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institution detailing the admission requirements.
    This
is my father’s first letter to the Technion:
    Chortkow, 8 Aug 1932
    To: The Office of the Registrar, the Technion, Haifa
     
    a) I am writing to you with a request that you send me all
information relating to admission to the Technion. I myself graduated from the
construction school Baugenwerbe Schule Wien in Vienna. I studied for three
years (six semesters) and have practiced for three years. Therefore I would
like to know which year I can be accepted into.
    b) I would also like to ask you to give me information on how I
can immigrate to the country. If you can send me a demand, if you have one. And
what guarantee is required.
    I kindly request that you reply as soon as possible, so that I
can forthwith follow my desire to study in a Hebrew Technion.
    With best wishes and shalom,
    S. Zvi Finkelman
    My address:
    Salmon Hersz Finkelman
    Czortkow
    279 Szpitalna .nl
    Polania
     
    I
could tell immediately that my father went through the motions of applying to
the Technion not because he truly wanted to study there, but with the intent of
emigrating to Palestine, using studies at the Technion as a means to that end.
The fact that my father refers to his studies of architecture in Vienna as
though it was merely secondary school seemed a way to make double-sure that
he’d be accepted. Anyone who looked carefully at the diplomas my father
attached could easily see that he’d attended an ordinary high school in
Chortkow – referred to at the time as a gymnasium – then continued to study
architecture in Vienna. Though my father sent the original diplomas from the
Vienna institution of higher education, it seems that no one looked into them too
closely, accepting my father’s statements at face value. According to my
father’s letter to the Technion, he studied six years in high-school plus
another three years at a high-school for architecture in Vienna – a total of
nine years, which is highly unlikely.
    My
father was accepted into the first year. He did not dispute this decision, only
urged the Technion to send him a letter of admission. The Technion sent a copy
of the admission letter to the British Mandate authorities, which in turn
granted my father the sought-after entrance permit to Palestine. The letters
were arranged chronologically in the folder: a letter from my father followed
by the Technion’s reply, and so on, as if time stood still. It was easy to see
that a letter between Haifa and Chortkow took about two weeks. I must say that
the Technion had been amazingly efficient in its replies, generally answering
on the following day. My father, who wished to make aliya (immigrate to Israel)
as soon as possible, continued urging the Technion, saying hewas very eager to begin his studies in
early 1933.
    As
strange as it may sound, I was somewhat disappointed. Though I knew by now I
would not find Father’s first Haifa address in this folder, I continued to pore
over the folder with Ada, reading one letter after another and joking about my
father’s assertive way of pressing the Technion to speed up his acceptance.
Later, when I continued to explore where Father got the idea of trying for a
student visa, it turned out that Zionist activist Ze’ev Jabotinsky visited
Chortkow in 1930 – the same year Father returned from Vienna and was appointed
leader of Betar in his hometown, where the movement had some 150 members. In
his talks, Jabotinsky used to enumerate the different ways of immigrating to
Palestine, including student visas. Only in late February 1932 did Jabotinsky
publish his article On Adventure, in which he called for illegal aliya to Eretz
Israel. I have no doubt that my father was influenced by these ideas. Ada and I
continued perusing page after page, admiring the correspondence. Once my father
sent his transcripts, the Technion’s reply arrived on 28 Sept 1932, saying that
my father was accepted into the program, but had to immediately send