Yehezkel Abramov

Summary

The Ahdut Ha’avoda loyalist who started work at the Palestine Railways in 1921 and served as the Union of Railway, Postal and Telegraph Workers’ secretary for many years, whose interviews (April 9, 1972, and May 14, 1987) are a recurring source for Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948’s railway chapters (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, line 1488; Chapter 3 notes 6, 39, 51).

Abramov complained that he was unable even to teach the Jewish railway workers to refer to Arabs by their proper names: in private conversations and public meetings individuals were routinely referred to, in the Yiddish most of the recently arrived Jews still knew best, simply as “der Araber”; despite his admonitions to “go sit with the goyim” at lunch breaks, his Jewish coworkers usually kept to themselves (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, line 1488).
At the January 1925 council meeting he pointed out to David Ben-Gurion that it was unfair to have allowed the Arabs to vote and then denounce the council’s decisions because Arabs contributed to the majority that endorsed them (line 1530; Chapter 3 note 51).
In Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, Chapter 4: Abramov, of Lydda, was one of the three Jewish delegates who met the High Commissioner in Jerusalem on June 17, 1935, during the railway workers’ mobilization; his May 14, 1987 oral interview is a cited source for the chapter, including for the Histadrut’s efforts to maintain the Jewish share of railway employment (lines 1926-1928; Chapter 4 notes 22, 54).

tags
aliases