Romanian-Styled Capitalism

[Camera]

For decades, the State of Israel operated through clandestine channels and 'bought' the Jews of Romania. Yacov (Yasha) Kedmi, formerly the head of "Nativ", recalls the suitcases of cash that made their way from Jerusalem to Bucharest and the brave men behind this important enterprise


Moriya Ben-Yosef
17/2/2013

In those years, Romania was a communist country, but the business worked according to the most basic capitalistic principles: Romania provided the ‘goods’, and Israel bought them.

Since the end of WWII until the collapse of the communist bloc, the State of Israel, assisted and sometimes funded by the US Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC or 'Joint'), paid the Romanian authorities (on the basis of a specific tariff) for each and every Jewish Romanian citizen. In exchange, those citizens were allowed to leave the country and immigrate to Israel.

This decades-long enterprise was the responsibility of the people of "Nativ" - the intelligence agency in charge of maintaining connections with and providing assistance and protection to Jews in the USSR and Eastern Europe. At the head of this enterprise stood Shaike Dan, one of the 'Volunteer Paratroopers' and a major operative of the Escape movement, who was among the founders of "Nativ" and who, for many years, served as the most senior representative of that agency in Eastern Europe.

"We reached an agreement with them for a certain quota of Jews each year. We were the primary source of foreign currency for the Romanian intelligence services. We sometimes paid by cheque, other times in cash - all from Swiss banks," recalled Yacov ("Yasha") Kedmi in a recent interview for IsraelDefense. Kedmi served as the head of "Nativ" between 1992 and 1999, immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"Over the years, Shaike Dan developed excellent connections with senior officials in the governments and intelligence services of the Eastern European countries, and succeeded in establishing a solid connection with the Romanians as well. In Eastern Europe, it was impossible to do anything without being monitored by the security services. It was therefore logical to go ahead and contact them, instead of waiting , and if they wanted it to happen - it would."

"Shaike would sometimes fetch a suitcase containing two million dollars and head for Bucharest. The entire Israeli embassy in Bucharest was a "Nativ" station. At the beginning of each year, we would go to Bucharest, sit down with them and finalize the quotas and prices - how much a child would go for, how much an adult would go for, how much extra should be paid according to the person's professional qualifications and status and so forth. It ranged between less than one hundred dollars to a few thousands. The price for a doctor could be as high as $10,000.

"Throughout the year, we would make all kinds of adjustments, and we would hold a summation meeting at the end of the year - compare, balance the budget and make the necessary complementary adjustments. The management of funds was perfect - strictly in accordance with the tariff."

"Various James Bonds"
Shaike Dan was born in 1909 in the town of Lipkani, Bessarabia. He immigrated to Palestine in 1935 and settled at Kibbutz Nir-Am. During WWII, he volunteered to serve in the British Army and was dropped by parachute, along with his friend Yitzhak (Mano) Ben-Ephraim, in Romania, to help rescue British pilots whose aircraft had been shot down. Before departing for his parachute jumps, he would take a handful of earth from the Kibbutz to keep in his pocket.

Even during the War, Shaike Dan and Yitzhak Ben-Ephraim were already involved in saving Jews and helping immigration to Palestine. After the War ended, they continued to operate in Romania for a number of years. When Israel was established, Shaike Dan was sent to Yugoslavia to help organize Jewish immigration to Palestine from there. After he was apprehended during his activity, he managed to establish a close friendship with the head of the Yugoslav secret police. Subsequently, this agency helped Israel in connection with various activities, including arms smuggling to Israel and by serving as a transit point for immigrants from Romania.

Yugoslavia was a part of the Eastern bloc, but it had been cut off from the ComInform (Communist Information Bureau), and was fairly isolated, caught between the Soviet threat and the embargo imposed by the West. As it was rich in natural resources, but lacked the appropriate infrastructure, it needed Israeli assistance in order to develop its industry.

In Yugoslavia, Shaike Dan was assisted by Ephraim Illin, one of the founders of the Israeli automotive industry, who in those days was a European industrialist, establishing plants in Italy, Yugoslavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria. Illin established similar connections and endeavored to get the Jews out and mediate in arms and aircraft procurement transactions. Dan once said about himself that "the authors of the various spy and James Bond thrillers would not have remained indifferent to some of the affairs in which he was involved."

The first "Nativ" station was established in Vienna by Mike Harari, a veteran Mossad hand who subsequently became the head of 'Caesarea', the Mossad's field operations division. Harari had established stations in Moscow and in Vienna. In those years, Austria was also divided into four zones controlled by the Soviet Union, US, France and the UK, and served as a playground for overt and covert activities by all of the superpowers. Israel took advantage of this situation, and Shaike Dan decided to set up his forward command post in Vienna.

According to Yasha Kedmi, since the 1950s, "Nativ" was in contact with the various security organizations and operated in accordance with the various agreements.

Aliyah, Jewish immigration, went on ostensibly in secret. When Ben-Gurion once blurted that there was Aliyah from Romania, the Romanians responded by 'closing the tap'. It was highly sensitive. They had all kinds of calculations vis-à-vis the Russians." During that period, the Romanians went as far as holding anti-Zionist rallies at work places, where they encouraged the participants to protest against Jewish immigration and influence those who wished to immigrate to Israel to withdraw their applications. Those who reconsidered were asked to sign letters that were subsequently published in the Romanian press, in which they described "how they had been deceived" and "the dire situation that awaited them in Israel."

Only Goods, Not Money
During the 1950s, Romanian authorities denied departure approvals to Jews possessing higher education or in-demand qualifications. In those years, the stream of immigrants coming out of Romania was not overly regular or continuous, and immigration often stopped and resumed, for various reasons.
In excerpt from a secret document sent by the director of the Eastern-European desk at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the office of Minister Golda Meir on December 25, 1958, so that she may present the report to the government, sheds some light on the way things were being run in those years: "On December 17, the Israeli Consul in Bucharest received notice to the effect that henceforth, immigration applicants should no longer report to the Consulate to receive their visas. Instead, the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs would sent their passports en masse and ask the Consulate to stamp the passports with the visas.

Additionally, the Romanian government will assume responsibility for arranging the medical examinations as well as for obtaining the laissez-passer documents and for organizing transport. The official explanation was that the new arrangements were intended to make life easier for the immigrants and save them a lot of running around between the consulates, as well as to eliminate the risk that owing to the need to obtain various visas, etc., the validity of the passport might expire in the meantime.

The Israeli Consul immediately protested the new 'arrangement', claiming that a state wishing to absorb new immigrants must not be denied the option of seeing the potential immigrants, examining, directing and guiding them. The head of the Consular Department at the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that the decision had been made by a higher echelon, and that she has no authority to challenge it."

The same document went on to say that the Romanian authorities began marking all of the immigrants' passports with only one departure station – the train station out of which trains departed for Hungary, so as to revoke the option of transporting the immigrants through Yugoslavia or any option of transporting them by air. Israel's suggestion to organize a direct transport service, by boat, from Constana (a Romanian seaport on the coast of the Black Sea) was flatly rejected.

When Nikita Khrushchev visited Romania in the late 1950s, Gheorghe Gheorghiu- Dej, the leader of the Romanian Communist Party and ruler of Romania until 1965, told him about Israel's proposal - Jews for goods. Khrushchev approved the proposal, but presented one firm condition, that the exchange should be made "Only for goods - not money." As stated previously, it was not long before Romania accepted a lot of money for the release of the Jews in its territory.

In those years, Romania was under an embargo imposed by the West and needed equipment for producing oil from the oil fields in Floreti, the only source of oil in Central Europe, located about 50 kilometers north of Bucharest. The agreement was that Israel would help Romania obtain the necessary equipment, provide it with new technologies and open the Israeli market to various Romanian goods. Historian and researcher Shlomo Leibowitz, another one of the founders of "Nativ" who also served as the head of the Eastern-European desk at the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs for many years, recounts that direct negotiations only began in May 1965. Until then, negotiations had been indirect and covert. "No Jews had ever left Romania without payment. Romania released Jews only when it conformed to its interests in terms of status, resources, etc. When there were no valid interests it did not matter how much money was paid. There were ups and downs, it ranged between about 40,000 people annually and only 54 people that were allowed to leave. It was like that all the time. It was never even.

"Shaike had to iron out the difficulties every month to six weeks, by re-discussing the terms. There were never any written agreements. In the end, there was some kind of paper that no one could understand – it lacked any substance.

"When Ben-Gurion spoke in the early 1950s, they stopped immigration by an official communiqué, but there was another mishap in 1958, except this time it involved no official statements. One of the reasons was that all the ambassadors of the Arab countries reported together to the government offices and threatened to leave Romania." According to Leibowitz, following that incident, the Jews received, over a certain period, visas to various countries in Europe. "They were flown all over Europe, and from there they travelled to Israel." In the early 1960, Romania signaled that it was open for negotiations. Pursuant to the negotiations conducted by Shaike Dan and Financier Motke Yanai with the Romanian authorities, Romania and Israel reached an agreement regarding the price to be paid for the Jews of that country.

"The Romanians set the price, and we said that Jews have no price and that we would pay for everything. The money came from the JDC, like the financing for Dimona. Until 1967, the Mossad and 'Nativ' were financed by funds provided by the JDC, not by Israeli national funds," says Yasha Kedmi.

**
The fulle article was published in the 11th issue of IsraelDefense Magazine

http://www.israeldefense.com/?CategoryID=483&ArticleID=1966

Nativ was an Israeli secret agency with the only goal to enable Jews to leave the Eastern block during the Cold War.

[BogT]

Nice read. It's interesting to hear about this from the other side.

A similar situation existed for the German population (10.000 marks per person, if I recall correctly). The money was seen as a way to balance the economic loss generated by allowing a citizen, of a different ethnicity, to leave the country (borders were closed). Although it represented a good (and probably unique) opportunity for those people to leave, this policy strongly changed the ethnic makeup of the country.

I am curious if after Israel payed for their departure if they were allowed to leave Israel (for US for example), if they so choosed.

[Camera]

Nice read. It's interesting to hear about this from the other side.

A similar situation existed for the German population (10.000 marks per person, if I recall correctly). The money was seen as a way to balance the economic loss generated by allowing a citizen, of a different ethnicity, to leave the country (borders were closed). Although it represented a good (and probably unique) opportunity for those people to leave, this policy strongly changed the ethnic makeup of the country.

I am curious if after Israel payed for their departure if they were allowed to leave Israel (for US for example), if they so choosed.

My family was authorized to leave a Communist state in the 1960s, following repeated requests to immigrate to Israel. We had to give up on our citizenship and when we left the country, we were given no passport by the Communist regime but a Laissez-passer that allowed us to travel to Israel as a final destination, following an itinerary that was set in advance.
I'm not sure all the Communist countries behaved the same way in the 1960s, but I think it was the case. Once in Israel, the immigrants could apply for a visa to another Western states in their consulates in Israel.

[droopy]

y the West and needed equipment for producing oil from the oil fields in Floreti, the only source of oil in Central Europe, located about 50 kilometers north of Bucharest.

They mean Ploiesti http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ploie%C8%99ti

Nice read.

+1

[BogT]

My family was authorized to leave a Communist state in the 1960s, following repeated requests to immigrate to Israel. We had to give up on our citizenship and when we left the country, we were given no passport by the Communist regime but a Laissez-passer that allowed us to travel to Israel as a final destination, following an itinerary that was set in advance.
I'm not sure all the Communist countries behaved the same way in the 1960s, but I think it was the case. Once in Israel, the immigrants could apply for a visa to another Western states in their consulates in Israel.

The general procedure is probably the same, but since Israel had to pay in the case of Romania (and they had an interest in attracting Jewish immigrants in the 50s), I wonder if they got a choice once in Israel (at least for a few years? - like scholarships where an employer pays for the education but asks for a few years of minimal employment). Anyway, just wondering in case you knew more.

They mean Ploiesti http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ploie%C8%99ti

+1

It could be that they mentioned Floresti, a commune close to Ploiesti. But yea, it's more common to refer to them as Ploiesti oil fields, rather than individual names.

[Camera]

The general procedure is probably the same, but since Israel had to pay in the case of Romania (and they had an interest in attracting Jewish immigrants in the 50s), I wonder if they got a choice once in Israel (at least for a few years? - like scholarships where an employer pays for the education but asks for a few years of minimal employment). Anyway, just wondering in case you knew more.

I can only tell you from our experience. We did not know that Israel paid for us to get an exist visa, which was probably the case, because it was a secret that was shared with the Communist state.
Once in Israel, we had no obligation except to pay back a loan that my parents contracted from the state of Israel in order to settle in the country as new immigrants.
In fact, unlike immigrants from the West, those who immigrated from the Communist states at these years left them almost with nothing, because the Communist governments forbad the immigrants to take out money from the country. So they were not independent financially until they started to work and to earn money in Israel.

[cmc]

Indeed, a good read, thank you..

[BogT]

I can only tell you from our experience. We did not know that Israel paid for us to get an exist visa, which was probably the case, because it was a secret that was shared with the Communist state.

Thanks! Quite relevant.
I did not think that paying was a secret even for the people that left. I guess the states involved did not want these type of practices done in the open.

In fact, unlike immigrants from the West, those who immigrated from the Communist states at these years left them almost with nothing, because the Communist governments forbad the immigrants to take out money from the country. So they were not independent financially until they started to work and to earn money in Israel.

Which means that in principle you could try to go to US, but in practice the conditions offered by Israel were better (state loans, etc.). Starting your life from zero can not be an easy thing... I have a lot of respect for people who chose to do so, for a potential better life for themselves and their (present or future) children.