In 1966, 60 years ago, on a Thursday, I received a telephone call from the Minister of Agriculture, Chaim Gvati, asking me to come to a meeting in his office at 4:00 p.m. at the Government Complex (Sarona) in Tel Aviv. At the time, I was Director of the Department of Mechanization and Technology at the Ministry of Agriculture.

At the appointed time, I entered the minister’s office. Finance Minister Pinhas Sapir was sitting beside him. After shaking hands, I sat down next to him. Gvati introduced me to Sapir, saying: “Rafi Ramon, Director of the Department of Mechanization and Technology at the Ministry of Agriculture. He is also the authorized authority responsible for approving imports of tractors and agricultural machinery. I trust his judgment and decisions. Tell him everything you told me.”

Finance Minister Sapir turned to me and said: “Rafi, everything you hear from me remains in this room.” I naturally agreed. He took two photographs from his briefcase and handed them to me. I looked at them without commenting. He then said: “I have purchased 3,000 tractors like these, manufactured in Romania, for you to deal with. Don’t ask why; I will explain.”

I listened with interest.

Sapir continued: “We, the Government of Israel and the state institutions, are working to facilitate the immigration of all Romanian Jews to Israel. By every possible means, this is an urgent national obligation. In our discussions with President Ceausescu, the President explained that Romania was in economic need of producing and exporting goods. For this purpose, he was prepared to open the gates and allow Jews to leave Romania for Israel, and more generally to permit emigration.

“The first proposal he put forward was the purchase of 3,000 UTB 650 tractors manufactured in the city of Brasov. I approved the purchase of the tractors. What do you think?” he asked me.

Gvati said to me, “I see that you are not frightened.”

I was not frightened because Sapir had presented it as a fact: these were our tractors. However, I knew this tractor. I had seen it at an exhibition in Spain. It was a copy of an older International tractor manufactured in the United States, and I thought it would be extremely difficult to market such a large quantity within a short period.

However, a month earlier I had learned that Fiat had established a production operation at the UTB factory in Brasov, where Fiat 445 tractors were being manufactured. I told them that if we could import this tractor instead of the 650, we would be able to market it, particularly to moshavim, and also to kibbutzim.

And that is indeed what happened. I succeeded in changing the composition of the original import.

To summarize what we did: Feldman, the Israeli importer of Fiat tractors, marketed the Romanian-made Fiat 445. Many of the UTB 650 tractors were exported from Israel to African countries. They were marketed by Kur Trade, which also sold them in Israel, as well as by Mashbir Hamerkazi, through its Agricultural Machinery Department.

The tractors are on display today at the Museum of the Tractor and Agricultural Machinery in Moshav Ein Vered.

As for the history of settlement: in 1882, a group of pioneers from Romania settled on the abandoned land of Gei Oni. Under the leadership of David Shuv, they established the colony of Rosh Pinna.

August 12, 2026 — Rafi Ramon. Published on Facebook