Summary
The Palestine Diamond Exchange, founded in late March 1946 under the presidency of Ben Schafferman as a stock company in Tel Aviv to create a diamond bourse, a company of 180 importers, manufacturers and traders (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.219).
Details
- Its establishment was closely associated with the liberalization of the diamond industry and the weakening of the Palestine Diamond Manufacturers’ Association monopoly position; the opening of the diamond exchange in Tel Aviv exemplified the freer trade that followed the 1945 inquiry committee’s report (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.217, p.219).
- The bourse had no trading halls at its disposal, and its members’ activity was conducted at the Diamond Club, the Palatine café and the Bank Igud hall, all in Tel Aviv’s main commercial center (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.219).
- Its “Memorandum of Association of the Eretz Israel Diamond Exchange (31 March 1946)” determined the company’s share capital and its twenty goals, among them forming special committees to manage a diamond bourse, managing suitable buildings, resolving differences of opinion among members, instituting arbitration courts, setting honest and just principles in the diamond trade, and maintaining unity in the rules, instructions and customs of the diamond trade (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.219).
- In the summer 1946 crisis of robberies by underground members, the Haganah placed protection over the small diamond exchange in Tel Aviv while robberies of the factories persisted (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.234).