"Ein Braira"

The Hebrew poet Bialik greeted the news of the first burglary in the all-Jewish city of Tel Aviv years ago by thanking God for letting "us live to see this day and hour." Bialik was reflecting the universal Jewish desire to live like other people, to have their own nation, even if it meant having their own criminals.

Last week, as Israel proudly celebrated the fourth anniversary of its independence, the wish had been fulfilled. The tiny, overcrowded land of 1,500,000 people had all the appurtenances of nationhood. It had as many murders last year as metropolitan London, which has six times the population. It had, reputedly, the toughest army in the Middle East. Smartly outfitted Israeli WACs (Chens) and soldiers paraded past the reviewing stand in Tel Aviv and snapped salutes to Israel's triumvirate: stocky Acting President Joseph Sprinzak, shockheaded Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, and 35-year-old Yigal Yadin, army chief of staff. In their wake rattled 42 U.S.-built Sherman tanks and 60 British-built half-tracks, while overhead flew three Flying Fortresses and squadrons of Spitfires, Mosquitos and Da-iotas. (Only four years ago, Jerusalem's one mortar had been rushed from danger point to danger point, to deceive Jordan's Arab Legion.)

Balancing the Books. The Jewish state, the size of Massachusetts, had its own customs employees, garbage collectors and bureaucrats. It had too--and deplored--its own five-percenters and black-marketeers. The world was no longer surprised that Jewish judges sentenced Jewish criminals.

Israel was no longer a cause but a country. With normalcy came sobriety. As a cause, Israel had worked in an atmosphere of high enthusiasm and damn-the-expense. As an established state, Israel had to balance its books.

In its first years, Israel had spent far beyond its means. The state had pursued a policy of "ingathering" foreign Jews--the world's sick, homeless and unwanted --that was in principle irreproachable but in practice ruinous. Its population doubled in four years. In that four years, Israel had to import $800 million worth of goods while its exports paid for only one-eighth that amount.

American bounty had made up most of the deficit. Since 1948 the United Jewish Appeal has sent in $280 million; another $125 million came from Israeli bonds sold in the U.S. The U.S. Government contributed another $200 million in such forms as Export-Import Bank Loans, Point Four aid and Mutual Security Assistance. But now Congress, which had voted as much aid to tiny Israel in 1952 as to all the other Mid-East states combined, seemed disinclined to continue the pace. This week, as the U.S. Government, responding to an emergency plea from Tel Aviv, sped $11 million in economic aid to Israel, the last of the refugee relief funds voted Israel were exhausted.

The New Austerity. Israelis now live in an austerity that is more severe than Britain's. In the first three months of 1952 they got exactly 10.5 ounces of meat. Fortunately, a considerable part of the huge expenditures of the past four years has gone into capital improvements. The area under irrigation has doubled, the soil planted to vegetables tripled, the number of tractors on farms increased sixfold, a merchant marine of 34 ships of 120,000 tons created from nothing. Factories like Philco refrigerator and Kaiser-Frazer have sprung up.

The best omen was a new, realistic tone in the Israeli government. In the past six months indiscriminate ingathering has been curbed (TIME, Dec. 3), the currency devalued to make foreign investment attractive, the doctrinaire dogma of full employment abandoned, and all but the most necessary public works postponed. An old slogan is again heard: "Em Braira," meaning no alternative.

There was widespread criticism of allocating $100,000 to celebrate Independence Day last week: why circuses, when bread was needed? But at the end of a carnival day, a sorely burdened people had temporarily forgotten how far they must still go, in reminding themselves how far they had come.

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