Summary
The Damascus-born Jewish Palestine Labor League organiser in Haifa who replaced Eliyahu Agassi there during the 1936-39 revolt, paying off taxi drivers, passing intelligence, conducting propaganda and facilitating the Yishuv’s first Druze contacts (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 2979-3000).
Details
- Alafiya had replaced Agassi as PLL organiser in Haifa when Agassi began to spend most of his time in Tel Aviv and Jaffa; he paid off Arab taxi drivers in Haifa to keep them from joining the general strike (lines 2979-2982).
- With Agassi he regularly passed on information from Arab contacts about conditions in Arab towns and villages and the doings of individuals and organisations, and used his Arabic to conduct antinationalist propaganda (lines 2983-2988).
- Hashomer Hatza’ir activists in Haifa were not pleased about his appointment: the local branch’s discussion bulletin asserted that “the very choice [of the young and inexperienced Alafiyya as local PLL organizer] means the whole thing will be buried.…It is clear that strengthening the PLL is not an imperative for MAPAI.…” (Chapter 6 note 15, citing HH 90/17alef (2alef), December 6, 1936; the bulletin spells the name “Alafiyya”).
- When Agassi and Michael Assaf were assigned to the Histadrut’s Arabic newspaper project, Alafiya — described as inexperienced and, some suggested, not overly competent — was left on his own in Haifa (lines 3015-3022).
- In October 1937 he travelled with Abba Hushi and Shaykh Hasan Abu Rukn to Lebanon and Jabal al-Duruz on a secret Jewish Agency mission to the Druze (lines 2993-2998).
- At Nesher in 1938, after a PLL committee member was kidnapped by guerrillas, the workers begged management to tell Alafiya to stop visiting the site (lines 3068-3072).
Related pages
Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, Palestine Labor League, Eliyahu Agassi, Histadrut, Druze, Haqiqat al-Amr