Telephone Directory.

(ISRAEL, STATE OF)

Azriel Press for Palestine Posts, Telegraphs and Telephones

Jerusalem

April 1938

A fascinating social insight into the soon-to-be nascent State of Israel. One gleans how diminutive was the population of Eretz Israel and how scarce the recent innovation of the telephone from the fact that this Directory carries listings for just three cities: Jerusalem, Jaffa-Tel Aviv and Haifa, all other locales were considered rural outposts (including Beersheba, Benei Beraq, Kefar Sava, Nathanya, Petah-Tiqva, Ramat Gan, Rehovot, etc.) Rehovot possessed all of eighty telephones, one of which was owned by “Weizmann, Dr. Ch.” (future first president of Israel). Other telephone owners of interest include Jerusalem residents “Epstein, Rabbi Moshe M.” (Rosh Yeshiva of Slabodka-Hebron), “Herzog, Isaac, Chief Rabbi of the Holy Land,” and “Ben-Zevei, I.” (future second president of Israel). The Introduction is of amusing interest: “How to use the Telephone…” Also of note, many Exchanges were closed on the Sabbath and Jewish holidays. The Directory is replete with commercial advertisements that are a fairly representative of the very broad cross-section of business in the developing nation. Geographically speaking, one can clearly glean from the Directory that under the British Mandate, Palestine was well-connected to the neighboring British fields of dominance, i.e. Egypt, Trans-Jordan and Iraq, as well as to the adjoining areas that had come under the French sphere of influence: “Lebanese Republic, Syrian Republic and State of Djebel Druze, Autonomous Sandjak of Alexendretta and Government of Lattaquie” (see Directory pp. 141-45)