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The Histadrut, Israel's General Federation of Labour, was founded in 1920. It is the largest and oldest labor organization in Israel.

In its formative years, the Histadrut was the driving force of the establishment of the State of Israel. The Histadrut founded and established economic, financial, cultural, sports, and industrial institutions that would enable the new state to emerge. Bank Hapoalim literally means the workers bank, the office of public works and building, the Solel Boneh construction company, the Kupat Holim Clalit, the largest health care provider in Israel, and many other institutions all arose from the early years of the Histadrut.
The Histadrut promotes its activities throughout the country through 28 sectorial trade unions and professional unions, and 29 Histadrut district offices.

Today, the Histadrut handles the professional and economic affairs of approximately 800,000 workers in Israel: employee unionization, representation of workers, negotiating and signing collective agreements to improve conditions and ensuring employment security and safety in the workplace, promoting pension rights and concern for the future of workers, women rights, pensioners and more.

Histadrut President Arnon Bar-David took office following a March 2019 board election.

The Synod is an ecclesiastical governing body created by Tsar Peter I in 1721 to head the Russian Orthodox Church, replacing the patriarchate of Moscow. Peter created the Synod, made up of representatives of the hierarchy obedient to his will, to subject the church to the state, and appointed a secular official, the chief procurator, to supervise its activities. The Synod persecuted all dissenters and censored publications, and Peter disposed of church property and revenues for state purposes at his own discretion. In 1917 a church council reestablished the patriarchate, but the new Soviet government soon nationalized all church-held lands.

Horatio Herbert Kitchener, known as Lord Kitchener, born in Ballylongford (County Kerry, Ireland) on June 24, 1850.

Son of an officer, the family moved to Switzerland after the death of his mother in 1864. He then studied at a French college in Geneva. Then he entered the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich in 1868. He enlisted in 1870 as a volunteer in the army of Napoleon III during the Franco-Prussian War.
He became an officer of the Royal Engineers on January 4, 1871, and spent several periods in Palestine, Cyprus and Egypt, where he learned Arabic. In 1874, he was asked to map Palestine with the help of officer Conder. He returned to England in 1875, and his cartographic surveys were published.

He was appointed Sirdar, i.e. Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian army in 1892 and was appointed Governor of Sudan in 1896. On his return from the Second Boer War in 1902 he was made viscount by Queen Victoria. He commanded the Indian Army, which he reorganized (1902-1909); created the Australian Army; and ended up as Consul-General of Egypt (1911-1914). He was appointed Minister of War in 1914.

He died during a mission that was to take him to Russia on June 5, 1916.

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Rumeli Inspectorship, formed in 1902, was charged with inspecting the provinces of Manastır, Salonika, Kosovo, Janina, Adrianople and Scutari as well as the sanjaks, towns, districts and villages of these provinces.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was created in 1863 at the instigation of Henry Dunant. The original goal was to coordinate national societies dedicated to the help of military medical services and to make the governments adopt and respect humanitarian rules during times of war. As a consequence, the first Geneva Convention was signed on 22 August 1864, compelling the armies to care for the wounded soldiers.
As the intervention of a neutral intermediary seemed needed, the ICRC's role of coordination of the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies was extended to field operations.
Since the end of Wolrd War II, the ICRC acts for the civilians impacted by conflicts, for example in Israel and in Palestine. This commitment led to the establishment of the fourth Geneva Convention, in 1949, with dispositions regarding the protection of civilians.

Jacques Tournay was born in Paris, in the 16th arrondissement, on March 28, 1912. He attended the Brothers' School of the Christian Schools of the Rue de Grenelle, then the Stanislas College and the Albert de Mun College in Nogent-sur-Marne. In 1926, after a serious pleurisy, he was forced to take refuge in the mountains: it was there that he met Dominicans, including Fr. Festugière.

He entered the novitiate in Amiens in 1930, where he received the name Raymond. It is at the Saulchoir de Cain, in Belgium, that he completed the philosophy and theology curriculum. He was ordained a priest on July 14, 1936. However, when he became Fr. Congar's secretary, he was approached by Fr. Chenu, who was under pressure from Fr. Lagrange to find a successor to the Orientalist Edouard Dhorme, to go and study at the École Biblique.

Tournay therefore began studying assyriology in 1938 in Leuven, learning Assyrian-Babylonian and Akkadian with Fr. Vincent Scheil, the first translator of the Hammurabi Code.

Tournay arrived in Palestine in September 1938, shortly after the death of Fr. Lagrange, in the middle of an intifada.
Reformed for health reasons, he was not mobilized in 1939 but took advantage of wartime to go to Rome for his biblical license. Just before Mussolini's entry into the war alongside the Germans, he was able to take refuge in Paris where he helped Fr. Vincent to continue as best he could the publication of the Bible Review under the name of Vivre et Penser.

He was then invited to teach Hebrew and exegesis at the Saulchoir d'Etiolles until the end of the war. In 1942, Fr. Chenu entrusted him with a translation of the Psalms made by Fr. Synave. This was the starting point of his interest in Hebrew poetry. He began his work with the help of a Jewish poet, Joseph Leibowitz, who was arrested shortly afterwards. From that moment on, Tournay sought to restore the psalms to their rhythm and accents.

Throughout the war, Tournay followed the courses of René Labat and Jean Nougayrol at the EPHE. He began studying the legends of Gilgamesh, which led to the publication of his Epic of Gilgamesh in 1994. He also became professor of Assyro-Babylonian at the Institut catholique de Paris.

After seeing some arrests of Jewish friends up close, he decided to join the Resistance and became a liaison officer for a group that broadcast clandestine programs from abroad. He also helps Jewish friends to hide from being caught many times.

In October 1945, Fr. Vincent and Fr. Tournay were finally able to return to Palestine. Tournay continues his research in Assyriology and travels to Mesopotamia, Syria and Turkey.

Since the creation of the State of Israel, Tournay has been committed to efforts towards peace. He was helped by his friend Léopold Sédar Senghor, a great lover of poetry like him. Subsequently, Tournay became involved in the defence of three villages near Latroun that had been destroyed by the Israeli army during the Six-Day War.
In 1964, Tournay became a tutor to Prince Hassan of Jordan, brother of King Hussein. He regularly stays in Amman and teaches him French, Hebrew and even Aramaic for several years. In 1967, after the loss of Jordanian sovereignty over Palestine, Tournay became the informal contact of Jordanian diplomacy for France and the Vatican. In 1997, he helped Prince Hassan write the French version of his book Christianity in the Arab World (1995), written to promote Christian-Muslim relations. The result of this work was the publication of the book Le Christianisme et l'Islam sont nés en Orient (Brepols, Paris, 1997), which opens with a preface by Fr. Tournay.

During his many years in Jerusalem, Fr. Tournay was involved in charitable works, especially through Caritas Jerusalem, of which he was the delegate. He also worked to help the poorest in a very concrete way, by redistributing the surpluses from various kitchens. He was also responsible for the creation of children's clinics in Bethlehem.

Fr. Tournay was a teacher at the École Biblique for 46 years (1946-1992). In addition to the Akkadian and Sumerian classes, which he interrupted when Marcel Sigrist arrived in 1975, he focused on wisdom literature and, above all, on the Psalms. He was in charge of translating the Psalms for the first Jerusalem Bible, and was assisted in this by Raymond Schwab, a poet of Jewish origin. The translation published in 1950, the result of a very careful study of the richness of Hebrew poetry, is recognized as one of the best ever done. He was then asked to provide a version adapted for the sung liturgy, which he did in 1954 with the help of the PP. Gélineau and Chifflot. However, he never abandoned the Prophets, on which he published until 1997. His latest work, Seeing and Hearing God with the Psalms, or the prophetic liturgy of the Second Temple in Jerusalem (Paris, Gabalda, 1988), synthesizes his research on the Psalms and those on the Prophets.

Tournay was naturally indicated to publish the great commentary on the Song of Songs on which André Robert had worked until his death. This one appeared in 1963, Fr. Tournay having added a long comparison with the extra-biblical parallels received from the different ancient worlds. After various evolutions, his interpretation of the Song was summarized in a new book, When God Speaks to Men the Language of Love. Studies on the Song of Songs (Paris, Gabalda, 1982).
Fr. Tournay was also very interested in the translation of the Pater's 6th request. He lectured and published articles on the subject, and tried to persuade various bishops to change the translation so that one could no longer have the impression that it was God who was the cause of temptation. He finally received the approval of the French Bishops' Conference in 1998.

In 1968, Tournay became the director of the Bible Review, and remained so for 25 years. In addition, he was Director of the School for three terms from 1972 to 1981.

In 1972, he was promoted to Master of Theology by the Master of the Order. That same year, he received the National Merit Medal, before being decorated with the Legion of Honour nine years later. In 1994, the University of Fribourg awarded him an honorary doctorate for 50 years of scientific activity and charitable efforts.

He died at the Bible School on November 25, 1999. The funeral mass was presided over by Bishop Michel Sabbah, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.