organised a protest meeting over the seven’s expulsion, the central committee voted to suspend its one communist member — Ungerfeld — ending effective communist influence in the union’s leadership; the January 1925 council, including all its Arab delegates, voted to confirm his expulsion (lines 1490, 1532).
- A few months later, after most Arab members had quit the URPTW, his letter in the PCP’s Arabic biweekly Haifa rejected separatism, insisting it was incorrect to term the old union “Zionist” just because its present leadership was Zionist, and calling on Arab workers to join progressive Jews in fighting for control of the URPTW (line 1546; Chapter 3 note 56).
Related pages
Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, Palestine Communist Party, Union of Railway, Postal and Telegraph Workers, Histadrut, Joint Organization