Summary
The Palestine Manufacturers’ Association (PMA), the loose umbrella organization of Jewish industrialists and manufacturers in Palestine since the early 1920s, one arm of the Yishuv’s “triangular thread” alongside the Jewish Agency and the Labor movement (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.107-108).
Details
- Since its establishment in the early 1920s it was an essential part of the Zionist state-building agenda, cooperating closely with the Jewish Agency, advancing (at least formally) the control of the Yishuv economy by Jewish labor, and mobilizing industry to national causes and not only to capitalist orientations (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.108).
- The Palestine Diamond Manufacturers’ Association was not a member of the PMA until 1943, and its independence often strained relations between the two bodies; its president Arieh Shenkar was among the critics of the PDMA’s autonomy, and indirect ties some diamond manufacturers established with Shenkar exerted some pressure on Oved Ben-Ami to soften his objection to closer PDMA-PMA relations, but relations remained cool and mutually suspicious (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.107, p.110-111).
- In late 1940 and early 1941 it negotiated with the Jewish Agency’s Department of Trade and Industry, the Histadrut and the PDMA on a joint fund to finance diamond apprentices, negotiations that accentuated how limited national intervention in the industry could be (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.110).
- De Vries notes that in contesting diamond capital’s quest for total institutional independence, the Histadrut joined forces with many of the Yishuv’s industrialists (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.121).