TAHA, SAMI (1916-1947)

Born in the Arrabeh area near Jenin in 1916; was raised in Haifa; later was hired by Rashid Al-Haj Ibrahim, the most influential man in Haifa at the time, to work in the Arab Chamber of Commerce; became a trade unionist and important leader of the Palestinian labor movement, which he organized similar to the Jewish Histadrut; was a prominent leader in the Palestinian Arab Worker’s Society (PAWS) (a moderate trade union movement established in March 1925); organized jointly with Jewish counterparts a strike of mainly postal and telephone workers in April 1946, but was told by the Arab League headquarters in Cairo not to go too far in cooperating with the Jews; was assassinated in Haifa on 11 Sept. 1947 by what was widely believed were the Mufti’s forces who opposed his advocating unity of Arab and Jewish workers as well as the creation of a nonsectarian Palestinian state representing the interests of both Jews and Arabs.

طه، سامي (1916 - 1946) ولد في عرابة (‎قرب جنين)‎ عام 1916؛ درس وترعرع في حيفا؛ عمل في الغرفة التجارية العربية في حيفا تحت رئاسة رشيد الحاج إبراهيم؛ نشط في قضايا التجار والعمال الفلسطينيين؛ عمل نحو نقابة عمالية مشابهة لحركة الهستدروت اليهودية؛ كان عضواً بارزاً في جمعية العمال العرب الفلسطينيين (التي تأسست في حيفا في آذار/مارس عام 1925)؛ نظّم مع بعض نشطاء الحركة العمالية اليهود إضراباً لعمال البريد والبرق/ الهاتف في نيسان عام 1946؛ تم اغتياله في حيفا في 11 أيلول/سبتمبر 1947 من قبل أشخاص مجهولين.