Jewish Agency for Israel

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The Jewish Agency for Israel also known as The Jewish Agency (הסוכנות היהודית לארץ ישראל or sochnut in Hebrew), refers to two bodies that operated in Israel in different eras and served different functions.

1 The Jewish Agency for Palestine
2 The Jewish Agency for Israel (Contemporary)
3 Jewish People Policy Planning Institute
4 External links

[edit] The Jewish Agency for Palestine

The Jewish Agency for Palestine was a Zionist organization, originally established in 1923 to represent the Jewish community during period of the British Mandate of Palestine, which lasted between 1921 and 1948. It received official recognition in 1929. During the Mandatory Period, the Jewish Agency for Palestine was a quasi-governmental organization that served the administrative needs of the Jewish community. Its leadership was elected by all Jews by proportional representation.

The Jewish Agency was charged with facilitating Jewish immigration into Palestine, land purchase from Arab owners, and planning the general policies of the Zionist leadership. It ran schools and hospitals, and following the Arab attacks of 1929, a growing illegal militia, the Haganah. The British authorities offered to create a similar Arab Agency, but this offer was rejected by Arab leaders.

The Jewish Agency was raided by British Troops in 1946 under Operation Agatha in retaliation for a number of attacks against British forces, however the Haganah, did not attack British forces directly. These were largely carried out by Etzel, better known as the Irgun. The Jerusalem headquarters of the Jewish Agency was bombed by agents of the Grand Mufti Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini in early 1948, with great loss of life. During the subsequent siege, the Agency moved its headquarters to Tel Aviv.

On May 14, 1948, the Jewish Agency for Palestine, under its leader David Ben Gurion, transformed itself into the Provisional Government of Israel.

[edit] The Jewish Agency for Israel (Contemporary)

Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the government created a new Jewish Agency for Israel to facilitate economic development and the absorption of immigrants. It still exists.

Following the Six Day War in 1967, a new division was established within the agency to carry out settlement activities in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights.

The Agency, or Sokhnut, is often criticized in Israel as a hapless, immobile bureaucracy stuffed with incompetents. It is the source of a substantial body of humor created by such writers as Ephraim Kishon.